The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1891-10-10

public roads and the manner of re-
pairing them are the greatest draw.
backs to the prosperity Of this coun-
ty that we suffer
There is even more truth in our
position on this matter than on the
matter Of improving the live stock.
Nevertheless the farmers are even
more Indifferent about it.
We have maintained and still main
tain that the county road is as much
part of the machinery of agricul-
ture az the farm wagon, the reaper
and mower or the threshing machine.
Roads help to reduce or increase the
price of the products of the farm
just as they are good or bad. A good
road reduces the cost of getting farm
produce TO market, and increases de.
mand for it by making business bet
ter and more active, and bad road,
on the other hand, tends to increase
the cost, and make business dull.
There cannot possibly be any high
degree of prosperity in a county
where the public roads are like our
own.
AS the farmers have refused to
listen to, or at least to heed, our
philosophy or exhortations ON this
line, we invite their attention to some
views and facts presented by dis
tinguished New Yorker who is max
ing the matter of public roads a study.
Let some of cur farmers paste these
statements in their hats:
A bad road, says Mr.. Porter, is an
expensive thing. To maintain the
100000 horses of this country
the figures are those of the census Of
1S90-costs 100000 day. so that
every day that horse stands idle
when he might work is waste to be
checked. Furthermore, every unnec-
essary horse is waste of material;
and Mr.. Porter estimates that 2,000,-
900 horses not absolutely necessary
are used or American farms; a need
less expenditure of 100000 day,
exclusive of the original cost of the
horses. On the smooth surface of a
macadam road one horse will haul
twice the load that the same horse
could haul ON the best dirt road, and
from five to ten times as much as
can be hauled by single horse when
the dirt road is covered with soft
mud and ruts:
The average rainfall in the United
States is something over forty inches
per year. The dirt road absorbs
these forty odd inches of water, freezes
and thaws, dries, pulverizes, changes
from paste to powder and back again
from powder to paste, and for weeks
at a time is practically impossible
Farm traffic is tied up. You have
produce to sell, purchases to make,
grain to grind, timber to haul, bills
to collect, and obligations to meet,
but all these must wait because your
only avenue of travel is taking its
annual soak. A dozen times day
you look out of your barn door with
the hope of seeing some struggling
yagrant of whom you can inquire,
How is the road?'"
The first cause of the bad roads is
the system of road making that pre-
walls in This country, that relic of
the feudal system which requires all
persons living on road to devote SO
many days year TO intending the
road TO scraping the dirt from the
sides into the middle, and then trust
ing to Providence and the passers-by
to beat the npturned streak Of dirt
into something like a wheel track.
A detail Of this chief cause is the
absence of drainage "The great de-
stroyers of common earth roads, :"
says Mr.. Porter, "are water and mar
row wheel tires" The narrow wheel
tires furnish the second cause of our
bad roads.
Not only do good roads diminish
the cost of farming, but they increase
the value of the farms. In all of New
Jersey there are several hundred
abandoned farms; in Union county,
where of late years some 600 miles
of improved roads have been built,
there is not single farm lying idle.
In Parke county, Indiana, the chan
ges caused by improved roads are
thus described:
ssThe farmers hauled much bigger
loads, and did it in March more cas-
lily than in August; wagons lasted q
great deal longer; horses were rarely
injured, and so it paid to keep better
stock, and, what was of great impor-
tance, markets could be reached at
any season. The farmers, formerly
isolated for weeks together, discover