Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1909-10-27

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What Poor Roads Cost.

+. What Poor Roads Cost.
It cost a little over a billion dollars
to haul the farm crops of America to
market last year. With good roads.
roads such as are to be found In some
parts Of America ard in all parts OF
France, the marketing of the crops
would have cost s400,000,000. Six
hundred million dollars per year.
then, is the price we pay in this land
of the free for having impossible
roads. Did ever a nation spend SO
much for so doubtful a luxury be-
fore2 With American roads lying
open and fathomless before the eyes
of our foreign critics, what mon
strous injustice it is to talk of Amert-
can dollar worship!
Most men of middle age can recall
the annual picnic known as mending
the roads. Just why it got that name
no one has ever explained, for in prac-
tically every Ease thu picnic left the
roads in worse condition than before.
The law In many States prescribed
that each resident of a rural district
must pay a certain road tax in labor
each year. The payment of this tar
was done under the supervision of q
local officer known as the pathmas-
ter. The customary time of payment
was in the early summer, just before
haying time, when there wasn't much
else for the men and teams to do. The
neighborhood turned out with horses
and plows and harrows, ripped up
divers sections Of highway which the
years travel had packed to a more OF
less navigable condition, rounded
them up nicely in the middle,
scratched them smooth with the har-
rows. You were never expected to
work very hard at these festive occa-
sions, and the pathmaster who in
sisted on real work soon found him
self unpopular. 1t was just as well,
for since nobody had any real notion
of roadmaking, the more work the
worse results.
And yet the roads of America are
vastly better than they once were,
and the improvement is going On
apace. The United States Govern
ment is lending a hand by setting its
spare scientists to work teaching the
people of different regions how to
make the best roads at the least cost.
The States are doing vastly more.
New York in 1905 voted to spend
s5O,O0O,O00 on her highways, and
while no other State IS investing in
roads at that rate, all are doing some
thing. Cities are finding it good bust
ness to improve the roads leading out
into the farming region; the farmers
are beginning to tax themselves in a
rational fashion for highway improve
ment, and many philanthropists have
passed by the conventional college
and library donation to spend their
surplus funds on good roads. Historic
mudholes are being slowly filed up,
stone and concrete r replacing the
crazy wooden bridges, and a hundred
Inventions have been made to help get
the best results for the lowest K
pense.
Some Of these last deserve atten-
ton. Macadam roads have long been
accepted as the standard of highway
construction. But macadam roads of
the old pattern, with crushed stone
eight inches thick, cost from $4,000 to
$4,000 per mile. Now it has been
found that three or fou: inches will
do quite as we'll, and the cost is cut
squarely in two. In some parts of
the central States, where crushed
stone is rare, it has been found that
the very clay which makes the roads
almost impossible is the best of track
making material when burned. In
yet other regions the farmers have
discovered how to make good roads
by the simple ~expedient Of rolling or
dragging them after each rain, and
in yet other places a mixture of sand
and clay, costing $500 or $500 per
mile, is found almost as good as the
best macadam.
1t is well that the road-lnaking ma
terials are abundant and varied. For
there are roads enough in the United
States to reach eighty-six times
around the earth at the equator
and nearly all those roads are bad.
The advocates OF good highways will
find ample room for their missionary
enterprise for a generation to come.
ROCKY Mountain News.
One of the Beauties.
One of the beauties Of the good