Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1892-11-02

No man speaks with more author
ty on any subject connected with
Western economies than Mr.. Howe,
Of the Atchison Kan Globe. For
nearly twenty years he has been ed
itor of this newspaper, he has watched
and aided in all the enterprises that
made Kansas what it is, he knows
the conditions of other States, and
his opinions are valuable enough to
be sought for by such magazines as
the Forum, in which he says: -West-
ern roads have undergone no i'm
provement in the last twenty years.
He is speaking, of course, OF the
roads that still are worked under the
old system of calling out the hands
by road district supervisors, and not
of the gravel and macadamized roads
that have been built by the toll COM
panies, or within the last few years
by taxation under free road laws.
This latter class of roads is confined
almost exclusively to OHIO and Indi.
ana.
Any one who has passed into mid
die age and who in his youth has
done road work under the system of
calling out the hands-meaning the
taxpayers the supervisor, must,
if he happen to revisit the scenes of
his early manhood about road-making
time, he struck by the absence of i'm
proved methods. Dirt still is piled
on top Of dirt, a shallow ditch is dug
along the sides of some of the places
that are so utterly vile as to have
earned the distinction of bad holes
among men used to roads that are
wholly bad in bad weather, in case
of a slough branches of trees are
cut and spread upon the swamp, and
dirt is piled on them, and then the
job Is done, tie tax is worked out,
the supervisor has no power to call
on the road hands for another hours
work, and he has no means with
which to hire other labor. The road
is just as bad as ever as soon as a
heavy rain has fallen on it, and as
soon as a few heavily laden wagons
have mashed down the branches to
the old level of the swamp
The farmers are not wholly T.
blame for this lack of Improvement
No improvement worth speaking Of
can be made under the present sys-
TEN. A tritling road taX-generally
paid in work, and expended under
the direction Of a supervisor who is
not a practical road maker, and who
often works the hands mostly on that
part of the road that runs past his
own farm-cannOt produce good re-
suits.
Where dirt is the only availabl,
material for road making, thorough
drainage is the first necessity. BY
thorough drainage the construction
of an open ditch on each side of the
roadway is not meant. Where gravel
and stone abound, good drainage still
is necessary to the construction of a
good road-hed. Drainage is the be-
ginning of road making.
1t is obvious that a greater outlay
OF money than the present system
provides for is needed as a prelimi-
nary to road construction. LegiSla-
tion that enables county commission
ers to issue bonds, payable in twenty
years, upon application Of a majority
of the landowners benefited by i'm
provement Of roads. has been passed
in some States, and it has been found
that after one progressive district
has essayed this voluntary taxat on
others have followed in a succession
almost too rapid for the commission
ers. Land has increased in value as
good roads have made ingress and
egress easy. Farmers have made
money by being able to haul loads in
all kinds of weather. Villages have
developed into towns and the social
pleasures of farm life have been null
tiplied-