C. Gilmanton — Central Upland Town With Little Agriculture 



Description of the Area. Gilmanton is located in southeastern Belknap 

 County, one town removed from Laconia to the northwest and one from 

 Concord to the southwest. It was the intent of this study to look into the idle 

 farm land problem in towns which had considerable farm land. Gilmanton is 

 among those having the least agriculture of the 20 towns studied. New Hamp- 

 shire Circular 53 shows most of Gilmanton as being a part of the "highland 

 farming" area which it described in parts as ". . . noncommercial type of 

 farming ... A large majority of the farms are of a general and subsistence 

 nature. The lands are predominantly nonagricultural, the crop land soils be- 

 ing thin, stony and hilly; and generally cannot be made productive except 

 at prohibitive costs. Abandoned farms are numerous. In some instances the 

 land on unoccupied places is being used by nearby farmers for pasture and 

 hay land. In other instances, many farms on good roads are bought for 

 summer homes." 



Gilmanton probably is not one of the least agricultural of the towns in- 

 cluded in the highland farming area, that is, it appears to have a somewhat 

 better agricultural potential than the above generalized description would 

 indicate. But, as can be seen in Map 4, its farms tend to be small and rather 

 thinly scattered. New Hampshire Bulletin 340 shows Gilmanton as predomin- 

 antly nonagricultural for dairying but with some relatively small areas 

 marked as favorable and some as marginal for dairy farming. The five 

 spots of No. 4 land are marginal. The one spot each of Nos. 1, 2, and 3 are 

 considered favorable. 



Gilmanton is a hilly town, but not all the slopes are extremely steep. 

 Orchards are among its more important farm enterprises. Its rural char- 

 acter, several small lakes, and some fine views probably make it attractive 

 for rural residences and summer homes. 



Number and Size of Idle Places. Of the 37 idle or nearly idle places 

 in Gilmanton, 6 were classified as having farm land to support a commercial 

 dairy enterprise, 11 as being of doubtful commercial size, and 20 as being 

 less than commercial size. Those places were estimated to contain a total 

 of 1,303 acres of tillable land. The two groups of larger size also included 

 about 575 acres of nonwooded pasture. There was little open pasture on the 

 places of less than commercial size. Probably some of them had never been 

 farms while on others brush had taken over the old pastures. The commer- 

 cial size places averaged about 65 acres of tillable land and about 60 acres 

 of pasture, while the places of doubtful commercial size averaged about 45 



Table 7. Number of Unused and Partially Used Places 

 and Acres in the Town of Gilmanton, 1948 



* Little — amount not obtained. 



fExceeds 575 acres by amount not given at *. 



20 



