men is now in the Soil Bank. In the three towns of Colebrook, Columbia 

 and Stewartstown, there were only 450 acres of land for rent in 1959. 

 where as in 1958 there were 1,113 acres. 



The loss of this hay is especially important because many fields were 

 close to the renting farm. With this land in the Soil Bank, if the dairy- 

 men continue to rent, they must travel longer distances to obtain hay. 

 Figure 4 shows the various rural units by type of operation and location 

 within the townships of Colebrook and Columbia, New Hampshire. This 

 figure graphically locates the Soil Bank cooperators as well as the po- 

 tential renters or hayland. It can be seen that while the Program has 

 laken many units that were on the "ends" of the road, it has also reduced 

 the units that could supply "nearby" hay. 



There are two other alternatives for obtaining hay supplies. First, some 

 dairymen could obtain the supply from their own land by increased fer- 

 tilization. Second, hay could be purchased on the market from other areas. 

 However, if we assume that dairy farm forage programs were in balance 

 before the Soil Bank, it follows that the hay supply lost in the Program 

 can be replaced only at a greater cost to remaining dairymen. This in- 

 creased cost to the remaining dairymen is an intangible cost to estimate. 

 The two gross income models developed in a preceding section give us 

 some indication of the quantities of hay the enrolled cropland was ex- 

 pected to produce for local use. In Tables 7 and 8, the hay lost to re- 

 maining farmers is estimated to be 1,860 tons for 1959. For succeeding 

 vears, the estimate is 16,667 tons under the high-resource use estimate 

 and 11,157 tons under the low-resource use estimate. The cost of this hay 

 is commonly S5.00 per ton, paid to the owner of the land resource, plus 

 about S8.00 per ton out-of-pocket cost of harvesting and storing the hay.^ 

 Assuming that hay is purchased at -120.00 per ton, the increased cost of 

 remaining dairymen who buy hay becomes $7.00 per ton. Thus the in- 

 creased cost of hay to remaining dairymen would be about $13,000 for 

 the year 1959. For the remaining years of the analysis, the cost of hay 

 would be $116,700 under the high-resource use estimate and $78,100 under 

 the low-resource use estimate. 



Economies in Marketing 



Another problem affecting the remaining farmers is the availability of 

 marketing facilities and services, and the cost of these services. Firms that 

 service farms achieve certain economies of scale of operation as their 

 volumes increase. This is the case whether the firms provide only goods 

 to farms or whether they provide a combination of goods and services 

 or merely services. Extensive land placement in the Soil Bank could mean 

 a reduction in volume great enough to cause increased costs and lower 

 net prices for items sold by farmers and higher net prices for items pur- 

 chased by farmers. 



The charges for retail services, machinery repair services, and the like 

 are important to dairymen. However, in view of the number of firms in- 



S These costs vary tremendously. "Rent" goes from no charge to $20.00 per acre, 

 and the rent assumed here approximates the modal. Similar differences exist with 

 operating costs. The $8.00 employed in the analysis approximates the mode and does 

 not include return to family labor, management, or depreciation because each represent 

 income to the farm family. 



34 



