Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1897-01-13
Good County Roads.

Good County Roads.
There has been so much written and
published on the Importance to the
farmer of good roads, that scarcely
anything new can be said on the sub.
ject. Yet SO much of the prosperity Of
the farmers interests depends upon
the condition of the county roads that
we venture to repeat what most farm.
ers already know.
The difference between good roads
and bad ones often accounts for the
difference between success and failure.
This may seem a strong assertion. but
let us look at the conditions of two
farmers with equally good farms, a
few miles from a good public road,
which leads to a good market. They
both can raise on their farms products
which they must market to get their
full value. The n has a good cross
road, easy of access, which within o
mile reaches a public highway, and he
a always haul his hay and corn, his
chickens and butter and his eggs to
market at the time of year that they
bring the highest prices, which is gen.
orally in the fall and winter. He pre-
pares his product for the market and
has always a team ready to 60 to town
when the time comes. He gets the
highest prices for all his products and
gets to town and back in the least pos.
sible time. His farming is adjusted to
supplying a market which he knows
he can always reach when he wishes.
His family, too, can make calculations
for their necessary trips to town. They
know the roads are always in good
order and that even the coolest or
toughest weather of winter need not
stop them.
They IA make the most possible
profit from their trading in the town,
and they are always on the alert for
the most profitable marketing.
The other farmer can, if he wishes,
raise just what his neIghbor has raised
and sold for the cash. But he is so
hemmed in by bad roads, that for one
half the year he can not calculate on
the time that he can bring ANYTHING
to town. He must wait until the roads
dry up, or if, in his restraint, he be-
comes impatient and determines to
drag through the mud, he must have
twice the teams 10 do the work which
his neighbor has done, and twice the
time for the trip, so that an all day
drive, mostly through the mud, will
scarcely accomplish what his neighbor
has done easily in a few hours. Be
sides, many things which require fire..
quent marketing can not be taken to
market at the proper time, the roads
are too bad. There is, therefore, no
care taken to prepare them for the
market. If butter accumulates, or
eggs are gathered from the barn, they
must be sold to the huckster at a re
duced price, and become atonce second
class, in which there is no profit. The
COWS are not cared for, as if the butter
could be marketed at high prices, for
even high grades are not profitable,
and the chickens are not selected for
their egg producing qualities, for to
them an egg is an egg, and a pound of
butter sold to the huckster need have
no great care, for the wife does not get
much for it, and she must often take
the price in barter, because she can
not go to town to get what she needs
until the roads get better.
The difference in the order and thrift
in the two families soon becomes ap-
parent. The one becomes thrifty. and
prosperous, and the other becomes care.
less and shiftless; and not because they
were not originally both anxious and
able to improve and prosper, but be.
cause n has been plastered up one
half the year by the mud of bad roads,
and the other has had free access to
town, diving always on good roads
and doing the shopping and marketing
under the best possible conditions.
Good roads, with modern helps, can
be easily constructed, if the county
commissioners and the farmers will
unite for a definite purpose. In most
cases the farmer never expects to make
a good road by the work he is willing
to spend on it. His object often goes
no further than to work out his taxes
and to mend the road in his immediate
neighborhood. This work, too. is al.
most always done when he has nothing
else to do, or when he thinks he can
spare the time. His work consists in
filling up the chock holes with sand
or gravel if they are near at hand, or,
il neither can be had, then with clay
or sod and soil. The end of it all is,
that when the road is used, two holes
are often made, where there was only