The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1909-09-18


Do good roads concern you! II you
are one of the 1856, 900 motor-car owners
in the United States, it i fairly safe
guess that you give some thought TO the
good-rosds movement and great deal
more thought to the bad roads that exist
with wallows in the proportionof 93miles
for every 100 miles Of road.
Or il you are one Of the SO.000.0O0
people who live on farms in the United
States, it is also fairly safe guess that
you know something about bad roads.
But If you are city dweller, whose
use of the highway consists chiefly OF
the street railway does the good-roads
movement concern you? That question
Is best answered by asking another.
When the price Of wheat goes up from
10 cents to 81. 80 a bushel and the price
of potatoes from so cents to SIPS, and
the price of bread from to 10 cents,
and the price of flour from $3.50 so
barrel-do those facts concern you?
If they do, then you are vitality inter-
ested in good roads! Take wheat, for
instance! Do you know why it is pos
sible to- corner the market in wheat?
First of all, because wheat is scarce
the demand growing faster than supply;
but secondarily, because, owing to the
condition of the roads, it is possible for
spectators to get possession of the
whole years crop of wheat. The west
is the great granary of the wheat supply
today; and in the west wheat must be
rushed to market in the clear, dry autumn
days when the prairie roads are hard as
flint. II the farmer held his wheat over,
past the dry weather, in the most of
counties he simply could not deliver dur
ing late autumn rains or early spring
breakup when roads are churn of mud.
The result is, for three months after
each crop, there is glut of wheat at
elevator, railroad, waterfront. A large
proportion of the crop goes in storage.
These storage charges amount in grain
center like Chicago to as much as nine
cents bushel year. On Minnesota's
wheat crop, storage charges mount up
to IS, 900, 900; on the two Dakotas, to
twice as much, and 80 for every grain
area on the continent. The farmer does
not pay those storage charges at water
front. The Spectator does not : he adds
those charges to the selling price; and
the man who pays is the buyer Mr..
Town Man, who eat dear bread all be-
cause some mud road back in hoosier
state has not been graded up properly.
That may not be as strong way of
showing what bad roads cost as if you
went out in your motor car and ruptured
pair of $50 tires; but it effects more
people.
If you want to know what bad roads
cost the country as whole, keep in
mind that American farmers are paying
% cents ton for hauling, when Europ.
can farmers are paying from seven to
nine cents. Now, the interstate COM
merce report shows that the railroads
yearly haul 265, 900, 900 tons of farm
produce, and that the average haul from
farm to market for the whole country
is nine and fraction miles. Put the
cost of hauling at around 81 ton for
the nine miles, and you have the cost
of hauling farm produce at round half
billion year. Half that cost is waste,
solely owing to bad roads.
Look squarely at the facts!
Two hundred fifty million dollars a
year wasted on bad roads, which farmer
and consumer jointly pay!-From an
article in Golfers Weekly.