30 New Hampshire Experiment Station [Bulletin 239 



Conclusions 



Of the several factors shown previously to have the greatest 

 influence on the labor requirements per acre, topography and soil 

 as natural factors and size and machinery as mechanical factors 

 are the most important. 



Some land is too steep to use machinery. Such land probably 

 is too steep to raise potatoes even as a means of utilizing labor that 

 would otherwise be wasted. There are also localities in which large 

 rocks are so frequent that the economical use of an elevator digger 

 may be questioned. On an area of less than two acres it may still be 

 possible to raise potatoes profitably on rocky ground by using many 

 hand methods ; yields, however, must be very good. Note this farm 

 in Sullivan County. The area is IVs acres. The man labor require- 

 ment is high (216 hours) because planting, dusting and digging are 

 done by hand. Yet even with a high acre cost ($235.96) a yield of 

 388 bushels per acre of marketable potatoes made possible a low 

 bushel cost of 61 cents. On another farm using similar methods on 

 1.5 acres and only 163 hours of labor, the cost was $171.87 per acre. 

 But a yield of only 112 bushels made a bushel cost of $1.53. 



These farms were both too rocky to permit the use of ma- 

 chinery, but in one case the operator is justified in continuing to 

 raise potatoes ; the other man should discontinue the business or put 

 it on a better basis. 



On the same sort of soils, with a larger area a planter can fre- 

 quently be used even though a digger would not save sufficient labor 

 to justify its purchase and use. Two farms in Merrimack County 

 illustrate this. One had four acres and required 177 hours of labor 

 per acre. It was so rocky that no digger was used. With a yield 

 of 194 bushels, costs per bushel were 98 cents. On the other farm, 

 using both planter and digger, the labor required was 170 hours per 

 acre, and with a yield of 295 bushels the cost was 73 cents a bushel. 

 Little labor was saved by the use of a digger because of delays in 

 getting around rocks; yet costs per bushel were considerably re- 

 duced by a larger yield. 



If soil and topography are such as to permit the efficient use 

 of the special potato machinery, and the size of the farm is large 

 enough to warrant expanding the area in potatoes, greater econo- 

 mies in labor may be effected. A farmer in central Belknap County 

 with six acres and machinery has been able to produce potatoes 

 with a labor requirement of only 110 hours per acre at a cost of 55 

 cents per bushel on a 200 bushel yield. Another farmer in Cheshire 

 County on six acres used 109 hours of labor to raise a 221 bushel 

 crop at a cost of 49 cents per bushel. 



Still further increases in area make possible greater labor 

 savings and consequent lower bushel costs. In southern Grafton 

 County a yield of 365 bushels per acre on 26 acres required but 92 

 hours of man labor an acre resulting in a cost of 41 cents per 

 bushel. 



Several of our larger growers show economies of production 

 that compare with the better growers of Maine and New York in 



