The Waxahachie daily light. [volume] (Waxahachie, Tex.) 1894-current, 1909-07-16
THE PRICE We PAY FOR BAD ROADS
By Aquus c. Laut in Golfers Weekly.
Do good roads concern you?

! united states, IL is larry sale
guess that you know something
about bad roads, even if you do not
know and have never chanced to
cross the seven per cent of improved
roads of the total two million miles
of highway in the United States.
But if you are city dweller,
whose use of the highway consists
/ chiefly of the street railway, does
the good roads movement concern
Iyou? That question is best answered
by asking another. When the price
of wheat goes up from 70 cents to
$40 a bushel, and the price of po-
! tatoes from so cents to $1.25, and
the price of bread from 6 to 10
cents, and the price of flour from
$500 to $3.50 a barrel-do those
facts concern you? If they do, then
YOU are vitality interested in good
roads, Take wheat, for instance. DO
you know why it is possible to cor
ner the market in wheat? First OF
all. because wheat is Scarce-the de-
mand growing faster than supply;
but secondarily, because, owing to
the condition of the roads, it is pos
sible for spectators to get posses
sion 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 road are hard
as flint. If the farmer held his wheat
over. past the dry weather, in the
most counties he simply could not
deliver during late autumn rains or
early spring breakup when roads
are churn of mud. The result is,
for three months after each crop,
there is a glut of wheat at elevator
railroad. waterfront A large pro-
portion of the crop goes in storage.
These storage charges amount in
grain center like Chicago to as much
as nine cents q bushel in year. On
M
charges mount up to $4,000, 900;
on the two Dakotas, to twice as
much. and so for every grain area on
the continent. The farmer does not
nav 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-you, Mr.. Town Man, who eat
dear bread all because some mud
road back in d hoosier state has not
been graded up properly.
AS q matter OF fact, America 5
country roads are so VIGOROUSLY bad
chat it costs more TO haul a ton Of
wheat from farm to ma ket than to
ship that ION from New York to
Liverpool America country roads
are so bad that it costs the American
farmer - cents 10 haul a ton, when
il costs the English or the Belgian
or the French OF the German far
mer only from to 9 cents Tor the
SAINT maui h'bs MI AC'1i ''''''' ''''N-
you, Mr.. Farmer, pay for the unnec-
assary waste of those bad roads, the
town man by extra cost OF what ne
eats. the farmer by lessened profits
on what he -eils. The same reason
explains why the town man pays
$1.25 in spring for potatoes which
cost from 90 to 40 cents III Ihe du-
tumn.
If you want to know what bau
roads cost the country as Whoie'
keep in mind that American farmers
are paying % cents ton for hauiihg
when European farmers are paying
Il 10 cents. Now, the Interstate
Commerce report shows thaI Tue
railroads yearly haul 2oo'ooV'ooo
tons OF farm produce ana lhaI 'he
average haul from farm 10 hlarhe'
for the whole country Is nine ana
fraction miles. Tut the cost OF maui
ing al p round 81 ton for the nine
miles, and you nave Ihe cos' VI