The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-03-12


roads three, six, or more days in the
year while the citizen who is over
forty-tlve and runs teams and wagons
overithe roads almost constantly does
not contribute one hours labor towards
putting them in good condition.
Building roads is done at the expense
OF the county-the cost of the land and
labor is raised by an equitable tax i'm
posed on all alike, just in proportion
to their means. Not so when once de-
clared public highways. Then the tax
is no longer equal or just.
$500 days work with road scraper
and one team would make the roads of
Halifax like boulevards.
| see hundreds of carts and wagons
pass where | sow write, yearly. The
carts generally have 600 pounds of
fertilizers or one bale of cotton for
load, the double teams have about
1900 pounds of fertilizers or two bales
of cotton for load.
One Of your correspondents referred
to the roads of Ohio, before they were
piked. have seen four horses hitched
to an empty wagon and could not
move it. The roads were in spring
time almost impossible. They were
gravelled Or "piked " at great ex-
pense but the lands increased in value
from 20 to 40 per cent.
A good team ought to pull 5000
pounds, they do it easily in the North
on roads quite as hilly as any in Wake.
Now, the expense of placing bale of
cotton at the railroad station where it
takes q day to go and return is about
$1.O0l If the roads were properly
graded and rounded it would not be
over 40 cents per bale for the same
distance. This is loss of so cents
per bale, and in moving the cotton
crop of the county we have taken as
an example amounts to more than it
would cost to provide for the convicts
Cher share) and guards for six years.
Perhaps we think the policy of saving
at the spigot and letting it run at the
bung I good one,
When the roads were all adjusted
properly you may ask, what then? l
answer. Let them be employed in
putting up levees or dams along the
Roanoke river and other large streams
to protect the adjacent lands from
overflow. In a Hand Book published
for distribution by this State, | find:
From Weldon to Palmyra is 60 miles
by the river, and the amount Of acre
age that the Roanoke overfows and
renders comparatively worthless, l am
informed by one Of the ablest men in
Eastern Carolina, is about 10000
acres. These lands subject to over
flow are now worth from SIS to $50
per acre, but would be very cheap at
$50 if the river was kept within
bounds. That is to say, lands now at
the highest estimate that are OILY
worth 100000 would then be worth
$3,OOO,OOO. But further: Halifax
has about 1900 acres and q little
over one-ffth of it's entire area is
rendered comparatively worthless by
reason of its streams overAowing. If
it's streams were dyked the real prop
erty of Halifax would be worth
6,5O0,0OO more than now.
The time will come, and that soon,
when if for no other reason this work
will be done from sanitary stand
point. Nine of our Eastern counties,
with lands as rich as the Mississippi
bottoms, have combined area of over
100000 acres that to-day is worth
nothing, breeding malaria, pest, a
stencil in the nostrils of the State,
The reclamation of these lands
would add $5O,OOO,OOO to the wealth
of the State, more than all the debt,
more than the cost of our railroads.
1 have purposely taken a county
where the largest area in the State
forms the boundary line; because
have heard it said if this were done
Bertie would suffer correspondingly.
That old idea is isexploded. The Roam
oke, when doing its best, does not
carry one-tenth part of the water the
Mississippi does, and Capt Eads deep
ened the channel by jetties SO that
where once was bar, now we have
26 feet of water. Holland has dyked
the sea and its wave power is as l. 900
is to l compared to the Roanoke at the
foot of the falls at Weldon. All the
water that flows down the Potomac at
ordinary stage passes under one
span of the chain bridge at Washing
ton, D. c., about 100 feet in width,
but it has cut channel as deep as it
is wide. Let this policy be pursued,
and without aid from the government |
our rivers would be navigable and
commerce would largely increase. Ten
years labor, intelligently directed, by |
the convicts of this State would IN |
crease the real valuation of this State |
by over S100,O00,0O0.
[ he no axe to grind. I have no
Il