FOREWORD. 



How much of New Hampshire's food supply is produced locally? 

 What opportunities are there for increasing our farm production in any 

 direction with a reasonable expectation of profit? In those directions 

 where production has been curtailed, is the economy a sound one? From 

 the standpoint of the consumer, what are the chances for cheaper and 

 better home-grown food? These are questions which have troubled the 

 mind of nearly everyone who has been concerned with the development 

 of agriculture in the state. 



As a first step towards the answer to these questions it was determined 

 to select a representative area in which to survey conditions and to strike 

 an economic balance between production and consumption. Cheshire 

 County seemed particularly adapted to this purpose. The county is in 

 many ways an economic unit, since comparatively little of its imports are 

 reshipped to other sections. It is, furthermore, centrally located in 

 New England as a whole, — a fact which appealed to the Bureau of Agri- 

 cultural Economics of the United States Department of Agriculture and 

 the New England Research Council, which co-operated in the project. 

 Its agriculture is perhaps as fairly representative of conditions in New 

 Hampshire as a whole as any one section of the state, and it has in Keene 

 and elsewhere industries which furnish a year-round market and a growing 

 number of summer residents who are interested in home-grown products. 



On the other hand, no one region can fully and accurately represent 

 others in every particular. A survey of conditions in the center of the 

 state, in the eastern counties or in the mountain region would undoubtedly 

 bring out somewhat different facts and necessitate somewhat different 

 recommendations. It is hoped, therefore, that the present survey may 

 serve as an example of work which should be undertaken in other areas, 

 and as a stimulant to the solution of problems in New Hampshire as a 

 whole. With the passage of the Purnell Act by Congress, the experiment 

 stations of the country are committed to the study of problems of agri- 

 cultural economics in addition to those of agricultural production. We 

 hope that the present study may be followed by others of equally vital 

 importance to the problems on the farm and at the market of both the 

 New Hampshire farmer and his fellnw-partner, the New Hampshire 

 consumer. 



J. C. Kendall, 



Director. 



o 



