The Portland daily press., 1892-02-23
THE FARMERS BURDEN.
Bad Roads Responsible for Good Dea
of 1T.


be made which would increase the cost
of getting grain to market by from two
to five cents bushel, decrease by that
amount the profits of the farmer and
proportionately lower the value OF his
land as an investment, great cry OF
remonstrance would go up from every
quarter of the country. Yet the farmer
BEARS without thinking just such bur-
den in the shape Of ordinary, highways
that make the transport of his grain to
the nearest market point tedious and
costly job.
And this burden is not one that may
be lifted by the competition of railroads
or other corporations. 1t will rest upon
him just as long as he fails to join the
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 influence
and that of the associations to which he
may belong. There is none to which he
has shown more complete Indifference.
1t is only lately that general interest
has been awakened in the improvement
of country roads. But what has been
actually done in few counties shows
what the whole country insight do for
itself if it chose. A professorship has
been establishedin one of our colleges,
and much valuable matter is being col
lected by those who have made study
of the Question. The best of this is con-
tributed 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 provide them
with good country roads.
/, As Mr.. Potter says, "With the enlarge
ment of concentric circles surrounding
every American inland town is to be
found an apparently undue di1ninution
of agricultural population, wealth and
thrift" While railroads and canals
have multiplied, and freight rates have
been reduced to a figure undreamed of
few years ago, the dirt road, "that only
avenue of communication which con-
meets the farmer socially and CONNER
cially with the world at large, is the same
road that was used hundred centuries
ago by the naked savage when chased
by storm to the she1tering cave"
No better statement of its importance
and its average condition than that of
Mr.. Potter can be given: Measuring
million miles or more in its various
ramifications, dissolving in the rains of
April, baking and pulyerizing beneath
the rays of the midsummer sun, drifting
and disappearing in the whirlwinds of
November, and presenting at all times
but little more than roughened streak
of soil to serve as land highway for
the great volume of internal traffic, the
time seems to have come when the
American common road may rightfully
assert itself as the most expensive and
by all odds the most extravagantly
maintained of all the public institu-
tions."
The complaints of the decay Of agri-
culture, the abandonment of farms in
many communities and the charge of
slower relative growth in prosperity for
the farmer may all be referred, in con-
siderable degree, to the condition of our
country highways. The traffic carried
on over them exceeds vastly the freight
tonnage of all our railroads combined.
Yet this has to be carried under diff
culties and at a cost which increases i'm
mensely the cost of living to the con-
sun1er, while they strip the producer of
most of his rightful profit. The differ
ence between the transport of country
produce over existing roads and its car
riage over such roads as are to be found
in England and France is difference of
tens, probably 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 argument.
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 dread of it as an unbearable iso-
lation, as the condition of its avenues of
communication, which practically shuts
up the inhabitants of the farm during
several months of the year, and those
just the months when they have most
leisure for refreshing outings, to the
routine and confinement of the farm
itself. The country highway is the great
barrier that stands today in front of
progress, both material and intellectual,
for the agricultural population
Nor is it any unknown problem with
which we have to deal. The methods of
roadmaking are thoroughly well ascer-
tanned. The approximate cost is known.
Great Britain has done the work which
has helped to inspire SO many of her peo-
pie with passionate love for country
life, and to1naintain British agriculture
in struggle with the superior produc-
tiveness of America, but for which aid
it must have succumbed long ago. We
have only to set to work in earnest, and
the next generation will see this country
far ahead Of the rest of the world in the
thrift and prosperity of its farming COM
munities. VIII those who are most Vi
tally interested take up the cause?
The problem of cost is not entirely an
easy one. Yet all that is required for
it's solution is an enlightened self interest.
We doubt the advisability of attempt
ing to thrust this great labor upon the
1. L..