"open" and "brush" pasture can, by slight variation, result in sizeable acre- 

 ages being shifted one way or the other. (See Appendix Table III.) 



Appraisal Records 



In the course of acquiring property for dam and reservoir sites, qualified 

 appraisers were employed. Their reports included property descriptions and 

 a classification of acreages into such categories as cropland, open pasture, 

 brush pasture, and woodland. Appraisal data roughly parallels that ob- 

 tained by photointerpretation with two exceptions. The latter does not yield 

 information on ownership boundaries nor does it carry the validity of hav- 

 ing been accomplished by an on-the-ground survey of the area under question. 

 Some of the drawbacks to the use of appraisal records are as follows: 



(a) Translation to output would require use of some assumed average 

 yields and treatments. 



(b) Appraisal records are not specific as to whether properties were act- 

 ually used in all cases in accordance with land classifications. Data are 

 known to include idle land. 



(c) Appraisal records are not precise as to actual crops grown nor do 

 they reflect livestock numbers and the crop-livestock balance. 



(d) In many instances, land may be classified in a higher use than 

 warranted by its capability or than was being made of it at the time of 

 acquisition. 



(e) Property valuations agreed upon for settlement, and the distribution 

 of these between land and buildings, and to a lesser extent, appraisal valu- 

 ations themselves, were influenced by some factors not necessarily related 

 to output. Some of these were the length and cost of negotiations, owner's 

 ideas of valuations, location of the property. 



Table 18 summarizes the land use in the four reservoir areas, as indicated 

 by the land classifications assigned by appraisers. For comparative purposes, 

 the estimated actual pre-construction use of land for crops and pasture is 

 also shown. Appraiser's figures seem to overstate cropland and understate 

 pasture. They also included under woodland some areas which furnished 

 some grazing, however slight. 



Budgetary Analysis 



One technique used effectively in farm management research and appli- 

 cation is that of complete or partial budgeting. With this approach, "typi- 

 cal" units are usually selected and appraised in terms of "before" and "after" 

 application of a particular technique or program. Net effects can be ex- 

 pressed in terms of physical units, but are more typically expressed in terms 

 of net effects on income. 



Parsons, in applying this technique to a proposed land treatment program 

 for the New England-New York area, makes these pertinent observations c^ 



(a) "The degree to which a program may be carried out as well as the 

 results attained from a program are dependent upon the unique circum- 



1 Parsons, M. S., "Farm Aspects of Conservation Development in New England- 

 New York," prepared for the Agriculture Study and Report Group of the New Eng- 

 land-New York Inter-Agency Committee, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, U.S.D.A., 

 September, 1953, p. 2. 



49 



