Morris tribune., 1908-10-03
GOOD ROADS.
To Some Extent Helped by Cheap
Water Transportation.

The suggestion given by the post
Office department that it cannot main
tain rural free delivery routes over
roads which are not in passable
Icondition, cannot help but give a
stimulus to road construction, and in
crease the interest in road building
throughout the country, says a
Washington dispatch.
Prof. w. M. Hays, assistant secre-
tary of agriculture, who is an en-
thusiastic advocate of good roads,
and an authority on agricultural sub
Ijects, sees in the notice issued by the
postoffice department. a step toward a
comprehensive system of road build
ing by county and state authorities
correlated to the work now going ON
under the direction of the department
of agriculture, and its division of good
roads.
It has come to be well accepted that
larger treatment of the waterways
of the country, on more compre-
hensive scale, for which the National
Rivers and Harbors congress stands,
means better roads, and therefore a
blessing to the farmers, increased
value for his farms and easier move
ment for his wagons.
With comprehensive plan of deal
ing with the water highways of the
nations on the part of the general
government the building of roads
would be made much easier than now,
for it would be possible to trans
port metalling material for roads far
distances by water, which under ex-
listing conditions is impossible. a
IF the Lakes-to -the-Gulf project of
increasing the depth of the Missis-
sippi is accomplished it would be
possible to transport the refuse from
the ore mines of the Duluth Superior
region to the lower Mississippi and
use this extremely hard material for
road building in a half dozen states
bordering on the Father of Waters.
Trap rock, which is the toughest
kind of hard rock, used loosely to-
designate various dark colored igne-
Gus r8ssk wears well as read material,
and with improved waterways to in,
sure transportation its use would be
an accomplished fact.
Rock from the Palisades has also
been used for road building, especial
ly in New York and portions of New
England, but with an inland water
way from New York to Florida it's
use upon the roads of the south would
insure results at present but little ap-
preciated, and make possible the de-
sire of the postmaster general to
have, in the United States, a system
of roads the equal of those in France,
Brittany and rural England.
It is remarkable how closely the
nations waterways are related to the
material welfare of the whole people,
affecting in minor degree both
steam and electric railway transpor-
tation, solving the bulkier freight
problems by making the rivers and
streams respond to the uses of navi-
cation.
In this connection it is interesting
to note that the traffic moved by rail-
roads in the United States exceeds
four and one-half million tons every
"a hours, and that the railroad traffic
of the country has doubled in the
last seven years while the facilities
for transporting it have increased less
than rs per cent. Should the next
seven years prove as productive and
as fruitful of large returns as the last
seven years, that traffic, in the very
nature of things, ought to double
again and then arise the question,
how is it to be carried?
Unless it can be carried there will
be little or no inducement to increase
its volume, and without the physical
ability to transport the output of the
farm, mine and factory production
will necessarily suffer. With the rail-
roads unable to meet the demands of
the great producing forces of the
country, for the carriage of their
products, the waterways of the ma
ton, through it's rivers, streams and
canals, will be called upon to bear it's
proportion of the transportation and
a comprehensive system of waterway
as urged by the Ma
tlonal Rivers and Harbors congress,
becomes imperative.