The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1892-01-15
Mtscel1amenns.
THE MISTAKE OF THE FARMERS.

They Have Barred Prosperity Away from
Them by Supporting Bad Roads.
The secret of Americas wonderful
prosperity has been the readiness of
Americans to adopt improvements and
foster them. Progress begets progress.
Nearly every line of business has made
great strides in the direction Of labor
saving machinery and new and better
methods of manufacture. In hundreds
of trades one man is able today to do
alone what would have busted twenty
men fifty years ago. Nowhere is this
tendency of the age more perceptible
than in the barns and fields of the
farmer. The scythe and sickle have
given way to moving machines and
patent reapers, which bind the grain as
fast as they cut it. The fails of the past
have been replaced by wonderful thrash
ing machines run by steam. The sower
with his bag has resigned in favor of
horse power drills" Even the good
old speckled heA is being crowded off the
nest by patent incubators which hatch
where on the farm the influence of sci
ence can be seen.
The results of these efforts to keep up
with the century have not been as graft
flying to the farmer, however, as they
have to the manufacturer. The latter
has prospered and waxed fat and built
up great cities, which grow like mush-
rooms everywhere throughout the land.
But the farmer has found his row as
hard to hoe as ever. His sturdiest sons
and buxomest daughters have deserted
the farm for the cities and there is little
or no increase in the population of the
rural districts. He has had to begin
work as early and stop it as late as he
did in the days of scythes and fails.
The mortgage on his farm has not grown
smaller, but has shown a tendency to in
crease in size. In other words, the farm
er is playing in hard luck while pretty
nearly every one else gets all he de-
serves.
So does the farmer. He deserves to
play in hard luck, for he has made
big mistake, and we generally and just
ly have to suffer for our mistakes.
His progress and improvements have
come to naught because he began his
progress at the wrong end and neglected
to make the most important improve
ment of all. He bought fertilizers
which enabled him to raise big crops
and bought ingenious machinery to
make those crops ready for market, but
he, with open eyes and stubborn heart,
refused to prepare the way for getting
the crops to market after they were
raised and prepared. He made his farm
fertile, his barns conmodious and his
outfit complete, but he did all this on an
island whose communication with the
mainland of the market is made precari-
GUS by every storm and cut off complete
ly if inclement weather continues long.
1t is the most magnificent piece of in
consistency the world has ever seen.
The farmer has improved his farm,
but he has refused to improve the roads
whose condition governs the prosperity
of that farm.
In western New York great many
apples are grown. I remember one
year when the crop was large there
looked as if the western New York
farmers would make great deal of
money out of their seasons yield. The
apple raising tract lay about five miles
from the New York Central railway,l
and lived on the road which afforded
practically the only access to the sta
ton. For about week after the apple
harvest began the weather was good and
this road was in fair condition. Then
there came series of pouring rains.
The mud got deeper and deeper in this
road. The wagons, heavily loaded with
barrels of apples, were pulled through it
with constantly increasing difficulty. AT
first from twelve to sixteen barrels had
been the average load This dwindled
first to ten, then to eight, and finally to
six and four. Then the roads became
practically impossible, ard the apple
raisers of that region were actually
forced to delay selling their crop until
western fruit had flooded the market
and the high prices had passed.
They sustained loss in that single
year large enough to have paved that
whole road with the best macadam twice
over. And that was not the first time
nor the last. But the road has not been
improved. 1t is no better than it was
then. Nor is this locality victim of
unusual circumstances. There are hun
dreds of agricultural neighborhoods
which are as completely at the mercy of
the roads as is this one.
The great argument which is brought
against road Improvement is that it is
so expensive. A few brief calculations
will prove the fallacy of this reasoning.
In the first place there is more than
enough money Tor would be if the taxes
were paid in cash instead of worked
out') now spent ON most of the roads of
the country to pay the interest on twen-
ty year bonds for the improvement of
the roads and the principal when it
comes due, and pay for their careful and
adequate maintenance. Investigation
will show that in no branch of the public
service is there more shameful waste
than there is in that governing the roads.
But arguing that it would cost more
to build good roads and keep them in
good order, there would still be vast
prom Oh Iue LIEeSIulcuI. Ii YOU are d
farmer, sit down and figure up how
much time you lost last year because
the ."going was bad;;" how many extra
trips you had to make to the railroad or
the market because you could only haul
half load through the mud instead of
a full one; how much extra time your
hired men put in because they had to
drive slowly and were occasionally
stuck in the mire; how much it cost to
have repairs made in wagons and har-
nesses which would not have been r1eces-
sary if the roads had been good; how
much it cost to buy and support the ex-
ira horses which bad roads forced you