Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-02-11
HIGH COST Of LIVING
By Sheldon s. Cline.
No. IS.
Idle Farm Land in America.

It costs half a billion dollars q year
to feed the people of Greater New
York. Milk alone costs more than
sixty millions. Meat. aside from poui-
try. costs a hundred millions; and
twenty-five millions goes for poultry
Eggs cost thirty millions year. fruit
and vegetables five millions and cheese
eight millions.
with such a stupendous market
clamoring always for foodstuffs, you
would think every available acre OF
agricultural land In New York ano
nearby states would be utilized to the
limit of capabilities. Yet We find In
New york state five million acres OF
tillable land lying absolutely idle. and
the department of agriculture at AL
bany estimates that the seven million
other acres contained in farms have
not been half utilized. In other words
New York state produces less than
one third the foodstufYs 1t should pro-
duce.
with all this farm land lying idle
New York city gets milk from states
as far west as Ohio; butter from Iowa,
Wisconsin and the Dakotas, while eggs
come from as far west as Nebraska
and as far south as the Gulf of Mexico
OF seven principal food articles, the
cheese-in quantities sufficient to meet
home demand.
:.
=
What Is true OF New York is true of
other eastern states in the matter OF
idle farm lands. George ". Koiner,
commissioner of agriculture Of Vfr-
ginia, estimates there are between
seven and eight million idle acres in
that state which should be under Gull
tivation. The agricultural lands OF
Virginia are mainly in the east. close
to the great centers of population. with
transportation. There is an annual
rainfall of forty to sixty inches, the
soil Is we'll adapted to the production
of grain and forage crops and. because
of the mildness of the climate. stock
can be grazed the greater part OF the
year. Yet New York city sends all the
way to the Dakotas for its butter.
Massachusetts, has about million
acres of idle land suitable for agricul-
tural purposes, and Connecticut. still
nearer the New York market, has al
most another million idle acres. In
fact. every state on the Atlantic sea-
board has vast areas of land capab BILE
of growing crops which now is lying
abandoned farms" you read about.
Some of them were abandoned by their
owners half century ago. when the
imaginations Of eastern farmers were
HTcu ny luS StOIicS VI EiCA anu CuSdp
lands on the western prairies. Others
are being abandoned from year to year
because the sons have gone to town
and the fathers have grown too old to
work.
That all these millions of acres should
lie idle. with the richest markets OF
the world right at hand. is pretty con-
elusive evidence that the difficulty is
not in the scarcity of farm lands. The
day will come when these lands will
be farmed. and farmed probably. but
the labor will have to be provided
first.
Even with these lands under cultiya-
tion. New York and other cities would
not derive the benefits to be expected
unless some more sensible system OF
distribution was devised. The idea OF
increasing production without taking
into consideration better market condi-
lions is an erroneous one writes
eonard II. Healey, secretary of the
Connecticut board of agriculture. 1.-THE
whole trouble, at least in New Eng
land. is that the consumer is paying
altogether too much and the producer
is getting too little for what our pres
ent acreage produces. The consumer
will have no trouble getting all he
needs. and the high cost of living will
be eliminated, if you can get what the
farmer raises to the consumer at a fair
profit"
Next-Financing the Farmer