The record-union., 1891-10-24
COUNTRY LIFE.
Bad Roads Are Responsible for Dislilz
To 1t.

Bad Roads Are Responsible for Dislike
To 1t.
While Mr.. Bookwalter is right in
ascribing much of the tendency of popu-
lation to move from the country to the
city to the isolation of farm life, and
while his plan of having farm lands so
surveyed that there would be a village in
the center of each section where all the
families might live has excellent features,
we think that he has scarcely given due
weight to the evil effects of our country
roads in creating and enforcing almost
absolute seclusion for country dwellerS.
The worst difficulty about rural life is
not the distance that separates one habi-
tation from another, it is the fact that this
distance to be traversed is a barrier, dur
ing certain seasons of the year, almost as
impossible as a mountain range or a
swollen torrent. Farmers, as a rule, are
well supplied with vehicles and horses.
They are not welded to life of solitude,
but love cheer and SOciability even better
than other folks. They find these denied
TO them by the condition of the country
roads during large portion of the year.
This is less marked in our prairie coun-
try than it is in sections ut the East and
South, where the soil changes, under the
influence of rainfall, to q tenacious mud
that practically negatives all locomotion.
But even here there is considerable
DOGGIOu Oh GIIc year w llCIl 1t NliIN6 OI IIOI1
three to ten miles IS anything but pleas
ant undertaking. In the most unfaVora-
bly, situated communities there are fully
six months when neighborhOOd inter-
course is denied to all but pedestrians.
This is the great sacrifice which he must
make who decides TO try country life IN
the United States.
1t is hardly doubtful that large share
Of the average Englishman's passion for
residing in the couUry, and still larger
share of his fondness for long walks and
rides, is due to the fact that he does not
know what a poor road is. Such high
way, anywhere in Great Britain, as the
best Of our country roads would provoke
the native to an inSurrectiOn. From one
end of the island to the other the traveller
finds everywhere the same beautiful,
even surface for driving, equal in COM
fort and very like in appearance to our
aspha alt streets, though it is only supe-
rior macadam. Over this the heavy Eng
lis carriages, which horse could hardly
move in this country, bowl merry up
hill and. down dale. On one side is the
gravel footpath for walking people, on
the other the dirt bride path for those on
horseback. And between them the ideal
highway stretches its glistening length,
free from mud or stones or dust at all sea-
sons of the year. 1t is small wonder that
people love the country and that short
distances 90 uOJ ueIeE luSu OI COlupel
them to live secluded where the facilities
for travel are such as these.
Yet the difference between the country
roads of Great Britain and those of the
United States is rather one of intelligent
interest and painstaking than one of ex-
pense. The Englishman has simply
learned how to go about road-making.
He prepares the surface with almost or
quite as much care as we do for laying q
pavement. Then, when the macadam is
laid on, he sees to it that it has constant
attention. A little break, slowly form
ing depression is not allowed to ruin the
roadway. Stocks of fnely-broken stone
are ready prepared everywhere, and the
slightest detect is repaired Immediately.
We think it can be proved that, in many
of the older communities of this country,
the people have actually paid out more
money for highway construction and re-
pair per mile than it has cost the English
to create and maintain their almost per-
feet system of roads. A good deal of the
money has been wasted by political
spoilsmen Most of the remainder has
been applied unintelligently; a lot of men
digging deep bitches on either side of the
highway, throwing the earth from these
into the center, and thinking that this
convex surface of newly-dug mold could
be called a road, and this process ''road
mending."
Inere are signs OF an AWAKENING OI III
telligent interest in the subject IN some
quarters. Professorships have been es-
tablished in some of the colleges to teach
the art of road making, and people are
beginning to understand the frightful
economic loss of putting an embargo on
travel during good portion of the year,
or else compelling all beasts of burden
to consume vital force and exhaust them
selves unnecessarily. 1t will be a saving
TO be counted by millions of dollars an
nualIy, and it viii be a marvellous gain
socially and morally as well as industri-
ally, when we shall have such scientific
road making in the United States that the
rural dweller will possess, as far as pri-
vate conveyance is concerned, the same
advantages that are enjoyed by the resi-
dents of cities.-St. Paul Pioneer-Press.