Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-12-28
ATTORNEY CHARLES HAYS, OF
ELDoRA, PIONEER NARROW
ROADS ADVOCATE.
HIS ARGUMENTS CAUSE
CARROLL TO ACETATE SUBJECT
Argues That Not Only Would Largo
Acreage be Reclaimed to Agriculture,
But Weed Beds Would Be Extern
inated-Expense of Road Improve
mont Reduced.

Special to Times Republican.
Eldora, Dec. 2S.--Attorney Charles l..
Hays, Of this city. is the man who
proved to Governor Carroll that mar
rover public roadways in Iowa are adj
visable. While Attorney Hays was not
the first man to breach the subject, he
has perhaps done more than any other
one man in the state to get the ques-
ton under discussion.
William Larrabee, Jr., was the first
to call attention to the desirability of
narrower highways. He presented a
bill in the hall of representatives at the
Twenty ninth general assembly rela-
tive to reducing the width of the roads
Attorney Hays is brother of w. NJ
Hays, of Washington. assistant secre-
tary of agriculture. Mr.. Hays in writ
ing to the governor relative to the ad-
visibility of narrowing the roads said:
Il have found that in Hardin county
there are little more than 1000 miles
of country roads. averaging nearly
sixty-six feet wide. Assuming thai
Hardin is an average county, there are
in iowa 100000 miles of roads outside
the towns of the commonwealth, OF
nearly 100000 acres in highways. This
amounts to 1880 square miles-enougt
to make q strip of land reaching from
Missouri to Minnesota six miles wide
about one acre out of every fifty de-
voted to roadways. Many by-roads
would be ample at twenty feet, if prop
erly surfaced and with occasional
places wide enough to turn arount
with a team and wagon. Most roads
properly surfaced would be ample al
thirty three feet. Almost no road.
need TO be siXty-six feet.
81 have thought that a good pro-
gram would be: First. examination OF
the roads by competent engineers
skilled in road building, and their re-
port to the county auditors. The re-
port should show the present anG
prospective needs of the road and sucl
stretches as might be narrowed, an(
to what extent from point to point. The
owners of abutting lands should Their
be allowed at their expense to place the
fences and cultivate the lands to the
limits set. 1t might be we'll to inser
a provision in the law that the owner
might be required to again remove his
fence If later needed for wider road
and that the statute of limitations OF
the rules of estoppel should not oper.
ate against the public. 1t might also
be we'll to require, in addition a small
tax or fee for the privilege, enough tt
repay the public for the expense of sur
vey and other probable expenses.
Among the advantages would be the
|reclaiming of several hundred thousand
acres of land worth from $50 to 500
per acre, the removal of one of the
most prolific breeding places of al
sorts of noxious weeds; the addition OF
several hundred thousand acres to thu
taxable area of the state; a tremend.
ously reduced expanse in macadamizins
or otherwise surfacing of roads in thu
era of good roads that will soon come
to Iowa, the identifying of the land
scape by this step in a permanent pol
licy for permanent road making, ant