Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1898-01-22

A county supervisor of New York
bad roads:
1.-The produce shipped from this station
is transported by railroad on an average
of about 500 miles to the consumers; and
1t is transported by wagon roads on an
average of three miles from the farms to
the station With the present roads it
costs the farmers one-half as much to
haul the produce the three miles as they
pay the railroads to haul it 800 miles
With system of macadam roads the cost
cent, thus reducing the whole cost Of
transportation from the farm to the con-
sumner by one-sixth, which would be
saving to the farmers of an amount each
year equal to the interest on from $40 to
$50 an acre according to the crop raised
Ghe larger sum being the sum on the
potato crop, which is one of the main
crops here) and would increase the value
of the land, either to hold or to sell. by
a like amount. These figures may seem
startling. but they are none the less cor
rect"
The same writer remarks as to the
cost of building country roads:
Within the last thirty years there have
been expended on the highways in this
country over $1,000 per mile, and. with the
exception of a few miles IN the town of
Canandaigua, they are no better than
they were at the beginning of that period;
and should the same system be continued
for the next thirty years. a like sum
would have been expended and the cond1-
as it is now. The few miles referred TO
in Canandaigua are crushed stone or ma
cadam roads, built at an expense to the
town outside of the regular highway tax
Four or five years ago the town bought
stone crusher, and has expended the
s., 900 per year allowed by law, under the
dTeo5en Of their very 1oent hghTag
roads, consisting of a crushed stone road
bed about eight feet wide and nearly a
foot deep in the center OF turnpike some
twenty-five or thirty feet wide. sloping
enough to shed the surface water. but not
too steep to drive on any part of it, at an
expense of 500 to 500 per mile, the small
er sum in cases where the stone has been
contributed and drawn into piles by the
neighboring farmers without expense TO
the town. AS result they have in that
town ten miles or more of such roads
and so well pleased are they with the i'm
provement that they have had a special
act passed by the Legislature during the
last session empowering the town to vote
upon the question of expanding $1,000 per
year in addition to the 81 600 already al
lowed by law in building such roads
These roads are just as good in December
or March as they are in July or Septem-
Der; they have increased the value of adj
joining farms many times the cost Of the
roads, and the subsequent cost Of keep
ing them in good repair will be much less
than the cost under the ordinary system
of keeping them in poor repair"
The expense of bad roads and tie
economy and advantages of good ones
are so well known that they need no
demonstration, but heretofore, as the
Louisville Courier-Journal points out,
farmers have recoiled from improve
ments because of the cost of turnpikes
Turnpikes are very valuable, and they
can be built much more cheaply than
is generally supposed, but where they
are impracticable there is no reason
why few roads might not be built
on the plan described by this New
Yorker Mr.. Ira Crib. one of the Can
analogue Commissioners, gives several
instances. A mile on the Lake Shore
cost SAT, with nearly all the stone
and 500 of labor donated. On the
Bristol road three miles. graded 81
feet wide, macadamized 8 feet wide AZ
top and 10 feet at bottom, 100 rods Of
it Is inches deep, remainder l foot,
the cost was only $3.50 a mile. In
some cases. the stone cost twenty cents
a yard delivered at the crusher; in
others they broke up powders in fields
at thirty cents cubic yard and the
farmers hauled them free. These roads
are estimated to have added $50 an
acre TO the value of adjoining lands
and to have doubled the average loads
hauled
What is the reason West Virginia
can not adopt such an inexpensive
plan as this or better plan?