Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1881-01-21
MEMORIAL.
On the Subject of Good Roads.
TOTHE HONORABLE LEGISLATURE OF

On the Subject of Good Roads.
ToTHE HONORABLE LEGISLATURE OF
THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:
The undersigned were appointed a
committee by the last Farmers Con-
yention of East Tennessee to memorial
ize your honorable body on the subject
of the public roads Of the State. The
body which thus deputed us to make an
appeal in behalf of better public road
system, was composed of the best repre-
sentative farmers of East Tennessee,
embracing much ofthe wealth, intelli-
gence and public spirit Of the leading
class.
We therefore beg leave to represent
to your Honorable body that at this
day good public roads are an absolute
necessity. No people can attain to
| high prosperity without them. There
! is no better index ofthe prosperity ana
civilization of free people than their
public roads.
At this day competition in trade and
prices is sharp and active. Trade is
| conducted on narrow margin Of profit.
If transportation is high, the margin of
profit is gone, The loss falls on the pro-
Queer. Good roads, over which heavy
loads can be drawn, safely and rapidly,
reduce the cost of transportation, and
thus increase the profit of the producer.
For example, the farmer in Union coun-
| ty, who is remote from market, must
pay about twenty five cents bushel to
| get his wheat to Knoxville. With
good tWO-hOrse team he can haul over
the present roads about fifteen hundred
pounds. With good roads he could
double the amount. He thus pays a tax
about twelve and one half cents bush
ell, in other words he loses that much
on account of bad roads. In addition to
this, it takes him from one third to one
half longer time to make the trip. If
he should get a return load he again
loses one half of his legitimate profits,
by reason of the diminished amount he
can haul, and the greater time required.
What is true Of Union county, is also
true in a greater or less degree of
every county and neighborhOOd in the
State where there are bad roads. In
| Claiborne, and in other counties per-
haps, the cost of transportation, as COM
| pared with Union, is doubled.
For the same reason, every farmer in
the State who has anything to sell,
and who lives away from the point Of
delivery, and has to haul overa bad road,
suffers greater or less loss, depending
on the distance, he has to haul. For ex-
ample: A farmer lives three miles from
market. He las GIVE hundred bushels of
wheat to deliver. His road is bad.
With a good two horse team, he can
haul twenty-five bushels at load, and
make two trips day. 1t will take him
ten days to deliver his wheat. The
driver and team are worth s.. 90 per day
| This will make $1,000. Ifhe had a good
road of easy grade, he could haul fifty
bushels per load, and make three trips a
day. He could thus deliver his wheat
in three and One-third days. The gain,
or the difference, would be thirteen dol
lars. And every time this farmer goes
! to market during the year he sustains a
loss. 1t thus appears that people living
away from market, and especially those
living remote from railroads or naVi-
gable waters, are subjected to an enor-
NOUS tax to reach market. Indeed, it
may be safely assumed that the loss suls-
tanned by the people of the State by
reason Of bad roads, is greater than
would be the tax to pay the interest on
our public debt-greater than would ne
the tax necessary to put the roads in
good order.
The three essentials in good roads are
easy grades; firm and smooth surface
and directness or straightness. Ali
these must be united.
Nothing would do more to enhance
the value of our lands than good roads.
The actual as well as the market value
ct land depends in a large degree on the
outlet it has to market. The most
productive land would be comparatively
worthless without such an outlet.
We can expect but few immigrants in
our State as long as our roads remain SO
miserably bad. Men who live in States
where enterprise has dotted every neigh
bOrhOod with good roads, will not settle
in a State where all their profits are eaten
up in getting their surplus products to
market.
The time has come in the opinion of
our best citizens, when our State should
take new departure on this subject,
and range herself in line of progress
beside her most advanced sister States
The purest system of public roads has
proved cOnspico Is failure. 1t is made
| quate to our wants. 1t Is wrong in prin-
Ciple, and unjust and unequal in its OPP
Grafton. 1t IS Ldsed on the idea that all
men between certain ages shall work on
the public roads as often as NAV be
necessary. In one neighborhOOd where
the roads are naturally good, this may
require three or four days in each year.
In others, where they are naturally bad,
it may require twenty days, or even
more. In one neighborhoOd, the per-
sons subject to road duty may be called
on to work three days In the year, in
others fifteen, and in others none at ALL
In all neighborhoods the least possible
labor is done that viii suffice to save the
overseer from presentment or indict-
ment.
Nor need we be much astOnished at
this. The overseer gets no compensa-
ton fOrhistrouble and liability. Those
who work get none. Many of those who
are thus forced to work on the public
roads own no property, While their rich
nelghbor is exempt from work. Let us
, Illustrate. Here is q man fifty year
El age. He owns five hundred acres of
lanG, and many head of horses and
mules, Two or three wagons, and fani-
~ carriage. This same man has
on his farm three or four tenants
who work his land, but have
no horses or wagons. These tenants are
liable to road duty, at the summons Of
the overseer. The rich farmer, who is
exempt from road duty, uses the public
road daily, with his horses, wagons and
carriage, and cuts it up, while these
poor tenants are forced to work on this
same road from three to fifteen days