18 U. OF N. H. AGRI. EXP. STATION [Bulletin 249 



be close association between the amount of fann products raised for sale 

 and the total sales; in other words, it looks as if these places were 

 rather definitely organized around the production of farm products as 

 an enterprise of leading importance and that other classes of sales 

 were more or less incidental, or ''fillers".* The largest sales group has 

 about the same proportion of farm products sold as the average for 

 all, more than twice the proportion of fami products purchased for sale, 

 and more farm prepared food. In the group, then, with average total 

 sales of $12,721, the combination of these three classes of sales, rather 

 intimately associated with farm production and labor, represents 61.4 

 per cent. This suggests at least that the business does not necessarily 

 grow away from farm production as it increases in size; that there is 

 here a possible outlet for farm products in appreciable amounts; and, 

 perhai)s, that some other products in the merchandising line may be 

 sold to advantage even at the large market by virtue of the fact that 

 they would involve little if any additional outlay of energy or over- 

 head investment. 



Time Involved 



Roadside marketing is easy to start. Some week-end when there 

 are a few strawberries on hand, hardly worth the bother of taking to 

 town, they may be set out on a table in the shade of one of the door- 

 yard trees and sold to passers-by. The novelty and apparent ease of 

 disposing of a few products in this way are likely to mask the irksome- 

 ness, restraint, and extra labor and skill involved, when organized as 

 a regular business. In the first place, roadside marketing is a summer 

 business, in its very nature inconsistent with providing a vacation for 

 its proprietor when other people are wont to take theirs. Leisure time 

 is an invitation to many people to travel and spend, and increases the 

 importance of having roadside markets in readiness to attract and 

 serve them. Possibly the more the mercury rises, the more travel to 

 get a breeze or to reach a lake or the country, and the greater the like- 

 lihood of stopping for a lunch of fruit and sandwiches^ — and certainly 

 for ice cream and cold drinks — at the wayside stand. Figure 3 illus- 

 trates the distribution of sales through the months of the year for 82 

 places at which such information was obtained. It will be noted that 

 over half the year's business was done in July and August, and over 

 85 per cent from June to September inclusive. 



Again the apportionment of sales by days of the week hardly con- 

 forais with any ideal. There was only one stand in the state that was 

 closed on Sunday. Even places that regularly failed to open every 

 day in the week, were always open on Sunday, as well as some that 

 were only open one day a week, or started out that way in early sum- 

 mer. The average distribution of sales by days is illustrated in Fig- 

 ure 4. The sales for this group of 72 businesses ran about 10 percent 

 for each of five days of the week, nearly doubled that proportion on 

 Saturday, and trebled it on Sunday. About 50 percent of the week's 

 business shows up in Saturday and Sunday sales. Many of the mer- 



*Gross Correlations: Total sales per stand and (1) sales of raised produce 

 .757±.039. (2) Sales of gasoline and oil .574±.091. (3) Sales of home cooking, 

 etc. .474±.105. (4) Sales of farm products purchased .176±.132. 



