of improved, all-weather rural roads is of importance to both feed dealers 

 and producers; for the former such a program will make possible further 

 efficiencies in delivery service, and for the latter enable adoption of tech- 

 nological improvements in receiving and handling grain-feeds. 



Company and/or retail unit characteristics and policies directly affect 

 route efficiency. These effects come about through the attitudes of manage- 

 ment toward serving customers at scattered locations or under inconvenient 

 circumstances on a regular basis, and through the pricing arrangements 

 made. The decision on whether or not to go into bulk feed may also have 

 a definite bearing on route efficiency, as will be subsequently shown. 



Farm facilities, i.e., farm roads and driveways, receiving platforms, 

 location and number of grain storage points, as well as the attitudes of 

 producers, affect route efficiency. Variation in these matters shows up in 

 time required to set the truck in position and to unload. 



Most of the preceding factors are not likely to be solved in the short 

 run, but rather form the framework within which short-run changes can be 

 made. In effect the physical and institutional factors, plus a number of 

 locational considerations are conditions of imperfect competition more or 

 less fixed in short-run analysis. 



Route Rearrangements 



Recognizing the existence of certain conditions of imperfect competition 

 fixed in the short run precludes from the study of short run route rear- 

 rangements any assumptions relative to redistributing customers and estab- 

 lishing an exclusive territory system.* The very nature of the present dis- 

 tributive system for grain-feeds in New Hampshire makes such possibilities 

 extremely unlikely in the absence of a national emergency requiring very 

 strict rationing of gasoline, tires, etc., and like regulation of the use of 

 manpower and equipment. Hence, in this study, route rearrangement is 

 developed in terms of present units retaining the bulk of present customers. 

 Obviously some turnover in customers occurs, but on the basis of con- 

 siderations other than delivery route efficiency. The question herein is how 

 to improve route efficiency; first from the standpoint of route rearrangement, 

 and second, in terms of operating economies on the individual routes. 



Belknap County, New Hampshire, was selected as the focal area in 

 the study of route rearrangement. Although the county ranks next to last 

 in the State in terms of tons of grain-feed purchased, principles observed in 

 a smaller area are equally applicable elsewhere, and the field work is less 

 arduous. County boundaries obviously have little relationship to trade areas 

 (Figure 6). 



Within Belknap County itself, dealers whose places of business were lo- 

 cated within the county served areas composing portions of Gilford, Alton, 

 Gilmanton, Belmont, Tilton, Sanbornton, Laconia, Meredith, and New 

 Hampton without substantial competition from out-of-county dealers (Figure 

 7). Belknap County dealers had substantial competition from out-of-county 

 dealers in much of the remainder of the county and in Sandwich, Moulton- 

 boro, Tuftonboro, and Franklin. County dealers delivered as far away as 



* This type of aproach is well developed in the following bulletin: MacLeod, A., 

 and C. J. Miller, Efficiency of Milk Marketing in Connecticut, 7. Milk Delivery in 

 Rural Connecticut, Storrs Ag. Exp. Sta. Bui. 279, July, 1943. 



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