Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1891-02-13
GOOD ROADS AND CIVILIZATION.
The Highways of the Bluegrass Region
of Kentucky.

to this, in the same article from which |
quote, that the most important ways of
commerce are the Ordinary roads by
which the greater part of human inter-
course has been made possible" OF
course he means the country or common
road; indeed he says so. If this be so,
and certainly it would be nigh impossi-
BILE to successfully advocate the negative
side of the professors statement the
farmers of that part of Kentucky known
as the Bluegrass section must have
been far ahead in civilization of their
brother agriculturists in other parts of
their state and country as far back as
sixty years ago, for during that length
of time they have had better country
roads, and have maintained them in
better condition than anywhere else in
America of which l have any knowl-
edge.
The roads in the Bluegrass region are
not better, to be sure, than the roads in
the neighborhood of Boston, but these
roads which are so admirable are not ex-
actly country roads, but connect with the
great metropolis of New England the
numerous outlying suburban towns, in
which dwell many of the richest merch.
ants and greatest capitalists who do bust
ness in Milk street and the adjacent
thoroughfares.
So far as | know, therefore, the Blue
grass roads are the best country roads |
have ever seen in America, and they COM
pare most favorably with English and
Scottish roads and with those ON the con-
tinent of Europe. 1t is not my purpose
to tell why, in this limited section of Ken
lucky, the roads should be 50 superior to
those in other parts of the state and coun-
try. Indeed Icould not do 50 if would.
But they are superior, and every observ-
ant traveller who has ever driven on the
roads which radiate from Lexington, the
center of the Bluegrass country, will
agree with NE that nothing like them is
to be found in any other section which
depends for its support upon agriculture
alone.
John Burroughs, the great naturalist,
in recent article on this section said
that beyond its blue grass it was famous
for three things-hard bread, hard beds
and hard roads, and only the last of these
did he find admirable.
1t has been suggested to me that as in
the eight or ten counties comprising the
| Bluegrass section the best horses in the
country are reared, it may be that the
roads We're made good because the horses
were excellent and capable of getting
over ground with great speed. That is
an ingenious supposition, but as a matter
of fact the roads were made good, and
made permanently good, long before that
particular section became so pre-eminent
for its fast and well bred horses The
corollary of this proposition is that good
roads will make good horses, or rather
! will encourage farmers to breed good
horses.
l know very well that in the neigh
borhood where | now live the roads
are so very bad that man would be
silly to own a horse who could do bet
ter than eight miles an hour. There
they have the best material for making
roads but once every year the roads are
covered with the "muck" and sod which
grows and accumulates at the sides of
the center, and when the weather is dry
the roads are knee deep with DUST when
the weather is wet the wheels sink into
very adhesive mud almost to the axle.
But it is very different in the section
of Kentucky to which | have alluded
There the roads have been properly built
and carefully maintained. In the first
place these roads were built by turnpike
companies, assisted by the state. be-
lieve the state gave this assistance, as a
rule, by subscribing to the stock of the
various companies, but in whatever way
it was given the state seems to have re-
served to itself some kind of supervision
and right to acquire the property by
purchase. The roads were all carefully
macadamized, with an arch which usual
ly ended on either side in dirt road
which has always been used for light
driving in good weather, SO that the
metal roadway is only used for heavy
traffic The dirt roads are always much
lower than the metal one in the center,
which is wide enough for teams to pass
on it comfortably. The drainage, there
fore, was all to the injury of the dirt
roads. But in that fortunate section
drainage is not IA serious consideration.
The land is SO uniformly undulating
that such thing as ''washOut" was
never heard of. Nevertheless the bitches
are kept open and free.
So far as the lesson which may be
learned from Kentucky road builders is
concerned, probably the most interesting
is the method adopted to maintain the
roads and keep them in perfect order.
And they have been kept in perfect or
der for sixty years with the exception of
two or three years about the close of the
civil war. But the damage done at that
time, when heavy war trains were con-
stantly moving over the roads and no re-
pairs were made, was not irreparable.
Each road is divided into sections, say.
of four or five miles. Each section is in
charge of man, who has house to live
in, quarry TO get stone from, and
mule and cart to haul his metal and
other simple road mending implements
None of his implements is complicated,
large or expensive. He needs none of
them, because he is required never to
permit any part OF his road to get out of