Most of the owners had little idea as to the rent they would want. This 

 apparently was related to lack of knowledge of farming and of the rental 

 market. Owners were usually unwilling, disinterested, or unable to make im- 

 provement needed for farm use. 



There were a few farmers interested in obtaining complete farm units 

 and several interested in obtaining supplemental land. These farmers could 

 use perhaps half the idle land in the same towns. 



Farmers were generally willing to seed and fertilize if they could have 

 leases long enough to receive the full benefit of these improvements. They 

 were more reluctant about the more permanent types of improvements. 



The interviewer gained the impression that the use of idle farm land 

 might be considerably facilitated by: (1) providing lists of available land 

 and interested farmers, and 1 2 ) qualified third persons assisting owners 

 and farmers to work out suitable rental agreements. The latter seems needed 

 because owners and farmers are often reluctant to approach the other, be- 

 cause owners often know little about agriculture, because rental terms are 

 not well established, and because of the highly varied interests of the owners 

 which the rental terms must consider. 



Chapter IV. Current Renting Practices 



WE HAVE SEEN that there is considerable idle farm land, that much of it 

 cannot easily be gotten into farm use by purchase, and that there 

 seems to be some basis for renting but that there are some obstacles in the 

 way of the most desirable rental agreements. The next step seemed to be to 

 find out what is going on in the way of renting in order to further evaluate 

 and make recommendations regarding renting as a means of using land now 

 idle or partially idle. Toward this end the active farmers of the Towns of 

 Walpole and Derrv were questioned on their practices and attitudes regard- 

 ing the use of land owned by others. Walpole was selected as a Connecticut 

 River Valley town with a vigorous agriculture but with considerable non- 

 farmer ownership by both local people and outsiders. Derry was selected as 

 a nonvalley town with a somewhat less vigorous agriculture and with con- 

 siderable idle land mostly under local ownership. 



Nearly all of the active farmers ( of kinds of farms using much land I 

 were contacted. Approximately two-thirds of these farmers were using other 

 persons' land in some manner and many of them were using more than one 

 piece. The extent and nature of renting and of rental terms were analyzed. 

 Because the kinds of renting and of rental terms were so diverse and the 

 number of cases relatively few, it seemed necessary to carry the analysis 

 into more detailed terms than may be of interest to the general reader. Con- 

 sequently, only the summary and maps are presented here. The details of 

 the analysis are given in the Appendix. 



Summary of Current Renting 



Many farmers are making some use of land owned by others. Although no 

 systematic study was made of the ownership of rented land, it appears to be 

 quite similar to that of the idle land. In fact, there, is some overlapping 

 since land on which standing hay is sold is included in both groups. 



Distances of a few miles do not stop farmers from using desirable land 

 for young stock pasture, hay, or cultivated crops. Most farmers have enough 

 of their machinery on rubber tires to make such moves quite possible. Moves 



39 



