84 THE MARKETING OF WHOLE MILK 



accounts with wholesale customers. This phase will be 

 considered somewhat more in detail in a later section. 



In the milk business there has been a pronounced tend- 

 ency towards centralization. From every part of the 

 country reports indicate that in the past decade there has 

 been a very great decrease in the number of men distrib- 

 uting milk, in spite of the fact that the cities have been 

 growing and that the milk business as a whole has been 

 increasing fully as rapidly as has the population. Thus in 

 New Haven, Connecticut, which in 1903 had a population 

 of 108,027, there were about two hundred milk routes. 

 In 1916, with an estimated population of 170,000, there 

 were only one hundred sixty routes, — that is, an increase 

 of 57 per cent in the population was being served by 20 

 per cent fewer wagons.^ In many instances a reduction 

 in number of routes has taken place as a result of a drop- 

 ping out of some of the smaller dealers and of the absorp- 

 tion of some of the larger ones by still larger companies, 

 or by a combination of several of the leading companies. 

 These combinations have almost invariably been ac- 

 companied by decreased operating expenses or at any rate 

 by decreased duplication in the delivering. A typical 

 example is that of Springfield, Ohio, where in 191 8 the 

 two largest companies, each operating eighteen routes, 

 combined. Within six months after combining, the ntun- 

 ber of routes had been reduced from thirty-six to thirty, 

 although the amount of business in that time had actually 

 increased. Similar instances might be given for other 

 cities. 



The question then arises, can the small dealer withstand 

 the competition? If so, how does he do it? In the first 



1 Weld, L. D. H., Marketing, City of New Haven, 1916, p. 37; Alvord, H. C, 

 Milk Supply of Two Hundred Cities and Towns, p. 54, 1903. 



