Summary and Conclusions 



Most New England dairy farms are relatively small in terms of use of farm 

 machines in work on crops. The problems of fitting and adapting modern 

 labor-saving machinery to this type of farm is one of the major farm-man- 

 agement problems in this area. But mechanization on New England dairy 

 farms has proceeded at a rapid rate. With increasing mechanization, estab- 

 lished dairymen and young people just getting started in farming must in- 

 vest heavily in machinery and must carry high annual ownership costs. 



Greater mechanization is contributing to the long-time trend in special- 

 ization on New England dairy farms through the rise of custom services for 

 performing many operations that involve the use of farm machinery. Hiring 

 certain jobs custom-performed often reduces costs of production and frees 

 capital and labor for use in producing more milk. Many types of machines 

 and services are now available for hire by farmers in New England. These 

 custom services are provided by farmers and by specialized custom operators. 

 However, the bulk of the custom work hired by New England farmers is 

 done by farmer neighbors, who do custom work as a sideline to full-time 

 farming. Frequently, they supply only a single type of service such as baling 

 hay, planting corn, or harvesting forage. Others who operate farms, but who 

 are not fully employed on the farm, do several types of seasonal custom work, 

 such as preparing gardens in spring, mowing and raking hay in summer, 

 and sawing wood and removing snow in fall and winter. In 1949 expendi- 

 tures for custom work by all types of farms in New England amounted to 

 5.6 million dollars. Of this total it is estimated that dairy farmers hired about 

 3.5 million dollars worth of custom work done. 



An analysis was made to determine the optimum combinations of equip- 

 ment and the best ownership patterns for typical 1-man, 2-man, and 3-man 

 dairy farms. This analysis shows that if all field jobs were done by self-owned 

 machines, the optimum combination of equipment would require an invest- 

 ment at 1949 prices of about $7,200 for the small farm, $7,900 for the 2- 

 man farm, and $9,300 for the large farm. 



Each of these farms could benefit by hiring certain jobs done rather 

 than using self-OAvned equipment. The small farm, because of the limited 

 Avorkload for many operations, would benefit most from this adjustment. 

 It could profitably hire several tillage, planting, and harvesting jobs that have 

 some latitude as to the time when they must be done. Opportunities to custom 

 hire profitably would be limited on the large farm. 



An additional alternative in patterns of ownership of equipment is to 

 own no field equipment and to custom-hire all cropping operations. This 

 would eliminate the rather substantial investment required in self-owned ma- 

 chinery. But from the viewpoints of cost and income it would be less attrac- 

 tive than the other alternatives on the 2- and 3-man farms. On the small farm 

 complete custom hiring would compare favorably with self-owned equipment 

 if the farm labor freed by custom hiring had an alternative productive use. 



The best ownership patterns for all three farms appeared to be a founda- 

 tion of self-owned equipment with certain jobs hired and certain others 

 done off the farm for neighbors. Such a program would maximize net income 



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