The Dallas weekly herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1885, 1881-12-01
Road-Making.

The present prosperous condition of Mis-
souri, presents favorable opportunity for
giving some attention to matter that has,
perhaps, been too long neglected. We
mean road Improvement. In the county OF
st. Louis there are about one hundred miles
of rock and gravel road as good as can be
found anywhere in the country-so smooth
and hard and so nearly level that team
can haul throughout the year about twice
as large load rs it can in other parts of
he State not with such improved high
ways There are few other counties in
Missouri where efforts have been made to
secure rock OF gravel roads. The highways
earth-roads, good enough in the summer
and fall, when there is the least occasion for
using them, but almost impossible quag-
mires in the winter and spring when farm
ers want to do most of their hauling 1t is
true improved roads are expensive at first,
and they are not 20 be found in abundance
except in thickly settled couptries where
they are the growth of years of labor and
care. But if Missouri is not old and rich
enough to have an ample supply of good
gin the work of building them at least, and
this duty may, with propriety, be pressed
strongly upon the consideration of its peo-
pie. We say that the first cost of a good
road is large, but the first cost is nearly the
whole cost, for when a road-bed is well con-
structed the expense of keeping it in repair
is trihing. In the prairie countries where
road metal is not to be had at convinient
distances, Improvement would be most
hut he or "
rolling surface of the land would partly
compens ate for the cost Of the dressing;
there would be no steep hills to cut down
and no gullies to fill up. and bodybuilding
would consist simply in throwing
up curved bed and Gaping it
with broken stone or gravel. In
many counties, however, the present main
highways run along lodges of rock or
gravel beds in streams that afford an abund
ant and cheap supply of the metal needed,
and the chief expense of road-making
would be in reducing the hills so as to Sc
cure level stretches and easy grades-for
one indispensable feature in good road is
it's reduction as nearly as practicable to a
level SO as to permit heavy loads TO be
hauled over it with the smallest horse
power.
1t would not be wise for counties to
plunge recklessly into debt in the business
of road-making. Good roads are not built
in day, nor year, like 2E good institu-
lions they grow up by slow degrees. 1t
would be safer and better plan to build
few miles every year and pay for the
work as it progresses. A moderate
proportion of the county tax set
apart year by year to road-building
would effect the object. One or
two main highways in the county might
be selected for improvement at first, begin
ming the work at the county seat and grad
ually extending it into the country. Those
counties that are fortunate enough to be
out of debt and have no interest to pay
could easily afford a moderate tax for this
purpose. Such tar, judiciously eX-
pended, would build few miles of
good rock or gravel road every year,
and in the course of a few
years the county would find itself
provided with system of hard roads all
paid for; and the increased value of the
property of the county would more than
Compensate for thewhole cost of the work.
The benefits of improved roads are reflected
in so many ways that it is difficult to COM
pute them; but even their immediate effects
lease Of hauling, increase of intercourse,
higher price of lands, and the general air of
thrift and comfort that invites well-to-do
alone more than out
weigh the burden of their cost Missouri
Republican.