The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1913-12-10
THE ROAD DRAG.

The road drag is giving the pubic,
the politicians and the county super
visors world of trouble, troubling
them, we sometimes think, worse than
the drag itsef troubles the roads. 1t
is such foolishly simple thing, so
cheap and so easily made, that the
average man off the farm, and not
few on the farm, are prone to think:
Can there any good thing come out
of such Nazareth?
1t seems to be impossible by any
legislation that has been enacted, TO
induce farmers generally to use the
drag. The townsmen with automo-
biles soundly belabor the farmers for
not using it, and sometimes hound the
farmers along these automobile roads
into using it when it is a damage in
)stead Of benifit.
The inherent difficulty in using the
drag and making legislation effective
is this, that the drag cannot be used
to advantage eXcpet when the ground
is in the right condition. 1t is of no
use at all when the ground is very
dry, and Ofen a damage. There is
but one way that we see for making it
thoroughly practical and that is for
the farmer himself, who knows when
it has rained and when the roads
should be dragged, to get out and use
it on the road alongside his own farm.
Occasionally We hear of county SUI
pervisor who calls up his neighbors
by telephone, and tells them that now
is the time to drag the roads, and per-
suades them to do it, with wonder
fully good results. But it does not al
ways rain over the whole of a super
visor's district at the same time.
We shall have to depend on dirt
roads in the corn belt for long time
to come Not altogether; for we shall
have some gravel and brick and &C.
ment roads on the main travelled thor
oughfares; but nine-tenths OF the
roads must be dirt, and must be kept
in shape by use of the drag.
A few weeks ago we travelled along
a road admirably adapted to dragging,
and at the crossroads was a road ma
chine costing a large sum OF money.
1t was evidently managed by a man
who had no faith in the drag and who
had been spending the peoples money
in digging up the side of the road
and putting the sod in the middle OF
it, as though sod would make a good
road Vegetable matter is fine thing
in the corn field, but you can not pos
sibly make a good road until you get
rid of it. Why, at great expense to
the county and township, invest in
road grader, and then spoil the road
by putting all the rubbish into the
middle of it?
We don't believe we shall ever have
good roads in Iowa until the farmer is
given charge of half the road along
his line, and the owner of the adjoin-
ing farm the other half, and is then
persuaded to drag his half after every
rain, assuming in the first place that
it has been drained and graded. This
will give us the best of roads when
they are good. 1t will not give us
good roads all the year around. There
is time of the year when dirt roads
will poach up. That cannot be helped
but the better they are graded and
the better they are dragged at the
proper time, the better they will be-
come, and the less they will poach.
t When on the good roads train, near
ly ten years ago, we tried to appeal
to farmers to keep their roads dragged
whether they were paid for it or not,