Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1885-11-30
WINTER ROADS.


minds Vermonters that the annual
period of our more or less interrupted
snow blockade is upon us. In many
sections a good winter road is the
exception to the general rule. The
great objection to our state as win
ter re sidence is the almost or quite |
condition of our high |
ways during great portion of the
season. Vermont in June is as beau
tiful in climate and in scenery as any
place in this world perhaps. Drive
out on the hills at that season, and
you cannot but exclaim to the resi-
dent you chance to meet, how beau
tiful for situation IS your home Yes,
he replies, in summer it is all that
could be desired; but he invariably
adds, with a sigh, 0, the winters,
the snow-d drifts, the hard toll all win
ter long to keep mere path where
we can get out in an emergency, and
sometimes with all our effort we can
not do even that. Sometimes we can
not get physician in time of sick
ness, and not seldom have we been
compelled to convey the dead to the
place of burial upon hand sled.
1t is the cry of a multitude of Yer
monters. ''let us emigrate TO warm
er climate" Many of them do so,
not so much to escape the rigor of
our atmosphere, as to avoid five
months Imprisonment in our snow
drifts. Emigration from Vermont,
it's causes and its remedy has occu-
pied the attention of thoughtful Yer
monters for several years. Few COM
monwealths could endure such q
drain upon It's resources as our state
has suffered. The ''Green Mountain"
state has done nobly Notwithstanding
it all but what would Vermont have
been with its fertile soil and salu-
brious climate, but for this continual
drain upon its population.
Among the causes which make our
people dissatisfied with Vermont as
a residence, and which induce so
many of them to emigrate, and so
many others who remain to wish that
they lived almost anywhere else, we
are inclined 10 assign a chief place
to our wretched system of winter
road making. Our winter road is
usually sort Of canal, dug at great
labor and expense, as low as practi-
cable below the general level, and
filed with soft snow. When we have
wallowed through this till it has be-
come somewhat packed together and
our canal has become somewhat chok.
ed up, at once we endeavor to die
out the channel and let the soft snow
blow IN, through which we wallow as
before and as patiently as we may
When thaw occurs we have a mn6
road for our sleighs, with banks o.
soiled white snow on either hand
which we vainly wish was in the road
as it would be If we had not thrown
it out. We also employ scrapers ant
plows to throw up hard bank clos
to the narrow road, most ingenicusl,
contrived to tip us over when W
meet team. When spring approach
, es we have a road modelled after
/ ridged house roof to walk upon which
/. affords our horses an admirable gym
:. nastic training. After this If tn
| road is a frequented thoroughfare
l we call out fifty men to dig a wide
e canal, along which wagons may b
Y drawn. II the road is an unfrequent
e ed one the inhabitants shut Intensely
: es up at home and mediate upo
: Horace Greeley's advice, $50 Yves
u Young Man.
8 Admirable. and eminently salts
Il factory as this system is, 1t must b
acknowledged that it Is an expensiv
d luxury. One town in this count
J three years ago expended fifteen hun
IS QPed dollars in maintaining this sy'
is TEN, sanctioned by the universal u
II age of our fathers. Another, an
er much cheaper plan than the can
at plan for the winter road is TOa
10 built like a railroad embankmen