icultural. The forests of the Adirondacks
and Catskills and the woodlots of the rougher hill counties in the
southern and southwestern part of the state come within this vast area
of eight millions of acres. Without doubt with increasing population
there will come some increase in the use of what are now
non-agricultural lands for the practice of agriculture, but with three
hundred years of agricultural history back of us in this state it does
not seem likely that there will be much change in the relation of
non-agricultural to agricultural land during the next half-century.

Out of the twenty-two millions of acres of farm lands in the state but
fifteen millions are actually under cultivation, leaving, therefore,
from six to eight millions of acres within the farms of the state but
lying idle. That is, we have a Massachusetts enclosed within our farms
which is non-productive as far as direct returns are concerned. Yet
there is really no waste land in New York, as every square foot of the
state which is covered with any soil at all is capable of producing good
forest trees. It is this great area of idle land enclosed within our
farms which seems to have unusual promise in the development of nut
culture in the state. There is a great deal of land now idle in the form
of steep hillsides or ridges or rocky slopes upon which we may grow with
comparative ease our walnuts, butter-nuts, hickories, hazelnuts, in the
wild form at least.

The fact that the state is in really rather serious condition
financially should be a strong reason for our association to urge upon
the farmers of the state the planting of nut-bearing trees that the
returns from the farms may be increased by annual sales of nuts which
should in the aggregate in the next fifty years be a large sum of money.
It has been estimated that the total debt of the State of New York, that
is, the state, county and municipal debts, are equal to $47 for every
acre of land, good and bad. On top of this condition the legislature
last year laid a direct tax of eighteen millions of dollars upon our
people, and there is every indication that it will be several years
before it becomes unnecessary to lay a direct tax either larger or
smaller than that put upon us last year. There is ever-increasing
competition among the farmers of the state as the standards in animal,
milk and fruit production are ever increasing. In view of the amount of
idle land and of our financial condition