The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1905-03-16
THE FARMERS LOSS.
Cost Of Hauling Products Over I'm
improved Roads.

AAOAS WI WIN AAAs1N q SOOd cNOitAtiiN vi
the navy" said Kansas City man to
a representative of the Kansas City
Star recently. mo doubt he will be
of great value to the government
there, but if | had been president
try to imagine til would have used
Mr.. Morton for a new cabinet place.
He would have been at the head of
the department of rOads-not railroads,
but county roads, highways. That's
it; he'd be secretary of highways. and
the purpose of his department would
be to build and maintain roadways-
fine smooth highways from one end
of the country to the other.
II was riding through Kansas with
him one day when he was second vice
president of the Atchison, Topeka
and Santa Fe railroad. The train stop
ped at tank, and we watched far
mer irving to make two fine horses
drag a wagon load of wheat through
mud that came to the hubs.
There's a good example of it; said
Morton. That man has probably
driven five or six miles through soft
roads to bring that wheat to market,
and tits doubtful if he has considered
the loss in time and money mud high
ways mean to him. The people seem
to take bad roads as matter of course
No man would think of thrashing
wheat with fail nowadays, but still
they use seventeenth century roads
roads 200 wears or more behind the
rest of the farm equipment.
That farmer back there probably
lives five miles from the shipping
point, and it costs him as much to
haul load of wheat to the mills as
the railway company charges to haul
it 200 miles to Kansas City. The time
and labor given to hauling that load
of wheat to market are a direct tax
on the farmer and indirectly on the
consumer. Good roads to market
save money for farmers as directly as
do improved machines.
"MY idea is that labor organizations
and the farmers by working together
could bring results, and quick ones.
The laboring man is interest ed on
the other side-as consumer. Be
sides, the workingman's products are
returned to the farmer, and there is
another needless tax collected by bad
roads. If | were leader of organized
labor would do what could to have
both of the great political parties de-
clare for the use of convict labor in
road building and denounce the man
ufacture of shoes, agricultural nipple.
ments, cooperage and so on by prison.
ers. Building of highways is pub
lie service, and it seems to me that il
is the right direction in which to EN-
ploy ablebodied people maintained at
public expense.
Il am sure that the railroads would
be glad indeed to carry stone and
other raw material at very low rate
for road improvements. Material
could be prepared in the prison, so
keeping down the number of convicts
who would have to be at work on the
road proper. The railways appreciate
what good roads mean to them. The
first result would be a direct saving
in time and money to the farmer, Civ
ing him a better chance to improve
his land. The more the soil produces
the better for the railway in that ter
ritory.
The chief objection to farm life is
the lack of society. The telephone
has overcome that to some extent
but any young fellow on the farm
will tell you that telephone CONVEX
sation is poor substitute for an
evening drive in buggy. The men
in the country have the buggies and
surveys and horses, but they can be
used only about half the time. Mud
to the hubs.
"A farmer on average country roads
in average weather, rain and shine
with two horses may haul two loads
of sixty bushels of wheat each in a
day to town, say five miles away. His
time and team are worth So day at
least. He can get that much work
ing on a railroad. Now, that means
it costs him p cents bushel to haul
that 1870 bushels of wheat to market.
Say he raised thirty bushels of wheat
to the acre, just to be liberal, drayage
alone costs him rs cents an acre. On
corn it would cost him 81. That's
what you might call heavy taxes, and
most of the farmers ere paying il
every year without realizing it.
"On a good macadamized road, laid
out with respect to the topography
of the country, the same team could
easily haul twice as much as on mud
road. That would reduce the cost OF
transportation by one half-cut down
the farmers draYage taxes from 81
an acre to so cents. Besides, any
farm in touch with good roads would