The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1910-10-07


THEY SUFFER HEAVY LOS
SES GETTING THEIR PRO-
DUCTS TO MARKET OVER ILL
KEPT ROADS-LAND VALUES
ADVANCE.
Two hundred and fifty million
dollars a year are wasted oD bad
roads in the United States. Added
, to loss on haul, the storage and ex-
ira food rates make the total ex-
pense $1,000, 100000 a year. This
means a tax of $3.50 on every
man, woman and child in the coun-
! try. Corners in the grain markets
are frequently the direct result of
/ bad roads. In four bad road States
! 375, 900 people out of 100000 can
not read or write. In four good
road states out of 100000 popu-
lation there are 10000 illiterates.
/ Do good roads concern you? If you
are one of the 30,0O0,00O people who
/ live on farms in the United States it
! is fairly safe guess that you know
something about bad roads, even if
| you do not know and have never
/ CHANGED to cross the per cent. of
/ improved roads of the total 2,000,-
| 600 miles of highway in the United
| States.
Americas country roads are so
notoriously bad that it costs more
! to haul ton of wheat from farm to
market than to ship that ton from
! New York to Liverpool. America s
country roads are so bad that it
costs the American farmer 23 cents
! to haul ton when it costs the Eng
! lish or the Belgian or the French
or the German farmer only from Z
! to 8 cents for the same haul. You,
| Mr.. Town Man, and you, Mr.. Farm
er, pay for the unnecessary waste of
! those bad roads, the town man by
| extra cost of what he eats, the farm
er by lessened pounds on what he
sells. The same reason explains why
the town man pays $1.25 in spring
for potatoes which cost from so to
rs cents in the autumn.
The interstate commerce report
shows that the railroads yearly haul
| 265, 100000 tons of farm produce
and that the average haul from farm
to market for the whole country is
nine and a fraction miles. Put the
cost of hauling at round 81 a ton
for the nine miles and you have the
cost of hauling farm produce at a
round half billion dollars a year.
Half that cost is waste, solely owing
| to bad roads.
The charge to haul wheat to New
York, to Liverpool, 3,100 miles, is
3.5 cents per bushel. The charge to
! haul a bushel of wheat from farm
to market, "a miles, is 5.11 cents.
! The storage on wheat at water fronts
! is 8 cents bushel a year.
The results of bad roads are year
ly tolls of $12.5O against every per-
son who eats farm produce. That
yearly waste would build 100000
miles of A No. l macadam roads every
year, basing the cost at the very
highest average of $4,000 a mile.
The beauty of the relentless scheme
OF things is when we mend our ways
in this case, mend our roads
nature not only wipes out the de-
felt, but she puts a plus to the ac-
count where there used to be a
minus. Supposing of the 100000
miles of roads in the United States
all were improved instead of only 7
per cent, what would be the result
to farmer and consumer? First of
ALL the big deficit of waste on haul,
on storage, on cornered prices, wip-
ed out! The minus goes off the ma
tional slate and the plus come on.
The good road moves the remotest
farm right next to the market. A
farm twenty miles from the market
on an all the year round good road
is nearer market than a farm seven
miles away on a bad road. Truck
farmers in New Jersey and Long
Island can haul their produce to mar
get, thirty miles, cheaper than they
can ship by railroad, and that pro-
duce nets, according to well known
averages, as follows:
Fruit, $50 per acre; flowers, $2,-
600 per acre; corn, $8 per acre;
wheat, 81 per acre; oats, 81 per
acre; vegetables, $42 per acre.
Out in the Dakotas and Minnesota
and Manitoba farmers haul their
produce thirty or forty miles, but
they can haul it only when the roads
are dry in the early fall, and at that
season the price is lowest. The farm
er along the good road can command
the best price by hauling only when
the price is best, and he can also
raise the produce that gives the big
gest net returns. If you would learn
why a whole family can live, and live
well, off an acre in Holland and Bel
gium and France when a family Of
ten fails to live well of 100 acres
| in America.
With good roads Dakota farmers
who under present conditions drive
hub deep in gumbo mud during
! spring could market their crops when
prices ruled the highest. Instead of
selling their wheat at 20 and 80
cents in the fall they could sell II at
81 during the winter and in the
spring. An additional price of even
25 cents a bushel would mean $l5,-
100000 more in the pockets of the
Minnesota farmers, a similar amount
to the farmers of the Dakotas and to
the wheat farmers of the Pacific
coast
New York farmers do not raise
vegetables in quantities because un-
I'll recently roads did not permit
them to market such a perlshable
product in quantities.. This holds
good in New England. The same
condition exists in the COW country
and the grain country Potatoes and
onions your Dakota farmer can mar
ket in quantities. Therefore he
| raises them, but because had roads