The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-01-11
MATERIAL FOR ROAD BUILD

provement of the highways. It is true and beyond contradiction that Connecti- cut, small as it is. has the finest trap rock quarries to be found in the United States. These are confined to certain localities, towns or districts, and do not extend over the entire state. In some towns we find granite, mica, brown stone and mica shist, while in other towns there are hardly any stones, and all the material for road construction in the way of maeadam treatment has to be imported This adds to the expense, and makes it practically impossible for some of the towns to have macadam or telford road. In many towns we find banks and pits of gravel for road con- struction with good bonding qualities, and little sand, just the material to make a first-class road. These towns are nicely conditioned, for the commis- sioner finds that gravel intelligently used and built under a proper specified tion, will make as fine a road for gene ral purposes as any one may wish to ride over, besides requiring no special tools or appliances, very little, if any, skilled labor, and the commissioner has has built quite a number of gravel roads, at a cost of not over $1,000 per mile, and has one now under contract for less than $500 mile. A gravel road having such conditions surrounding it to build by, cannot help but be popular. Other towns have very little, if any, gravel, few lodges of stone, and what ever gravel is to be found is washed gravel, with a preponderance of sand
 The commissioner has treated several roads with gravel of this character and
 by bonding artifcially has succeeded in
 making some very good roads. These are only few of the conditions which
 confront the towns to make the good roads movement somewhat unpopular It has been and will continue to be the
 purpose of the commissioner while he remains Tn office, to meet the conditions
 that prevail in every way that is possi-
 ble, and help them to overcome any ob- stacles that may interfere with the town
 taking advantage of the state appropri- ation.
 WIDE SCOPE IN ROAD BUILDING.
 The commissioner is not welded to
 any particular kind of road as the only
 road that must be laid by every town in
 the state. Such a course would be eX-
 tremely foolish, unWise and unfair to
 the people, whose representatives in the
 house and senate have passed law for
 the purpose of assisting all the towns in
 the state so that every town might
 stand on the broad plane of equality
 and all meet on the common level. The
 attitude of the towns toward the good
 roads movement has undergone won
 J osf,,l abay a hat
 standing is had to-day between the se
 lectmen and the commissioner and there
 has been established bond of co-part-
 nership and cooperation between the
 towns and the state relative to it. The
 commissioner believes that this senti-
 ment will grow, and that, with the in
 coming legislature and the experience
 that the towns and the commissioner
 have had in following the workings of
 the two laws in '95, '96 and '97, that a
 law will be drafted which shall more
 nearly meet the requirements of the
 hous, and many of the things which are to-day insurmountable obstacles to the towns will be removed and the educa- tional period which we have gone through during the past three years will be productive of great good to all con- eerned in this vital question.
 It would be difficult matter to draft a law that would suit every one and meet the exigencies of every town in the state. Conditions change materially in adjoining towns. Some have large
 grand list and small tax bills to pay. Others have small grand lists and large tax bills to pay. Some towns have six ty miles to take care of; others four hundred. But a suggestion might natu- rally be made that the towns with the 1 largest number of miles had the worst conditions confronting them This may | not be so as the town with from two I hundred to four hundred miles may I have a larger grand list to draw from, l while the town with sixty miles might | be already overburdened with large | bonded indebtedness, a large tax list and small grand list.
 FAITH IN GOOD ROADS MOVE MENT.
 | I have sufficient faith in the wisdom | and intelligence of the gentlemen who I shall be sent to represent the interests l of the several towns in the state, that 1 all the shortcomings of both these laws l will be met, and that a law will be drafted and passed which will be emi-
 nently satisfactory to the whole state
 and I believe firmly that the good roads
 movement is something which has come 1 to stay, because I believe that it is a l thing that has not come up in the night l or in the past week. or during the past | three years. I believe that the farmers | of the state of Connecticut have beer 1 fully awake to the necessity for better roads many years; indeed, have trav- | eled the state of Connecticut over, and | in my travels I have never met mar who was not firm believer in good I roads
 SYMPATHY WITH THE FARMERS l The commissioner is not surprised tha | the good roads movement did not imme I diately receive that hearty support thai | it deserved, when he remembers that 1 during the last thirty-seven years the l Connecticut farmer has had much te
 contend with. At the time of our civi | war many farms were neglected ol abandoned, Connecticut furnishing hel | quota of men to fight to preserve the l Union. Many of Connecticut's son. came from the farms. Homes were | broken up and the farming industry re I ceived 8 serious blow. After the wal | was over she had hardly begun to re cover her lost ground, before the west 1 with all her natural advantages, wooet | and won a great army of tillers of tht l soil. Then capital seconded their ef i fo1.tG and the wasteru pildernasc ha