SOME PROFITABLE AND UNPROFITABLE FARMS. 15 



The better farms kept one-half more cows and the same number of 

 horses. 



The better farms disclosed a markedly greater production per cow 

 in money value, which would warrant a greater difference in the 

 value of cows on the basis of production. 



The better farms were operated by men 8 years younger, on an 

 average, than those on the poorer farms and with much less help 

 from other members of the family in farm work. 



The more successful group of farmers is making more money, 

 using only a little more capital and a few more acres and following 

 much the same type of farming. While these factors — acreage and 

 capital — have a little influence on the labor income in the regions 

 studied, they do not seem to have so much effect as they have in 

 some other regions studied in the same way. In such regions as 

 these in New Hampshire, geographic conditions usually limit the 

 acreage of tillage land a farmer can have in contiguous area, while 

 the markets within his reach allow him to make considerable modi- 

 fication in his system of farming. Just the opposite limitations pre- 

 vail in such a region as central Iowa, where it is much easier to get 

 more adjoining land than it is to modify the system of farming. 



The success of these better farmers in New Hampshire is due to 

 more and better crops, more productive herds, and thus to more 

 efficient use of their land and their time. The poorer farmers have 

 more idle capital in the form of real estate which is not producing 

 annual returns. Though part of this idle capital is in the form of 

 buildings, much more is in the form of woodland, from which the 

 return may come only at intervals of perhaps 20 or more years. 

 The records of many of these farms do not fall on a year when these 

 returns from wood were obtained. If these occasional receipts were 

 distributed over the intervening years, there would be a tendency 

 for the labor incomes of these poorer farms to be somewliat higher. 

 The farm wood lot is a considerable source of income in these 

 regions. 



The comparisons given in this circular all indicate that the farmer 

 in these sections of New Hampshire who makes, a good income does 

 so primarily by doing both more business and a better quality of 

 business, although he had no better opportunities than were enjoyed 

 by other men. 



[Cir. 128] 



