SURVEY OF FOUR TOWNSHIPS IN SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 15 



The general farmers have more invested in real estate than those 

 in any of the other types and less invested in hve stock, as shown by 

 a comparison of Table XIV with the table previously presented. 



Table XIV. — Average distribution of investment of the capital on the better and the poorer 



general farms. 



Some interesting comparisons are also given in Table XV in regard to 

 the relative quantities of grain bought and raised in connection with 

 tlie three different types of farming. 



Table XV. — Comparison between the average quantity of grain bought and the average 

 quantity grown on farms of three different types. 



The value of the grain raised is figured at $30 per ton, or 1^ cents 

 per pound. Western competition in growing cheap grain during 

 the period of 1880-1900 was the means of getting New England 

 farmers out of the habit of growing their own grain. The buying 

 of grain has become so firmly fixed in their systems of farming that 

 although grain has almost doubled in price very little if any more is 

 at present grown on their farms. It was during the period of cheap 

 grain in the eastern markets that such large areas of farm lands were 

 allowed to revert to woodland. At the present time, when concen- 

 trated feed has increased in price, the average farmer tills only about 

 half the land that his father did. He has not the tillable land upon 

 which to raise grain or to raise other crops with which to buy grain. 

 With a yield of one ton of grain to the acre it would require more than 

 4,000 acres in grain to grow the equivalent of what was purchased 

 during the past year on the 266 farms. There is no question that 

 grain can be grown more cheaply on good tillable land in the East 

 than it can be bought at present prices. However, it is impossible 

 for the farmers in southern New Hampshire to raise anywhere near 



[Cir. 75] 



