Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1906-06-06
OF Vital Interest to All who Use
.ll# Public Highways.
Cheap Business Developer
The Good Accomplished by the
Il Present Movement.
F. D. Coburn, Secretary Kansas State
{ Board of Agriculture, Issues Cir
cular Describing and Illus
trating a Drag that
tl, Does the Work.
Topeka, Ks, May 81, 1906.

HI TOPEKA, MS, May 81, lSUo.
Recent demonstrations by The Atchi
| son, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Com
pany at the larger towns along its
| NESS of the King Road Drag has awak-
ened a widespread interest in good roads
among the farmers of Kansas. Already
the farmers are organizing by neighbor-
hoods, or townships, and wherever the
| simple device is employed there is an inn
mediate improvement of the highways.
The device simply is a split-log, the
| two halves set thirty (3O) inches apart,
which after every rain is dragged over
| the highway from one neighbours gate to
another's, and the job is done.
1t is the discovery of D. Ward King,
farmer of Holt County, Missouri, who
gives it to the world without money or
price. The demonstrations along the
Santa Fe were by Mr.. King. They be-
gan at Olathe March 26, and ended at
Topeka April 4. Mr.. King and his as
ssistants travelled by special train, MAX
| ing one demonstration and addressing
two meetings day. Mr.. King personal,
| ~ used the drag, talking the while to
| the farmers, who by previous invitation,
| published in the local papers, came to
| witness the several performances.
| Ihe demonstrations were at Olathe,
lola, Girard, Erie, Coffeyville, Independ-
| ence, Chanute, Lawrence, Emporia and
Topeka. AT these meetings there was an
aggregate attendance of about 5000
farmers and 357 drags were promised.
Of these LAT were put into use imme-
diately.
| LAt Olathe the commissioners of John
son County presented The Atchison, To-
peka 4 Santa Fe Railway Company a
resolution of thanks.
| at Wellsville the city council adopted
q resolution of thanks, and since the
meeting there the rural mail carriers re-
port that fifty-two miles of the seventy
| hVe miles of rural routes out of Wells
v1lie now are covered by the road drag.
| AT Ottawa the business men raised a
purse of $500 for the best five miles of
road kept up by the King road drag,
and the Ottawa Herald offers $500 for
the best three miles of road kept up by
individuals. The county commissioners
and the city council adopted resolutions
| OF thanks. The city has adopted the drag
for its unpaved streets.
| At lola resolution of thanks was
passed by the assembled farmers, and the
city will use the drag on it's streets.
! At Girard thirty-fve farmers are us.
ing the drag.
| Other men who addressed these meet
lngs, besides Mr.. King, We're Thomas II.
Macdonald, Secretary of the Iowa High
! way Commission, who spoke of the use.
fulness of the King drag; Prof W. C.
Hood, of the Kansas University, who
spoke OF culvert constructions, drainage,
Kansas material for making hard roads,
and cost of maintenance; and C. F.
| Miller, President, and l. D. Graham, Sec.
retary, of the Kansas Good Roads Asso-
citation, who spoke of the work of that
| organization.
| Good roads are good for the farmer
and for the railroad alike. For the farm
| err, they increase the comforts of farm
| lite, enhance the value of his land, en-
able him to deliver his products at any
| time of the year, shorten the distance to
market, to church, and to school, and
save wear and tear of team and wagon.
For the railroad, they make it possible
for q uniform delivery of the products of
the farm In all seasons, and thereby pre-.
vent congestion at stations. when the
roads are bad empty cars lie idle at sta
tions, but when roads are good cars are
loaded promptly and the movement to
the large markets made even and steady.
The farmers, however, derive the great
| er advantage from goods roads, and no
".
Secretary of the State Board of Agri.
culture, sees so much value in the king
drag that he has issued to the farmers Of
the state a poster on the subject. In
this poster Mr.. Coburn tells what sim.
pie device the drag is, how it is made.
and its trif1ing cost. A farmer who un-
derstnnds the use of tools may make
one in his barn on a rainy day, and at
the outside the cost would not be more
than $3.50. He says roads should be
dragged ten or twelve times a year, and
ESPECIALLY after soaking rains. The use
of the drag should begin when the frost
is leaving the ground and be continued
until winter. The work becomes easier
by frequent use of the drag. 1t does
not interfere with the ordinary farm
work, for when the soil is wet, which is
the time to drag the roads, field work is
suspended. Mr.. Coburn saws a good ax.
cuse for not dragging the roads cannot
be invented. If a farmer does not want
TO 10 his part, let him chip in and paw
somebody else. Any boy can use a draS.
1t makes the road smooth, hard and con-
vexb and finally shell forms which sbeds
water as a roof
Ih the meantime, the King drag is
making famous progress. In Neosbo
! County it Is used in every township. and
every mile of road is to be dragged this
spring. ms
Road taxes in all the townships of tho
county have been made payable in cash
this year. and the township boards have
| appropriated funds for constructing and
opeFating drags. In addition, individual
farmers have their own drags.
\ Up Atchison County, the Globe is call.
ing lon township boards to remit the road
taxes of farmers who make and use their
OWN drags The same paper tells of
FARMERS south of Atcl,ison who have com.
binsd to make a bad hill passabIesbv tba
useA Of the drag. They give n doli,r n :
head and the township board gives don.
BILE the amount so raised The hill viii
be dragged after every rain and the man
who does. the work will receive $500 q
dayA a. ID. Wilcox, who in April drove
from Muscotah to Atchison the length of
II the county,, says the roads were
u "a n -