COST OF DISTRIBUTING MILK. 



29 



Five Amherst dealers expend §140.69 for bottles, or 37 cents per 1,000 

 quarts of retail milk; this includes one dealer who does not use tickets. 

 Eliminating this dealer for the sake of accurate comparison, the results 

 may be presented in tabular form, as follows: — 



It is significant that of $82 reported as lost through bad debts by Amherst 

 distributors, $51 were reported by one dealer who did not use the ticket 

 system. Comparing the figures of Amherst and Walpole dealers who do 

 and who do not use tickets, it appears that where five Walpole dealers 

 using no tickets suffer by bad debts a loss of 40 cents per 1,000 quarts 

 of milk sold at retail, and one Amherst dealer loses similarly 62 cents, 

 the four Amherst distributors using tickets have but 9 cents of bad debts 

 for each 1,000 quarts retailed. 



Under the ticket system the cost of collection is somewhat less, but since 

 the drivers do the collecting it is difficult to approximate this difTerence. 

 Tickets, of course, mean cash in advance; just how long in advance 

 depends on the price of milk, and the amount used per family, since tickets 

 are usually sold in $1 strips. The price per quart is exactly the same, 

 whether the customer buys tickets in advance or pays in currency when 

 the milk is delivered. 



Ice cost Walpole dealers $1 per 1,000 quarts ($0,001 per quart) of milk, 

 and the Amherst dealers SO cents per 1,000 quarts ($0.0008 per quart). 



Haverhill v. Pittsfield. 



The difference in the figures for these towns is not marked. Pittsfield 

 expends a very little less per quart for maintenance and circulating capital, 

 but this is more than offset by higher labor costs. Labor is comparatively 

 expensive, due to the competition of the summer homes in the vicinity. 



Although Haverhill distributed milk at a lower cost per quart than any 

 of the four cities, it was not at the expense of service, but rather as the 

 result of the low labor cost coupled with the number of quarts delivered 

 per horse, in other words, by getting the best service out of the horse. 

 Haverhill averages 176.3 retail quarts per day per horse, while Pittsfield 

 averages but 141.2 quarts per horse. Moreover, Pittsfield distributors 

 deliver more cream and wholesale milk per route to a smaller number of 

 customers than do Haverhill milkmen — about 100 quarts as against 

 75 for Haverhill. 



