The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-03-30

port great number of cats and set
them free in Staffordshire.
Naturally the unbelieving scoffed
at the proposed antidote, for they
deemed the suggestion ridiculous.
They asked a reason for SO extTaOr-
binary a prescription.
" The peculiar flavor of the Stat
fordshire cheese comes from a hybrid
clover which formerly grew here in
great abundance, said Lubbock. The
bumblebee is the one means of cross
fertilizing that clover. The field mice
have increased very rapidly in num-
bers of late. and they are destroying
the nests of the bumblebees. If you
can destroy the mice, the bees can
work on that clover, and Staffordshire
cheese viii soon be as good as ever.
Get cats therefore.
Death in the Dust.
Il don't vouch for the story" con-
tinued DR.. Cushman, but / endorse
it for its power of illustrating the deli
cate equilibrium which, under our
complex civilization. exists between
the public health and public utilities.
Nobody Will deny that the 2.l5O, 900
miles of public roads of America con-
sutute the national dust factory and
FURNISH fully 80 per cent of the dust
We lnhale. The delicate breathing an
paratus of the human BODY was never
meant 10 harbor such substances as
every passing breeze blows from the
thoroughfares, and the percentage of
people dying from disease carried nv
uust is higher than is generally be-
lieYed.
When the public will concede that
10 De a fact the director of public
roads and the state and county road
oulideFs and overseers will be given
greater degree of popular support
than they now receive. Tell the ordin-
any eltlzen' or the busy farmer, that
the pad, hust-heavy roads are not
merely disagreeable. but dangerous to
health as well, and he smiles sarcas-
tcally and shifts the conversation
Awakened by Loss of Property.
The American becomes a skeptic
when you confront him with propo-
SttiOn which, to him. is akin to the
cats of Staffordshire.' If he doesn't
understand what you are talking
about he assumes that you don't un-
derstand it yourself. He finds dusty
roads menace only when it is
brought home to him that they cost
MN money. That was demonstrated
to the orange growers of California a
few years ago, when dust-covered
fruit no longer commanded so high a
price as when free from dust The re-
suit was an aroused interest in road
Improvement and in dust suppression
Appeals on the score of cleanliness
and good health never stirred the Cal
ifornians, but slump in the price of
oranges brought about a wonderful
era of activity. The outcome was gra-
tifying, and California soon had dust
less oiled roads. In that state the
oils possess a higher asphaltum base
than the oils of any other section of
the world. and when they are spread
on the roads the volatile portion of the
oil eVapOrates ana the aSphaltum re-
mains as a binder.
The almost immediate success of
this plan attracted the attention of
highway engineers throughout the
world. In France and some of our
eastern states il was at once assumed
that oiling was the best road treat
ment and that the longed-for solution
Of the dust nuisance problem had been
found.
That has not been proved to be
the case, because in many localities
the only oil available possesses a pc
trOleum rather than as asphaltum
odst. II mas Deen lOund mat when the
volatile portion evapOTates the oil left
behind becomes greasy and similar in
TO Vaseline. Such quality
of oil does not adhere and bind the
road, but is picked up and scattered
by passing traffic and the man who
gets a reasonable quantity of it on
his clothes becomes a firm enemy to
road Oiling.
If. then, as doctors say, dust means
dirt: dirt means disease. and disease
means death, dusty roads have no
place in our national economies"
When a fair percentage of the
men and women of the coun-
try grasp those truths thus interest
ngly voiced by Or, Cushman, a de-
termined effort will be made to Sc
cure clean and dustless roads