Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1906-01-24
The Value of Good Roads.


One of the strangest facts of the day
is the inability of the farmers of the
central west to see that a small tax
levied on their properties and applied
to the permanent improvement of the
ordinary highways would be money in
the pockets of each of them In 1900
the people of the state of New York
had their attention called sharply to
the fact that farm values in that state
had shrunk more than six per cent,
or s70,O0O,000, in ten years, and were
more than $400,O00,000 less in the ag-
gregate than they were 80 years be-
fore. Startled into investigation, they
found the same shrinkage in Other
northeastern states except in Alassa-
chusetts, and in that state an increase
of nearly "a per cent. was traced to the
fact that the state had literally i'm
proved it's roads and established park
system. Further study showed that in
New York about 100000 tons per
annum Of farm products were hauled
directly 10 market every year over the
public highways at cost to the farmer
OF not less than 25 cents per ton per
mile, while over roads properly graded
and graveled or macadamed the cost
would be from six to eight cents per
drainage on and below the surface are
such, states the Chicago Chronicle,
that the natural roads, made only by
use, are vastly better in New York
than the average of those laid out and
'v orlled" in Illinois. We pay for our
vastly richer soil with dirt roads that
are bOttomless mud when wet, sitting
with dust when dry and rougher than
lava beds when frozen. No statistics
nor estimates are at hand to show what
the cost of transporting freight per ton
per highway mile in this state may be,
but if it be true, as the experience of
Massachusetts is said to make reason
ably sure, that improved highways
in New York will enable her farmers
to get their products to market 60 per
cent. more cheaply than now like
Improvement in this and other states
along the Mississippi should enable our
farmers to make much larger saving
in the same process, quite surely not
less than IS per cent, even though the
nature of the soil here might make the
first cost of improving considerably
greater. The saving in wear and tear
on the traction animals and on the re-
pairs of harness and wagons alone, to
say nothing of the time gained and the
saving in other ways, ought to make
no small part of the general gain
Ne one who has had experience of I'LL
nois roads in wet autumns or in late
winter and spring can have any doubt
on that point. New York has just
voted a constitutional amendment Or
dering the issue of $5O,OO0,OOO of state
bonds for highway improvement, car
rying an interest charge of three per
cent. per annum and one of two pei
cent. for sinking fund, to be issued
to the amount of $5,000,000 annually
for ten years and to be paid, principal
interest and sinking fund, by the state
and the counties and towns, where ap
piled in the proportions of so per cent
by the state, So per cent. by the coun
ties and 10 per cent. by the towns
The general plan is the outcome OF
long and careful study, based on ex.
perience in Massachusetts and else
where, and it seems worthy of the
closest study by the legislators and
people of the whole country, the great
central west and northwest more es-
pecially. 1t is impossible for every
farmer to have railway station OIL
his farm. For the great majority Of
them the public highways of the coun.
try must forever remain for greater OF
lesser distances the only means of get
ting their products to home markets
or to the great steam arteries of COM
merce-the railways or the rivers OF
ton Of the work is confidently expect
ed to add at least $40 per acre to the
value of the farm lands affected, and
the Mississippi valley would be of ne.
cessity relatively greater.
For every dollar of tax paid for the
purpose enhanced values would be
counted in scores of dollars within a
single lifetime.