certain services which they considered unprofitable. They would either special- 

 ize in specific lines or expand into fields in which no services are now avail- 

 able or in which new machinery has recently been introduced. 



Custom Services Available 



The 60 farmers and 12 specialized custom operators who were inter- 

 viewed were equipped to perform the 43 different services listed in Table 1. 



Table 1. — Types of Custom Services Available in New England in 1949 



Land Preparation 

 Plowing 

 Harrowing 

 Steam sterilization 

 Fertilizer spreading 

 Lime spreading 

 Manure spreading 

 Bog harrowing 



Crop Planting 

 Tobacco planting 

 Potato planting 

 Corn planting 

 Bean planting 

 Grass seeding 



Crop Cultivation and 



Protection 

 Weed spraying 

 Corn dusting 



Potato dusting 

 Potato spraying 

 Orchard spraying 

 Cultivating 



Crop Harvesting 



Mowing hay 

 Raking hay 

 Baling hay 

 Threshing grain 

 Corn binding 

 Field-chopping hay 

 Stationary chopping 

 Potato digging 

 Combining grain 

 Corn picking 

 Long-hay loading 

 Baled-hay loading 



Land Improvement 



Land clearance 

 Wall removal 

 Stone picking 

 Drainage work 

 Brush plowing 

 Pond digging 



Miscellaneous 

 Barn spraying 

 Pumping 

 Buzz sawing 

 Chain sawing 

 Snow removal 

 Trucking 

 Manure loading 



Preparing the land and harvesting the crops were services offered by 

 the greatest number of operators. Field-forage harvesting and weed spraying 

 were undergoing the greatest expansion in 1949. The total quantity of hay 

 baled is steadily increasing. Volume of hay baling per operator appeared to 

 be declining but this probably was due to the increasing number of custom 

 balers available. 



The greatest amount of custom work performed in terms of dollar volume 

 was land clearing (bulldozing), which is a very specialized type of work par- 

 ticularly suited to custom operation. Compared to most other jobs, hourly 

 rates are high. Farmers now are especially interested in land-improvement 

 work, partly because of the recent establishment of Soil Conservation Service 

 districts throughout most of New England. 



Custom Services Hired 



Information obtained in three dairy areas studied indicates the custom 

 services hired by dairy farmers. In Lebanon, Conn., 28 specialized dairy 

 farmers whose milking herds averaged 28 cows paid a total of $9,757 for 

 custom work on 10 operations in 1949 (Table 2). Custom work was done on 

 683 acres, or about 7 percent of the total acreage on which crop- and land- 

 improvement work in the area was done. Job or equipment hours totaled 912 

 and total man-hours of labor were 1,112, or slightly less than 7 percent of all 

 man-hours used for crop- and land-improvement work on these farms. 



