Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1908-02-27

Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey
and New York. 1t is generally thought
that if we once built macadam roads we
should not have to touch them again,
while as a matter of fact macadam costs
more to maintain than the ordinary
road-$120 per mile in Massachusetts,
800 per mile in New Jersey as against
$38 mile for the $4,000 miles of dirt
road in Vermont. Would you be willing
by taxation to maintain highways at the
cost of Massachusetts, New York or New
Jersey? The latter has an immense cor
poration tax, of which 10 per cent covers
her highway expenditures.
Vermont cannot do like New Jersey.
Under our law, instead of expanding
large sums of money in building trunk
lines, we raise by a. five per cent tax $685.
900. that with the automobile tax,
amounts to $4,000. This sum is put in
to every town in the state, divided on the
basis of road mileage-S6. so for every
mile in a township. Randolph pays in a
little more than she gets back. Burling-
toms tax is $4,000 and she receives
Sc, 600, the balance being scattered among
the smaller towns.
With only 25 per cent tillable land in
the state, and the rest woodland and
ing to our cloth and wait until Vermont
is more thickly dotted with cities before
we try to vie with our neighbors in the
matter of macadam roads. To begin
with the cost OF machinery for the con-
struction of those roads for any town or
number of towns would eat up all our
money and leave their maintenance un-
provided for.
The state highway commissioner says
how highway money shall be laid out.
Fifteen thousand miles of road in YER
mont, with special grades up and down
the valleys, follow brooks and rivers, pass
woodlands and swamps, and climb hills
on beds of all kinds of soil from sand to
gravel and clay. In the summer after the
spring freezes and rains are over, a dirt
road is good enough for anything we
want. Even clay, when dry, makes a
beautiful road, the best we can have.
You cannot load your teams so that it
will break down. Any kind of road, ex-
cept sand road, is all right when in
good condition. By understanding you
can improve soil that is too wet, the un-
derdrain taking care of the moisture, and
by taking off the top of hill you can
change the grade from % per cent to Is
per cent or lower and be able to draw two
tons instead of one up the incline.
Correcting grades and understanding
are the only permanent kinds of work
we can do now. Later If we want maca-
pam roads we shall have the road bed al
ready for it. A stone road, unless il is
built very carefully and with due regard
TO the action of water, is the most expen-
sive kind of work we have been doing;
for the stones will loosen in time and
make rough travelling.
Our highways generally need widening
and many of them are so narrow as to be
Even if we detest the auto
mobile and want to make as bad travel
ing as possible for the machine, our own
safety should make us desirious of having
a wide road on which to meet the gaso-
lene monster. Often the drivers of
horses are more frightened at the auto
than their steeds--as in a case that came
under the observation of the speaker,
who saw two ladies suddenly confronted
by a car, turn into a nearby dooryard,
Jump from the carriage and rush on the
piazza of the house, while the horse, left
20 its own devices, fell to cropping grass
as the auto whizzed by.
Ninety-three miles of thoroughfare
have been improved this year, not in long
stretches, but the main highways have
been repaired, and the character of the
roads in the state raised little. If we
continue this a few years. we shall not be
wasting our funds. At March meeting
elect for road commissioner a man who
will do the work as it should be done, no
matter if he spends 800 more than a
ess far-sighted person might. Saving
present expense is not always economy
IN the long run. Don't turn a good maj
Town who has been in Office some time
because some other man has team and
wants the job. A road commissioner
should have under him assistants, to
whom he can entrust the care of certain
highways, for whose condition they are
held responsible. The earlier you begin
work on the roads in the spring the bet
er; for there are only five months in the
year when good roads are of any use
buried under two or three feet of snow
they are all very much alike.
While the law in regard to cutting
brush is good one, some judgment
should be exercised in its application. 1t
sn't necessary to destroy the beauty of
he highways by denuding them of every
shrub and vine, making them both bare
ind unattractive.
"A sOlo Dy MISS Lettle DdlleN, Nedtu
he Old Cherry Tree, Little Marie" with I
quartet chorus, was pleasant interlude |
preceding the next address by Amos j. |
Eaton of South Royalton on 'Native |
Birds and Their Connection with Agricul- |
ure." When the first white people came |
o America they found things balanced |
Up nicely and at once set to work to dis !
urb the balance. Little birds eat bugs |
md worms; big birds eat the little ones
Ind are eaten in turn by wild cats and
other animals. When the wild amin ais
we're killed off, the birds became so num-
,rous that the shotgun, snares, etc., were
brought into use, while the bugs and
worms proceeded to flourish to the ex-
RENE annoyance of man, whom they
wen follow to the grave. The remedy
'or all this is to leave nature to herself.
That which is such a nuisance to the
human family is a necessity to the birds,
every one of which is admirably suited to
It's locality with just the right form for
carrying on its work in a particular place.
There are $50 different sparrows in all in
Vermont, and not one of them nor one of
BUR other song birds, is a nuisance.