3. To test the opportunities for reducing costs of dairy production and 

 for increasing farm income on a typical small, medium-sized, and large dairy 

 farm by reorganization of owner-operated equipment, by joint ownership 

 patterns, and by more extensive use of custom-operated equipment. 



Source of Data 



Three farming communities — one each in New Hampshire, Connecti- 

 cut, and Massachusetts — were selected as representative of New England 

 dairying. Types of farm organizations, size of farm units, and intensity of 

 operations were the criteria used in selecting the areas. Specialized dairy 

 farms predominate in the Lebanon area of Connecticut, less intensive dairy 

 farms in the Ashfield area of Massachusetts, and moderately extensive dairy- 

 ing in the Belmont area of New Hampshire. Records of the farming oper- 

 ations in 1949 were obtained through interviews with all dairy farm operators 

 in each area. In addition, operators of custom farm machinery who did work 

 in these areas were interviewed to obtain information on their operations. 

 These records include the basic data on which the study was developed. 



Custom Services 



Many custom services are available to most New England farmers. Among 

 the reasons for the increase in availability and variety of these services are: 

 (1) the equipment shortage during World War H, including the practice 

 of issuing purchase certificates only to those operators who would agree to 

 make machines available for neighborhood use; (2) technological improve- 

 ments, especially the rubber tire and hydraulic lift, which have adapted ma- 

 chinery to rapid and easy movement over the highways; and (3) the intro- 

 duction of specialized, costly machines, such as the pickup baler, field-forage 

 harvester and bulldozer, which are new to many farmers and which require 

 specialized operating and servicing skills. 



Types of Custom Operators 



Custom work is now done by two major groups of operators. The first 

 group consists of those farmers who want to supplement their income by off- 

 farm work or those who buy a more expensive machine than they feel they 

 can afford for their individual use. The second group is composed of oper- 

 ators who specialize in custom work and do little or no farming. The first 

 group is the most numerous. County agents, machinery dealers, and farmers 

 supplied names of 104 individuals in Connecticut and 46 in New Hampshire 

 who did custom work in 1949, but they indicated that their lists were incom- 

 plete. Generally, these farmer operators perform a number of services al- 

 though they do not supply the highly specialized types of services. The second 

 group is small; only 12 men were listed who could be classified as specialized 

 custom operators and some of them did some farming or were engaged in 

 other business activities such as selling machinery and equipment or operat- 

 ing school-bus routes. But individual operators frequently perform many 

 services or a single service on a large scale. 



Specialized custom operators generally indicated that there had beeji 

 some drop in volume of work since 1946. They attributed this to the wider 

 availability of machinery and the improved financial position of farmers. 

 They indicated that they were planning to adjust to this situation by dropping 



