Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1892-03-11
COUNTRY ROADS.
THEIR IMPROVEMENT WOULD
BE A BLESSING TO FARMERS.
Bad Roads Arc an Expensive Thing
--Europes Roads Vastly Better
Than Our Own-The Rene
dies Proposed.

ton and their cure. The second pamph-
let, entitled "The Gospel of Good
Roads," is direct appeal to the Amer
lean farmer, by Isaac Potter, the Chair
man of the wheelmen's committee, and
it deserves the attention of every coun-
.tryman and of not few jewellers in
towns and cities.
MIR. Potters purpose is to show to the
farmer that the greatest remedy for the
cure of Improbable farming lies in the
farmers hands. The common road, he
points out, is part of the machinery OF
agriculture, rs much so as the farm
wagon; and any improvements in tho
roads reduce the cost of get ting farm
products to market, aud thus save to
tho farmer mole of the value of these
products. ~
A bad road, says Mr.. Potter, is an cx-
pcnsive thing. To maintain the 16, OOO,-
600 horses of this country-the figures
are those OF the census OF 1S90-costs
81, 1000, 900 day; SO that every day a
horse stands idle yhen he might work is
waste to be checked. Furthermore,
every unnecessary horse is n waste of
material; and Mr.. Potter estimates that
1000, $50 horses not absolutely neces-
sary are used on American farms; a
=, rdlcss expenditure of $500, 900 day.
exclusive of the original cost of the
horses. On the smooth surface of mac
adam road one horsc will haul twice the
load that the same horse could haul on
the best dirt road, and from five to ten
times rs much rs can be hauled by Il sin
gle horse when the dirt road is covered
with soft mud and ruts:
"Thc average rainfall in the United
States is somewhat over forty inches per
year. The dirt road absorbs these forty
odd inches of water, freezes and thaws,
dries, pulverizcs, changes from paste to
powder and back again from powder to
paste, and for weeks OF time is practi-
cally impassabL . Farm traffic is tied
up. Y"a have produce to sell, pur-
ct..ses 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 vagraut
of whom you can inquire, 'How is the
roadH
The first cause of the bad roads is the
system of road making that prevails in
this country, that relic of the feudal sys-
ten which requires all persons living on
road to devote so many days year to
''mcnding the road, to scraping the
dirt from the sides into the middle, and
then trusting to Providence and the
passcrs-by to beat the upturned streak
of dirt into something like wheel
track. A detail of this chief cause is
the absence of drainage. "The great
Gcstroycrs of common earth roads," says
MIR. Potter, care water and narrow wheel
tires" The narrow wheel tires furnish
the second cause of our bad roads.
European farmers use much broader
tires than we use here; and the gauge Of
their front wheels is less than that of
their hind wheels, so that the two sets
of wheels do not "tracll.'" In Bavaria,
for instance, a stringent law is enforced
against the use of narrow wheel tires, and
the width of tire to be used is laid down
us follows:
Inches.
"Two-wheel wagon with two horses ~
Iwo-wheel wagon with three or four
~ nurses '........... .................: ..O
rour-whee wagon with two horses. .2lG
Four-wheel wagon with three or four
norseS ....................4
Five-wheel wagon with tieo to eight
horses ........-.... .......6
Carts having more than four horses, and
wagons having more than eight, are not
allowed upon the public roads, except by
special permission obtained from the au-
thorities of the province"
The roads OF Europe are vastly better
than ours. France has 100, 900 miles of
good roads, though her territory is only
about four times as large as that of New
York State. The French Government
spends SIS, ZOO, 900 year to keep them
in repair; about as much rs it costs to
keep the horses in New York State for
four months.
Not only do good roads diminish the
cost of farming, but they increase the
value of the farms. mall 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 changes caused by improved roads
are thus described:
1.-THE farmers hauled much bigger
loads, and did it in March more easily than
in August; wagons lasted great deal
longer; horses were rarely injured, and
SO 1t paid to keep better stock, and,
what was of very great importance, mar
kets could be reached at any season. The
farmers, formerly isolated for weeks to
gether, discovered that they could go
where they would with ease, and at the
very season when they had the most
leisure. To ride few miles after sup
per was an actual pleasure, and soon al.
most every school district had its social
or religious, literary Or political organi-
zation, and some had all four. There
has been general frightening up. The
winter, once so gloomy to the isolated
farmer, is now the season when he really
lives. Another effect was to create q
sort of Juror for Gle giant turnouts."
The changes thus described are GER
tninly worth the cost of building good