The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1892-03-25
THE FARMERS BURDEN.
Bad Roads Responsible for a Good
Deal of 1t.

were TO be made whica would IN
crease the cost of getting grain to
market bv from two to five cents
bushel, decrease bv that amount
the profits of the farmer and pro-
portlonately .ower the value of his
land as an investment, a great cry
of remonstrance would 60 up from
every quarter of the country. Yet
the farmer bears without thinking
Just such burden in the shape of
ordinary highways that make the
transport of his grain to the nearest
maket points tedious and costly
job.
And this burden is not one that
may be lifted by the competition of
railroads or other corporation. 1t
will rest upon him just as long as
he fails to join th> agitation for
highway improvement. There is
no subject on which it would profit
the agriculturist more to bring to
bear the whole power of his lnflu-
ence and that of the associations to
which he may belong. There is
none to which he has shown a more
c8mplete indifference.
tt IS only lately that general in
terest has been awakened IN the i'm
provement of country roads. But
what has been actually done in a
few counties shows what the whole
country might do for itself il it
chose. A professorship has been
established in one of our colleges,
and much valuable matter is being
collected by those who have made q
study of the question. The BEST of
this is contributed by Mr. Isaac b.
Potter, whose recent work on the
subject is followed BY an article in
the latest issue of The Forum. in
which he appeals to the self interest
of the people to proyide them with
good country roads.
AS Mr.. Potter says, "With the
enlargement of concentric circles
surrounding every American inland
town is to be found an apparently
undue dlminution of agricultural
population, wealth and thrift"
While railroads and canals have
multiplid, and freight rates have
been reduced to figure undreamed
OF few years ago, the dirt road,
"that only avenue of communica-
ton which connects the farmer
socially and commercially with the
world at large, Is the same road
that was used hundred centuries
ago by the naked savage when
chased by a storm to the sheltering
cave"
No better statement of its impor
lance aud its average condition than
that of Mr.. Potter can be given:
Measuring million miles or more
in its various ramificahons, dissoly-
ing the rains of April, baking and
pulverizing beneath the rays of the
midsummer sun, drifting and dis
appearing in the whirlwinds of No
vember, and presenting at all times
but little more than a rougnened
streak of soil to serve as land
highway FOR the great volume of
internal traffic, the time seems to
have come when the American COM
mon road may rightfully assert it.
self as the most expensive and by
all odds the most extravagantly
maintained of all the public instr
tutions
The complaints of the decay of
agriculture, the abandonment of
farms IN many communities and
the charge Of slower relative
growth in prosperity for the farmer
may all be referred, in considerable
degree, to the condition of our
country highways. The traffic car
RED OF over them exceeds vastly
the freight tonnage of all our rail-
roads combined. Yet this has TO
be carried under difficulties and at
cost which increases immensely
the cost of living to the consumer,
while they strip the producer of
most of his rightful profit. The
difference between the transport of
country produce over existing roads
and Its carriage over sucn roads as
are to be found IN England and
France is a difference of tens, pro-
badly of hundreds Of millions of
dollars every year. And this is
only one side of the question, for,
in addition to the argument from
economy, there is the social argu-
ment.
Nothing contributes so much to
make the farmers life barren OF
interest. to help along the drift of
population to the cities, to change
the old delight in rural life into a
dread of it as an unbearable isola-
ton, as the condition of its avenues
of communication, which practi-
cally shuts up the inhabitants of