H.—34.

An interesting point is that, of the 375 present owners and tenants, 56, or 15 per cent., have been share-milkers at one time or another ; whereas, of the 51 present share-milkers, 17, or 33 per cent., have at one time been owners or tenants of dairy-farms. The average number of years on the present farm is shown in Table 111 for the four tenure groups in the major areas.

Table III. —Years on Present Farm.

(b) The Family :— (i) The Homemaker : The " homemaker " is defined, for purposes of this survey, as the person chiefly responsible for the domestic work of the household. For the 448 farmers whose occupational history has been dealt with above there were 445 homemakers, 374, or 84 per cent., of the total being wives. In only 19 cases was the farmer his own homemaker, while the daughter managed the home in 13 instances, and the mother in 13 other cases. (ii) Wives : of the 374 wives shown as homemakers, 343 gave ages, the average age of these being 41 years. Share-milkers' wives averaged 33 years of age. (iii) Household and Family Composition : The average size of households* covered in this study is 5-02 persons, and that of familiesf 4-09 persons. The composition of households and families, by districts, is shown in the following table :—

Table IV.—Household Composition.

IV. Family Living. (a) Housing and Domestic Equipment.—An essential part of the study is an enumeration of the domestic facilities available in homes covered by the survey. This collection of data will, when fully analysed, assist materially towards providing an objective picture of living-conditions. Already some interesting results have emerged from the preliminary survey of the material collected ; some of these are briefly referred to below under appropriate headings : — (i) Construction of Dwelling : Of the 462 dairy-farmers' dwellings in the North Island concerning which data were available, all but 7 were constructed of wood. (ii) Water-supply and Drainage : Running water (chiefly from tanks) was attached to 433 dwellings (94 per cent, of the total), while the field drain was the most typical drainage system, 237 dwellings (51-3 per cent.) having this type of drainage. Cess-pits or sumps served 120 dwellings, while in 73 cases there were septic tanks. In 31 instances there was no drainage. (iii) Domestic Equipment : Electricity was available to 413 dwellings out of the 462 concerning which data were collected, and in all but 42 cases electricity, where available, was connected to the dwelling. Of these 413 dwellings having electricity connected, 354 had an electric iron (77 per cent.), 133 an electric vacuum cleaner (28-8 per cent.), 113 an electric range (24-5 per cent.), 107 an electric hot-water cistern (23-2 per cent.), 55 an electric washing-machine (11-9 per cent.), 19 an electric sewing-machine (4-1 per cent.), and 18 an electric refrigerator (3-9 per cent.). Three hundred and eighty-one (82-5 per cent.) dwellings had a radio and 291 (63 per cent.) a telephone installed. A high-pressure hot-water service was installed in 336 dwellings, the remaining 126 having only a low-pressure service or no service at all.

* " Household " means all persons living in the house, including employees, &c. " Family " means farmer, wife, and their children living in the house.

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Tenure Group. Auckland. Wailcato. Tafanaki. j Manawatu. J ; I All farmers .. .. 15 II 12 16 12 Owners .. .. .. 17 12 13 16 11 Tenants ...... 7 12 10 16 12 Share-milkers .... 3 4 5 9 4 Managers .. . . 14 5 12 14 10 L

Districts. 4 Total, North Island. Auckland Waikato. Taranaki. Manawatu. Number of households .. 82 208 118 37 445 Total number in household .. 449 1,076 550 157 2,232 Average size of household . . 5-48 5 17 4-66 4-24 5-02 Total number in families .. 365 850 469 137 1,821 Average size of family .. 4-45 4-09 3 -97 3-70 4 09