The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-11-05
THE GOODROADS MOVEMENT
By Frederic J. Haskin.

A real entry into the giant task of learning what steps may best be taken to uplift the farmers of the United States has been made by Professor Liberty Hyde Bailey and his associates on the Presidents Country Life Com mission At the outset of their en- deavor they have had 1t forced upon them that the crying need of the rural communities is better highways.
 Following the naming of the com mission by the President came floods of unsolicited letters to Washington. From every section of the United States these communications poured into the offices of the Commission It was found that 80 per cent of the writers mentioned the urgent need of model highways in the opening para graphs of their letters. Many com plained that poor roads were almost entirely responsible for the lack of education among the children of far mers; that they bred disease; that they appreciated the value of adjacent lands; iR fact, that nearly all of the ills from which rural communities suf- fered could be directly traced to the impossible stretches which in many sections pass for roads.
 If the farmers had any realization OL Inc' VdSL 6ufNlS OA IflDHCy III WDtCh they are mulcted because boggy stretches, called roads by courtesy. im- pose an unjust mud tax upon them, the county supervisor who dared vote against a prospective appropriation for the extension and maintenance of model highways would be no safer at a grange picnic than plump blonde missionary on a cannibal is- land.
 Tno-nStAfo a~ |. ~.a.x .oo~. So ~-o-. the actual road tax burden the far mers are forced to carry upon their already stopping shoulders is not less than half a billion dollars a year. due solely to the almost criminal condi- ton of roads. Carefully established statistics prove that each ton hauled over the country roads of the United States costs the man who hauls it thir- teen cents more than the hauling of a ton costs the farmers of Europe, where good roads are appreciated and zea1ousiy maintained by far-seeing governments.
 Investigations conducted by the Of- flee of Public Roads of the United States Department of Agriculture, by the Industrial Bureaus of various railroads, and by Road Associations, have established the fact that the average cost of hauling per ton mile in
 
 the average cost in Europe's three leading countries-Englanj, France and Germany-ranges from the low cost of seven cents over the national routes of France to thirteen cents over the worst roads of England. In mas sing statistics, it Is no more than fair to err on the side of conservatism. Therefore, it is generous to place the average cost of hauling in those coun- HrEaa Ot hok nntt.f be granted, the loss to the American farmer must be large. Let us look. therefore. at once of the crop seasons, the year 1905-06 being the last for which statistics are obtainable.
 Reports from the Bureau of Statis- tics of the Department of Agriculture prove that s5, 4S7. 100000 pounds of farm products. consisting of barley. corn, cotton, flaxseed, hemp. hops, oats. peanuts, rice, tobacco. wheat and wool were hauled from farms to ship pips points That enormous weight did not include products hauled from farms to mills, and from mills back to farms. Neither did it include all of the crops produced; the noticeable in- stances being truck products and fruits. Nor does it comprise any of the products of forests and mines, nor the commodities which go from city to country Divide that poundage Into tonnage by thirteen cents. and the figures begin to prove to the farmer that he Is not far-sighted business man.
 It has been further settled that the average length of haul of all farm products is 9.4 miles. so that sum may be again multiplied and the result will be loss of SLY for every ton hauled over our roads. On the products above mentioned, 1t totals s5S,900.000, but large as is that sum, it is only a trif- ling per cent of the actual waste.
 The report of the Interstate Com merce Commission for the fiscal year which ended June 30, 1906. shows that the railroads handled S20, ,164,627 tons of freight, originating on their respec- tive roads. Of that, the products of the mines constituted 53.09 per cent, and manufactures, 14.81 per cent. Exclude these from any consideration, on the theory that mine products and ma manufactures travel by rail and not by wagon, and there is left thirty-two per cent of agricultural, forest anj miscellaneous products; maximum of