The progressive farmer and the cotton plant., 1905-06-20
GOOD ROADS.
OF Interest to Manufacturers.

farmer not excepted, has a greater
interest in highway improvement
than those engaged in industrial en-
terprise. If the common roads OF
the country were brought to a con-
dition that would enable farmers to
market their products at all seasons
of the year, the cost of living in town
and city would be greatly lessened,
and discomfort among laboring peo-
pie and operatives in industrial con
Germs would largely decrease if it did
not entirely disappear. Why and
how? Present road conditions com
pei farmers to rush their products
to market as soon as harvested, when
the roads are at their best, as by
waiting a convenient time they may
not get there at all. If one farmer
must do this, his neighbors must dc
likewise. This naturally congests
the market, forcing low prices to
the great detriment of the producer
and without benefit to the consumer
because the average family in town
or city buy only in small quantit'
at one time, say a days or a weeks
supply. What is the result? The
speculator, finding prices low and
knowing that in a little while the
bad roads season will be on when
competing products will be kept
away from trade centers, buys up the
surplus and stores it away for the
day which he knows is surely coming
when he can demand and receive his
own price for his holdings-the stuff
for which men toll; which they are
compelled to have. And when the
citizen in town, the mechanic and
operative of the shons and factories
is forced in winter and spring to
pay exorbitant prices for those arti-
cles of household necessity which
went begging for buyers at low
prices the preceding fall, he figures
the increased cost of living in com
parison and grows restless and dis,
contented and is easily led into
strikes and other labor disturbances
We all know what usually follows
This, of course, is not all that enters
into strike causes, but it contributes
a full share 1t ought to be perfect
ly plain to American manufacturers
that the continuous, orderly opera.
ton of industrial business depends
on measurably contented operatives
that men are never contented when
the cost of living is above their earn.
ing capacity; and that prices of food
stuffs from the farm would be always
at a decent living level to all con.
cerned if We had Systematically i'm
proved highways over which farmers
could travel to market any day in
the year. These farmers would real
ize better prices for their products
than they do and still be able to sell
to all classe of consumers at lower
prices than is forced by spectators
in the bad-roads season. If this po-
sition is sound. then the duty of
manufacturers seems to be to lend
their every influence to the support
of the Brownlow-Lati bills which
seek to bring about systematic and
scientific highway construction and
improvement in cooperation with
the States. 1t is no less in their own
interest than that of the farmers.
who are their best patrons after all.
And it is not less the interest of all
consumers of farm products in every
town and city in the United States,
and of every railroad and other cor
poration employing labor of any
kind, and of every railroad and build
ing contractor and others having