The Sentinel. [volume] (Trenton, N.J.) 1880-1882, 1882-10-14
Neatness IN the Highway.


ing limb of the American farmers. 1t
binds the farms together instead of
separating them, and furnishes the
means by which neighborhood may
be unit in the nation. The "com-
mon road" is common interest. and
is the common expression of a COM
mon life. Along 1.-THE stranger passes
and from it he gains lasting and very
accurate impressions of those who
make it what it is.
If highway was for travel and
nothing more, and travel was simply
the getting from one place to another,
then good roadbed of the shortest
length between connected points
would meet the full demands of a
country road. But people travel
largely for pleasure and when the
going is duty, they desire to mix
as much comfort with the commission
as is possible. The roadside is the
constantly changing panorama of all
who pass along any highway.
The writer knows of two equally
good roads, SO far as the road bed is
concerned, at equal distances from q
VILLAGE. One is kept clean. not ex-
pensively so, the grass is cut, and it
well pays the owners of the land for
their work. The other common road
has haIf.finished bitches along the
side, which bristle with Canada this
tie and other vile weeds. The fences
are bedgerows of filth and propagation
beds for noxi ,us plants that each year
seed down the whole neighborhood
with expensive pests. The farmers
along this portion of the highway, have
with one accord, turn ed the road into
a common ''slop jar" into which they
throw everything that is not fit to be
seen. In one place is large brush
heap, upon which the trimmings of
the trees in the dooryard are annually
thrown, and become an object of
fright to many horse that passes by
starlight. A little further on is the
logyard of a farmer. The roadside is
appropriated as place where the
necessary rails are split from year to
year. In this brush the turkeys build
a nest, and behind the logs litter of
pigs first sees the light Of day. Born
upon the highway, these animals hold
all the claims of their birthright. The
next farmer has his barn ION the
road" and with the tumble down
piles of old lumber, interpreted with
broken harrows and cultivators which
surround it, the passer-by must either
shut his eyes, and nose, too, or be a
witness to thriftless, and even dis
gushing scene. Not far up the road
things are even worse, for, instead OF
the barn, the house is on the public
highway, and the carriage track is
daily sprinkled with the chips that
fly from the slow and melancholy
chopper In his boundless roadside
woodward.
The farmers along the well-kept
road way have no better farms than
their slip-shod neighbors on the other
side Of the village; they perhaps do
not make any more money. But there
are some things in which they are
vastly superior. They live on a higher
plane, and therefore comparison is
difficult to make, and not at all neces-
sary. The well-k.pt road gets all the
pleasure driving; no one thinks OF
going into the unkempt district except
on business. The tidy road is a
double and mutual comfort to those
who desire to take pleasure drive and
the farmers who dwell along the
highway. Nothing enlivens the COM
mon life of the farmer and his family
like the sight of frequent vehicles upon
the highway.
The difference in the cost OF keep
ing the two extremes of country road
is in favor of the one that Is neat and
pleasing to the eye. There is all in
crease of hay and great saving of
labor in weed killing. The roadside
that is left to itself is not moved and
yields only weeds.
The value of the farms, though the
same at the outset, are widely differ
ent now Though the fertility of the
acres may be not far from the same.
the well-kept land is always salable at
a good price, while the shiftless farmer
must seek buyer for his land.
The rows of maple and elm trees
that were planted along the good road
fifteen years ago cost but trifie at
the time but are now so valuable that
to cut them down would be counted a
sin. They pay good interest in the
shade and beauty which they afford,
while at the same time the work of
wood-making is going on"
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