106 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 266 



the working time on the farm is distributed more or less uniformly throufjh- 

 out the year. 



Distinction on the Basis of Occupation 



Another distinction between the operators was made on tlie basis of 

 the nature of their outside employment. The first group, which is the 

 most important numericallj-, includes skilled and unskilled industrial labor- 

 ers, artisans, farm laborers and other manual laborers. In the second 

 group are office workers and bu.siness and professional men. The im- 

 portance of distinction between these two groups lies in the fact that 

 while the first group is engaged in farming largely because of economic 

 considerations, the members of the second often practice a little farming 

 for its other advantages, the economic considerations playing only a sec- 

 ondary part. 



Proportion of Part-Time Farmers Previously Engaged in Regular Farming 



In the areas covered by the investigation, part-time farming developed 

 almost exclusively as a resvdt of the settling on the land of persons from 

 industrial and other employments. Of the total number of operators 

 interviewed in Lowell and Taunton areas, only seven were regular farmers 

 before they began to practice agriculture on a part-time basis. This 

 figure, together with the fact that the majority of operators were employed 

 outside of their own towns, throws considerable light on the difference 

 between part-time farming at present and part-time farming in the last 

 century or earlier as it is described in historical studies of New England 

 agriculture. 



In the j)ast, part-time farming flourished almost exclusively wlien some 

 employment was available within the community, largely in the village 

 mills. It was also based on a self-sufficient agriculture, where many 

 manufacturing processes were performed on the farm." In these early 

 cases fhe operators were primarily farmers or children of farmers. Tlie 

 present part-time farmers in the industrialized areas come largely from the 

 urban elements of population, for improved roads and the development 

 of motor transportation have made it possible for city workers to settle 

 on the land and commute to the place of their work. 



RELATION OF PART-TIME TO REGULAR FARMING- 

 TOWN OF HOLDEN 



Varying conditions of agriculture ami industry between the different 

 sections of Massachusetts, as well as within each section, make it ex- 

 tremely difficult to select a community which gives a typical picture of 

 part-lime farming for the whole State. It is believed, however, tiiat the 

 town of Ilolden, with its agricultural organization and its location with 

 regard to opportunities of industrial emj)loymcnt, is a fairly representa- 

 tive community. Data on extent of part-time farming in many industrial- 

 ized towns in eastern Massachusetts would give an exaggerated notion of 

 its importance, while a number of agricultural communities in the western 

 part of the State would show very little of this type of agriculture. 



- Bidwell, Percy W. Rural Economy in New England at the Beginning of the Nine- 

 teenth Century. Conn. Acad. Arts and Sci. Trans. 1916. 



