cows or their equivalent in terms of other livestock or crops at time of 

 contract. Only 9 of the units that had less than 4 cows at time of con- 

 tract could be classified as organized units. These units correspond to 

 part-time farms. The largest grouping of cooperators were classified as 

 unorganized units with less than 4 cows. There were eighty-five of these 

 units, 71 percent of the units enrolled in the Program. Of these 85 un- 

 organized units, 71 could he classified as unorganized in 1955 and 30 

 as far back as 1940. 



The survey of independent operations in Coos County indicated that 

 there Avere 631 rural units in 1959 (Table 3). This total included the 

 120 whole units enrolled in the Soil Bank Program, 309 units with 4 or 

 or more cows or their equivalent, and 202 rural units with less than 4 

 cows or their equivalent. Of the 202 less than commercial sized units, 112 

 were classified as organized and 90 as unorganized. 



Table 3. Number and proportion of rural units in various categories, 

 pre- and post-Soil Bank Program, Coos County, New Hampshire 



* Excludes 9 part farm Soil Bank cooperators since they are included in some other 

 rural unit classification. 



Table 3 shows a comparison of the number of units in the several 

 categories as they appeared after the three years of Soil Bank enroll- 

 ment, and an estimate of the agricultural units as they would have been 

 classified prior to enrollment, had enrollment occurred in one year. The 

 Program reduced the units with 4 or more cows or their equivalent from 

 53 to 49 percent of the total units. Of the organized units with less than 

 4 cows, the Program changed their relative importance from 19 to 18 

 percent. The unorganized units with less than 4 cows were the most num- 

 erous participants in the Program and their importance decreased from 

 28 to 14 percent of all units. Soil Bank units accounted for 19 percent 

 of the total units. Since such a large proportion of the Soil Bank enroll- 

 ments were unorganized farm units, little effect on agricultural output 

 might be expected from the Program. 



The comparison of pre-Soil Bank and post-Soil Bank numbers and pro- 

 portions of rural units in Table 3 was based on the assumption that there 

 would have been no change in the farm economy had there been no Soil 

 Bank Program. This assumption is not valid. Historically, commercial 

 farm operations have declined in number and expansion of farm oper- 



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