An Economic Study of Dairy Farming in Grafton County, 



New Hampshire, 1930.*t 



Very few business records of farms have been obtained in New 

 Hampshire in recent years. An early survey was made in 1909 by the 

 New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station and the Office of 

 P'arm Management of the Bureau of Plant Industry of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture.^ Two hundred and sixty-six rec- 

 ords of farms were obtained in four townships in Hillsboro County, 

 and the area was resurveyed and reported on ten years later. A some- 

 what more extensive survey was conducted by the same departments 

 in 1911 and comprised the financial results of 428 farms.^ Two areas 

 were involved in this latter study, one in the Suncook valley in Bel- 

 knap and Merrimack Counties and one in Grafton County along the 

 Connecticut River in a part of the same area covered by the present 

 work. The average labor incomes in the two surveys were $337 and 

 $266, respectively. 



The few more recent business surveys that have been made have 

 usually included small groups of farms and have been used principally 

 for demonstration purposes in the communities where taken. For ex- 

 ample, such a survey was made by the Station in 1915, embracing two 

 areas and some 160 farms in Cheshire and Sullivan Counties in the 

 southwestern part of the State. ^ A similar study was made in the same 

 year by the Office of Farm Management at Washington.* This study 

 was purposely confined to the same area in Grafton County that had 

 been covered in 1911. The average labor income in Cheshire and Sul- 

 livan Counties for 146 farms amounted to $230. The average labor in- 

 come in Grafton County for 74 farms was $248. 



There is no more fundamental enterprise in New Hampshire than 

 that of dairying. While it may be less sensational than some others, 

 it contributes in the long run much more surely and largely to the 

 rural income. The State's agricultural prosperity depends to a consid- 



* Acknowledgments. The writer wishes to express a large measure of 

 appreciation to tlie hundreds of farmers wlio so wilingly co-operated to make 

 this study possible, and to the milk buying companies wliose unstinted co- 

 operation made the farmers' milk sales records available in detail. To Presi- 

 dent E. M. Lewis and Director J. C. Kendall of tlie University of New Hamp- 

 shire, the writer is indebted for many privileges ; and to Professors W. I. 

 Myers, G. F. Warren, Leland Spencer and H. L. Reed of Cornell University 

 for personal help and advice incident to this and other graduate work. 



Field assistance was given by Max Abell, Leon Batchelder, Meredith Brill, 

 Paul Hobbs, Samuel Hoitt, Eric McNab, Earl Robinson and Henry Wightman. 

 Mr. Hoitt, as a graduate assistant in the Department, also rendered valuable 

 assistance in the final checking and tabulation of the data. 



tAlso presented in practically this same form to the Faculty of the Gradu- 

 ate School of Cornell University, September 1931, as a major thesis in partial 

 fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy. 



