The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-12-05
GOOD ROADS.
What Citizen Has to Say in Reply to
Truth.
To the Editor Of the Press:

1t would be unreasonable TO trespas
on your space and your readers tim
with any personal controversy, but sinos
reply to the article in your Issue O.
last Thursday may shed IN ore light OF
the subject of Good Roads, shall ash
your indulgence.
IL my former article, / stated that
the average Cost per mile Of the state
roads already constructed in Mnssachu-
setts was $40, 400. That statement was
made on the authority of a reply to my
enquiry, by the clerk of the Massaoha-
sets Highway Commission, which reads,
"the work done by this com mission in
the years Is94.95 cost in round figures
$40, 800 mile. - .'Truth" says "they
cost over $1,000 less per mile. f" On what
authority was the correction made?
My criticism of "Truth's 8" broad as
serrion of a general truth" does not seem
to me to be weakened By his reply, but
thsre is 10 need of wasting words about
1t. That whole railroad argument is ut
terly useless. "Truth' reminds us, as
though it were a fact overlooked, that
some freight does not pass over the rail-
roads. There are no data for making q
comparison, but If one should tell me
that for every ton of freight which pass
es over the railroads of Maine twenty
tons pass an average distance of one
mile, over her highways, / should not
venture to question it, and / should want
nc better material for showing the utter
absurdityzof that class of claims for Good
Roads than the preposterons figures to
be obtained by applying to the whole
road traffic the treatment now SO conf
IDENTIFY applied to that small part which
makes up railroad freight.
'tTruth'' claims he did not intimate
that 1900 pounds and COCO pounds were
normal loads for the roads we now have,
leading to Portland, and those we ought
to have. The matter is not very i'm
portant though be carefully ignores that
part of his statement in which the inti-
nation was conveyed. That was the
question immediately following his state
ment about loads of hay in Portland and
in France. Il asked lean the farmers
afford to lose such ssdividend?" Farm
ers are not losing dividends unless they
are eglecting what they ,ould do and
ought to do. He says cit is u fact con-
frmed by numerous experiments Of
French, English, and American en-
giners, that 1t takes only one third the
power to drag given load on q
macadsm road that it does to move the
same load on fair earth road. /" En-
ginseers claim more than that. In the
g Independent" of April 9, 1891, in the
Department, is an article
on Good Roads written under ths inspir-
alton of book published by Henry G.
Baird of Philadelphia, containing the
University of Pennsylvania prize essays
on Good Roads, and other papers thought
worthy TO be bound up with them. In
the article is an estimate taken from
that book. Those essays are often re-
ferred to in Good Road literature, and rs
e paper and the writer ara thoroughly
| presume the extract may be
accepted without q"estion. 1t says,
. Estimating dTaaght on an iron road at
10 per cent, the Per centage that can be
drawn on Telford or Macadam ia 1S, on
cohlies Is, on gravel 812," and the
writer adds "Ihat runs mud road
down SO low as to be unworthy of fig
ares.'' Upon such estimates, Good Road
writers often claim that loads five times
De 1dkSb tSzA DO III UvcE lIdCdQlsII
roads as over earth roads. But one some
what important fact they fail to take ao-
count Of. These engineers estimates era
pre- pared for level ground only. Yet a
hole class of writers trot uphill and
down-hill with them over their paper
roads subhpely unconscious of the gap
in their proof. When wise men talk and
write such nonsense, it is time to let the
horses talk, and get back to horse sense
If iC f0
rance or to New Jersey or anywhere
Else to know what horses can draw. We
have earth roads and we have payements
right under our eyes. We know by &C.
tual experiment what can be done. In
the loads which are practical
BILE in a given locality, good many
come III which engineers
do not pretend to take account of. Ac-
5ual experience is the only surs guide.
In my former article, ] intimated that
the saving of hauling expense by improv-
I'D roads would be about fifty per cent |
or such kind of freight as / indicated. |
In the report of the Massachusetts High |
way Commission of one of the worst |
roads they have reconstructed, where the |
grades were reduced "from 10 per cent to |
ess than five per cent, and the road |
vas maoadamized, it is stated that the
,hange ''made it possible to nearly |
iouble the weight of loads traversing |
it," "Irnth" figures ont the saving to |
the farmer. by selling one horse, but will |
be kindly tell me how the farmer who |
reeds more than one horse, but could get |
along with less than two, can dispose of |
5he two-thirds or ope-half of the extra |
animal or how the niultitudes of farmers |
who have unly one horse can dispose of
he unused third and save keeping, etc. |
ask the information chiefly because |
hat eminent agricultural authority, Col |
Pope of Boston, who also knows some |
hing about bicycles, has figured out a |
avine of over one hundred million dol
ars annually to the country from just |
uoh conditions.
"Truth'' seeks to convict me of incoD-
istenoy in estimating the cost of macad-
.mizing all the town roads of Freeport |
While admitting that three to five miles
n each town satisfied Massachusetts
armers. ] did not say it satisfied them,
said many of them now favored the
'olicy. Many of them do not. But /
satisfied, why should they beS
Truth" is not authorized to speak for
hem, but he does speak for himself and
ssumes to speak for his fellow wheel +
men. He says that an average of four
niles in each town would satisfy The
most exacting wheelman in Maine" and
1