The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-06-21
FARMERS DEMAND
 GOOD ROADS NOW
GOVERNMENT HEEDfNG THEM, HUT AUTOISTS BEGAN THE
 CRY AND WE'RE NEG : LECTED.
BUSINESS DRAWN INTO 1T
Argued Now That Bad Roads Make High Prices and Whole Coun- try Should Be Taxed For
 Improvements.

erant of expenditures by the Depart ment of Agriculture than those of any other department of the executive branch of the. Government. What the Department of Agriculture spends us- ually comes home to the Congress man, and if he were to check it he would be apt to hear a noise from his constituents, especially the farmers, for whose benefit experiments are made on a large scale with seeds and soils, and from automobilists and all others interested in good roads.
 It Is said that the automobiles started good roads and that the per- sistent use of the automobile has ne- cessitated the extension of good roads everywhere, but the curious fact is that the insistent demand for good roads now, the Department of Agrf- culture has learned, comes from the farmers and people of rural districts. It is their cry that interests the De- pertinent of Agriculture and not the cry of automobiles, because the De- partment of Agriculture is not inter- ested in sports nor in the immediate comfort of cross-country tourists.
 It is in the interest of the farmer and the villagers that the Good Roads Bureau of the Department of Agricul- lQIe lS Sp6uQluS II1uCn IlOnSy- uOW for good roads experimentation and for making it's discoveries public. It has a practical model of every kind of good road that it recommends. The models are arranged side by side and a plain tab tells of what materials each road is made and what kind of highway 1t is best adapted to.
 This Government exhibit is to be shown this year at every exposition from one end of the country to the other and at every State fair where 8 Government exhibit is in order. IL represents six or eight sections of highways of different construction. The road in its rough state is shown, and In it's decline, before the breaking up, when immediate attention should be given to it, and then in perfect order, the way it ought to be-. Sim pie instructions are laid down with 1t without verb1age and engineering detail to confuse the mind, and these tell what kind of typographical condi- ti0ns and subsoil and drainage must accomphny the kind of road provid-
 This exhibit goes littles further than. merely showing a%correct con strnc<ion for earth, gravel, sand, clay. rnacadam, biturninous maca dam. and brick roAds It shows with them d model of a steam roller and a quar- ry and a crushing plant so that any community might provide itself with an equipment To make it more graphic the crushing plant and road roller are shown at work, being oper- ated by electricity.
 The Governments Policy.
 All this is along the line of the es- tablished policy of the Government in giving Federal aid for good roads The Government goes on the idea that Aa or at da ioI rural delivery, and that rural delivery doesn't amount to much without good Trads, though the Government doesn't go quite so far as some of the Con- gressmen would like to have 1t in spending money for, good roads, not showing them what good roads are. but by actually putting Federal mon .ey alongside of county money and State money into the highways, and, if need be-. in supplying all the mon- ey, to open one or more good roads through those States that are so spareely settled that 1t would be inn possible for a handful of people in them to build them.
 1t is argued, for instance, that as q Natteoal principle Massachusetts should not have so much Federal aid ss Nevada: as Massachusetts has
 
 Nevada has $70o. On the same rate of taxation Massachusetts could build 300 miles of highway where the State of Nevada could build one mile.l The broad view IS that the highways of Nevada may be of economic irp- portance to all the people of the country and, therefore. the Govern ment ought to build highways where A State or a county cannot reason ably be expected to build them
 Supporting contention for great CT Federal aid in road building, Con- gressman Byrnes of South Carolina save these reasons:
 ssIn how many sections of this country to-day do you pick up the newspapers and see that rural car riers were unable to go out because of cold. weather and the result of it, the fact being that they were unable to travel over the roads.
 "And the produce of the farmer cannot be brought tA the market. What has been the result of that. There arose a system of storing com modities so that when this condition arose the people of the city would have Ntl1e commodity there. But what has been the result The op- nOrfunifv- t0 yOako mnnov waS s00r