The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1910-02-24
In Defense of Boosters Road system.

The following article appeared in Tues
days Shreveport Times. 1t was written
by the President of our Police Jury in
reply to previous article on the subject
OF roads appearing in that paper, which
we Gid not see. It is timely and contains
so much of good road building advice, and
believing that the majority of our readers,
particularly those living in Bossier Parish,
Will be pleased to read it, we reproduce
the whole. 1t follows:
To the Editor of the Times.
In your Saturdays issue Mr.. W. L.
Foster gives us some of the best good
roads ideas that have seen in print, but
he spoiled good letter by unjust criti-
cism of the Police Juries of Caddo and
Bossier. q speak of Bossier only.)
10 be sure the Police Jury is proper
mark for criticism, but it is as much en-
titled to fair consideration as the private
citizen.
The Bossier Jury has made some mis-
takes and will no doubt make others, but
on the whole feel it should be accorded
praise for what it has accomplished during
the past ten years.
The roads of our parish will compare
tavorably with any west of the Mississippi
River, where the lay of the land and the
material are the same. All of this has
been accomplished without the levy of one
dollar special tax and the assessment for
taxation and the rate is less than under
the old system of working the roads.
There is collected a per capita tax of 81,
and small vehicle tax, but this is largely
more than offset by exemption from road
service.
On the plantation where mules and labor
are already at hand and can, without much
expense, be spared from the farm work for
an hour or two or even half day, it is
practical for Mr.. Foster to grade and drag
his three miles of road, but it is not prac-
ticable for the parish to grade, drag and
bridge 800 miles of road with $50, 800 per
year-the present budget for roads and
bridges.
If Mr.. Fosters three miles of road and
the bridges on same were subjected to the
same volume of service and i'll treatment
he would not be so ready to cite compar-
ison with the public highways.
A great deal of The work in our parish
during the past ten years has been in
clearing the roads of stumps and roots and
cutting bitches, thus pre- pairing the way
for an economical use of the machines and
drags.
The sticky nature of the Red River soil
makes hard, dry road in wet seasons an
impracticability, but with these conditions
our Red River bottom roads, of which he
complains so much, are much better than
the boasted good roads of Nebraska, Iowa
and Kansas, for during the month of De-
cember, while making trip across the
State of Kansas, l found the sdetracks
filled with empty cars waiting to move the
products of the farms, when the highways
should get in fit condition to permit haul
ing to the stations, and the high officials of
the railroads begging for better country
roads.
Now, in line with the good points of Mr..
Fosters letter: 1t was my good fortune
recently to meet the State Highway Engi-
neer of Minnesota, man ripe in practical
experience and mature in judgment, and
who, under commission of his State, spent
year in the European States studying
their road systems: which haveevolved by
more than an thousand years. practical
test. His conclusion is that the present is
about fifty years in advance of macadam
roads in our country; that the cost of
maintenance is a heavy tax, to say moth
ing of the initial cost; that many of the
farmers of Germany pay their taxes by
hauling and piling stone along the high
ways to be used in repair work; further
that it required years in time and much in
expense to make proper foundations for
macadam roads. That while we could
now, by drainage and the use of the split
log drag, make good dirt roads, we would
be making the foundation for the perma-
nent roads of future generations.
If our people, like those of Missouri and
Kansas, should drag the public roads ad-
joining their property, the expense to each
would be very light and the benefit to all
great.
Where the mileage to be covered by the
parish force will permit, Mr.. Fosters plan
is good and we should, by all means, adopt
it and stop the waste of time talking about
the so-called permanent roads.
Where roads are as in Bossier a light
outfit of two men and pair of mules to
each ward, making frequent trips over the
will maintain them in fair condition.
OF course, there will be times when the
roads will have some mud holes and be
sloppy most of the way, but we should not
lose sight of the important fact that our
country is only about one-fifty settled and
it is not good business for one man to
build and maintain roads for himself and
an imaginary four. J. W. ELsToN.
Haughton, La, Feb. 81, 1910.
/ Buy Seed Corn In the Ear.
"There is only one way that the pur-
chaser can be certain of getting good seed