last decade or two the owners of these places had come to consider that they 

 could do better at work off the farm. Some of these, people expressed the 

 thought that they could not sell for enough to buy houses in the city and that 

 they might return to farming if their work off the farm failed them. 



Less Than Commercial Size Places. Of the 17 less than commercial size 

 places, 3 apparently had no current use. One was an old farm which had 

 long been an unsettled estate, one was a cut-over timber lot, and the third a 

 field whose absentee owner was not found. None of these had usable houses. 

 Two others of the 17 were summer homes and the remaining 12 were full- 

 time residences. It is difficult to characterize the ownership of the residences. 

 They ranged from moderately large, impressive buildings and grounds owned 

 by business and professional men (about one-third could be so classified I 

 to very moderate and even humble, places owned by nonfarm workers, farm 

 workers, retired nonfarm workers, retired farmers, and women heirs of 

 farmers. Some places had never been farms in the memory of the persons in- 

 terviewed. Others had been small general or dairy farms several decades 

 back, and a few had recently been farms with enterprises requiring little 

 land — such as market gardening or poultry. 



Conclusions. After this review of the present use and ownership, what 

 can we say as to why residential use has outbid agricultural use? People are 

 irying to choose the best of their alternatives as they are able to see them 

 and according to the individual's values. Uncertainty, and sometimes senti- 

 ment, may have caused several of the owners in the two larger size groups 

 to hold on to their farms longer than an informed decision based on the 

 owner's material welfare might dictale. Except for the commercial size group. 

 the places which have been farms have, in general, been affected by two im- 

 portant historical and geographical factors: (1) The land of the old farms 

 is no longer adequate for a commercial farm, but the house is often still 

 usable; (2) The pieces of farm land are sometimes too small and scattered 

 to permit easy and economical consolidation of ownership and use as farms. 



Figure 3. This is one of the most common "idle farm land" situations: an old farm whose 



tillable land is less than enough for a comp'ete modern farm, an old barn no longer usable, 



and its total value dominated by a well-preserved old house. Ownership of these old farms is 



quite varied, but they are apt to be used only as non-farmer residences. 



15 



