i aces and bottom lands. As one travels eastward from the river, the soils 

 give way to those of fair quality on more rolling lands, and thence to fair 

 quality lands, hilly and moderately stony." Probably what was said of the 

 soils of the valley of the Connecticut itself could also be applied to the main 

 tributary valleys. 



New Hampshire Bulletin 340 shows the larger part of Lancaster as 

 favorable for dairy farming. The town map made in connection with the 

 above studies shows Lancaster as about two-thirds No. 1 dairy opportunity 

 land but with five areas of Nos. 6 and 7 land around the edges and around 

 the village of Lancaster. 



Number and Size of Idle Places. Although a rather large town and one 

 with numerous farms, Lancaster had a total of only 10 idle or nearly idle 

 places. However, of these, a relatively large number (seven) were classified 

 as commercial size. Moreover, some of these seven places were fairly large 

 — the seven averaging over 90 acres of tillable land and 70 acres of non- 

 wooded pasture (for the four places whose pasture was estimated). The 

 high proportion of commercial size places may be related to the relatively 

 vigorous agriculture of the town. In the first place, there are proportionately 

 fewer small farms to become idle, and in the second place the idle status of 

 some of these farms may be only a time of transition between active owner- 

 ships. 



Current Use and Ownership of Idle Places. As compared to the four 

 towns previously discussed, a small proportion of all the idle places (four 

 of the ten) are used principally as residences. 



Commercial Size Places. Probably a larger proportion of the better 

 places are more likely to be used in the near future than was the case in the 



r~~~i — 



.s'c/ 



-- ;'--'M OjAlp o u oq 



^-1 



o o ' o" p 



o 



Q 



b / 7 



fb o Q o' 

 000.0V - j 



LANCASTER 



COMMERCIAL SIZE 



ACTIVE OAiRT FARMS 

 40*49 C0W9 

 50-39 COWS 

 20-29 COWS 

 0- 19 COWS 

 3-9 COWS 

 UNDER 5 COWS 



.Map 5. Idle places, active dairy farms, and dairy opportunity areas in the town of Lancaster. 

 Dairy opportunity areas are numbered from 1, the best, to 7, the poorest. 



23 



