MILLS CAN USE TRUCKS

The New York Times
April 5, 1914

One Example of Great Saving Over Horses in This Business.

An argument for the keeping of comparative cost data by the owners of motor trucks was made last week by Rollin W. Hutchinson, Jr., recently appointed truck transportation engineer of one of the large motor companies.

"When a truck user keeps cost statistics over a reasonable period of time," said he, "he has something tangible to prove or disprove the claims made by the manufacturer before the sale.  The figures will show at a glance whether or not his purchase has been a profitable investment, or whether horses or a truck or some other make would have been better for his particular case.

"In the milling business, the motor truck has made comparatively little headway so far, although conditions are often quite favorable for its proper utilization.  All over the Central West and in some sections of the East, there are mills which can deliver their product direct by motor truck to the wholesaler or jobber.  One of these is in Geneva, Ill., which uses its three-ton truck for making deliveries over country roads to merchants in a number of nearby towns.  The President states that it costs about as much to operate three two-shores teams as it does his company's truck.  The truck, on the other hand, does the work of five teams.  It's record shows an operating cost of $0.78 a day.  In a period of fifteen months it carried 4,174.86 tons, the highest total for a single month being 426.5 tons.  In that time it covered 12,068 miles or an average of about thirty-five miles a day.