arrival at the farm. This was done through printed material, local dealers, 

 and sales and service personnel. Answers to the question, "Are the farmers 

 you service as a group willing to carry out programs to promote more 

 efficient handling of grain upon arrival and after arrival at farm?" ranged 

 from an unqualified "yes" to "relatively reluctant". Other comments were 

 "varies", "for most part", "in some cases", "one out of four", "more 

 aggressive farmers think of these things themselves". The reactions of 



'co^ 



individual dealers are discussed in a later section. 



Relative Importance of Grain Feed Sales. 



The majority of the companies contacted sold other lines of merchandise 

 in addition to grain-feeds through their New Hampshire dealers. Out of 

 8 companies supplying details, 2 sold only grain-feeds. For the remaining 6, 

 grain-feeds accounted for 72-90 percent of total sales. Other lines of im- 

 portance were building supplies; farm, barn, and poultry equipment; seeds, 

 fertilizer, spray materials; coal, oil, other fuel. There were considerable 

 differences in the ranking of the secondary lines from company to company. 

 Table 8 shows the relative importance of grain-feed sales and secondary 

 lines for the 8 companies. 



Table 8. Importance of Grain-Fted Sales and Secondary Lines 

 for New Hampshire Retail Outlets of Eight Companies, 1953 



5. Retail Outlet Characteristics 



T^O CONCLUDE the discussion of the characteristics of feed distribution 

 J- and handling, there is herein presented description and data on retail 

 outlet characteristics. Paralleling the aggregative and unit-size growth of 

 poultry and dairy production has been the growth of larger-sized specialized 

 grain-feed businesses. Formerly, distribution through such outlets as general 

 stores, hardware stores, and other retail businesses primarily concerned with 

 lines other than grain-feeds, was of greater relative importance. Now many 



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