Land Utilization in New Hampshire 



By Harry C. Woodworth, Max F. Abell, and John C. Holmes 



INTRODUCTION 



The waste of property and human resources resulting from malad- 

 justments in the relation of people to land in many of the back areas 

 of tlie State has long been evident. The abandonment of farms in the 

 highland areas has resulted in the isolation of many rural families. 

 These stranded people have not had a favorable opportunity to par- 

 ticipate fully in the progress made in the last two decades in improved 

 transportation facilities, new skills in specialized farming, and the 

 increasing services of public institutions. 



In an era of expanding standards of living, each year has brought 

 a lower living content to many families and in contrast to more favored 

 locations they have been especially handicapped by declining yields, 

 inadequate markets, poor roads, lack of resources and in many instances 

 by a psychological defeatist attitude. Partial abandonment of locations 

 has resulted in serious maladjustments in public services, and this in 

 turn has tended to check the development of potential resources. 



It is very easy for a state, absorbed in the progress of the expanding 

 and developing portions of its agriculture and the growing demands of 

 its industry, to ignore and leave untouched the areas that fall behind. 

 Some would avoid a description of the plight of stranded families and 

 place all emphasis on the happier portions of the social order. But a 

 state should face frankly the maladjustments in certain of its areas and 

 seek to discover means of realignment of people, land, and institutions. 



An examination of the present land use indicated many areas in 

 New Hampshire in which little or no commercial agriculture appears. 

 (Note the white areas in Fig 1.) Some of these areas were never 

 cleared and settled, being for the most part mountainous and non- 

 agricultural. Other areas were at one time thickly populated and 

 farmed, but have declined greatly in both population and agricultural 

 activity since 1860. 



The objective of this study has been to isolate and describe the prob- 

 lems, and as far as possible build a foundation on which public policy 

 might be intelligently constructed as to their solution. For this pur- 

 pose an area in western New Hampshire in southern Grafton County 

 was selected. This comprises the highland area back from the Connecti- 

 cut River, and is made up of portions of the towns of Piermont, Or- 

 ford, Warren, Wentworth, Lyme, Dorchester, Groton, Hebron, Han- 

 over, Canaan, Orange, Alexandria, Danbury, and Grafton. 



After a preliminary survey of the general region a definite area was 

 delimited for special study. The boundary line enclosing this area as 

 shown on the maps is not significant except that the data for the re- 

 port are confined to the situation within the lines. 



Fig. 1. Each dot in the map on the opposite page represents the location and 

 size of a commercial agricultural enterprise. The large white areas are 

 mostly mountainous and uninhabited. Note that the shaded area comprising 

 this study has little agriculture as compared to other agricultural areas. 



