The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1893-04-15
POOR ROADS CAUSE DIscoNTENT.
They Have Done Much to Destroy the Glory
of New England Homes.

They Have Done Much to Destroy the Glory
of New england Homes.
Good roads are of paramount impor.
lance to every citizen, but to the farmer
especially. For the past few decades
the farmer has devoted his attention to
the problem of producing crops of the
best quality III the greatest abundance
at the least cost, and in the solution of
this problem he has succeeded admira.
bly,. But the longer and the better and
the cheaper his product, the poorer, ap-
parently, does he find himself to be at
the end of the year. Others seem to gain
the profit; loss falls to his share.
One cause of this state of affairs is not
difficult to find. The average farmer has
not yet comprehended and solved the
problem of exchange. The expense Of
getting his produce to market and of re.
turning those commodities for which he
has exchanged the products of the farm
falls as a heavy burden upon the agri-
culturist. The cost of carriage of crops
n way from the farm to the railroad
station, 5 to 10 miles distant, and OF
fuel, fertilizers, machinery, commercial
feed stuffs, furniture, clothing and pro.
visions from the markets to the country
home has been so great as to reduce the
value of farms, a little distant from the
centers, so to 100 per cent, causing them
in many cases to be abandoned.
For example, a farm of 25 acres of ar
able land in a square lot containing a
pretty house of five rooms in good re-
pair, a barn, plenty of fruit trees, located
In the midst of magnificent scenery, on
a main road, 1! miles from Amherst col
lege, Massachusetts, within two miles of
two stations on two railroads, hardly a
mile from church and schOolhouse and
store, has been for years offered for sale
without a purchaser and has often been
vacant, while many have paid $50 or 800
more for a tenement of five rooms in a
second story of a village house than was
asked for the rent of the whole farm
house. barn, garden, orchard, pasture
and tillage.
Poor roads are an efficient factor in
producing the discomfort of our rural
population. sly and stony in sum
mer, muddy and deluged in spring and
autumn, rough or slippery or drifted
| with snow in the winter. poor roads are
dangerous to life and limb, a constant
tear upon horses and harnesses, wagons
and carriages. They isolate the farmers
family from the school, from the church,
from the postoffice and all of its educa-
tional facilities, from all the social CEN
tiers of thought and advancing civiliza-
ton. They have done more than any
other single factor TO destroy the glory
of the New England home of olden time,
to produce the abnormal growth of the
city, with its increasing evils, and to
make agriculture unremunerative to the
| farmer.
What can be done to show the farmer
the necessity of good roads? Poor, bad,
abominable roads are common. A piece
of road properly constructed upon which
| the farmer might drive his teams would
do more to convince him of the value
and economy of good roads and to send
him annually into the town meeting
and his representative into the legisla-
ture demanding good roads in return for
taxes assessed than any amount Of
pamphlets and pictures and speechmak-
ing.-Rev. G. S.. Walker in Good Roads.