The Julesburg grit-advocate., 1915-07-29

ost OF the total Of 7e.eee taas q freiGht
that we're hauled - the railsaaAs, we're
hasled a average aisGaAes q eight
miles over the improved reaAs before
delivery vas made to tie ral1soaAs Il
the freight stations. A saviag ol eight
cents per ton per nile vas Effected
as compared with the former hauling
costs o. the osA saiaDeovaa roads.
The saving to the farmers vas. there
fore. on this export item sIsae, about
e4l 900 per year. or more thsa forty
per cent Of the total cost q the rods
improved in the eatire country
Therefore. in less than two and one
half years. the improved reads had
saved for the farmers as nuch as the
entire road improvement haA cost. On
one OF these roads alone. that connect
ing Spottsylvania Court House with
Fredricksburg. . distance e( twelve
miles. the total expenditure made In
improving the road was bat e2S, 600.
while the saving In the cost OF hauling
over the road in the nrst year was Sl4.
900. or = saving Of fifty per cent.
Tennessee furnishes another good
example of the benefits OF the imprOv-
ed road. A farmer in Sullivan County
was enguaged in hauling barbed wire
from Bristol to Kingsport, q distance
Of twenty three miles. Using two
horse team. the maximum load that he
could haul. on account Of some very
bad places in the road. was Ave hun
dred pounds. and three days were re-
quired to make the round trip with the
team, carrying this load. At prevail
ing prices for the driver and team,
which was three dollars per day. 1t
therefore required twelve days for the
one man and his team to haul one ton
Of the wire to its destination. The
cost per ton for Hauling was. therefore.
$36. or $l.56 per ton mile. Shortly
afterward, a bond issue for the i'm
provement of this road was voted, and
the Improvement was Immediately
made. The same team IVES then able
to haul 1900 pounds per load, and to
make the round trip in two days. The
cost of delivery was thereby reduced
to $6. or $0.26 per ton mile. Road i'm
provement In Sullivan County has
been solely responsible in this and
many other cases. Of reducing the ton
mile cost for hauling from $1.56 to
1925. This means in this case that
the improved roads of the county have
increased the earning capacity of the
team for the farmer six hundred per
cent.
At Crosby, Texas. a shell road was
built out into the country for dis
tance Of one mile. and farmer who
lived four miles out in the country, or
three miles beyond the end Of the new
shell read, came into town soon after
the improvement was made. and load
ed two tons Of freight on his two-horse
wagon. The team had no difficulty
whatever in hauling the load to the
end of the shell road, but it was stall.
ed as soon as 1t struck the old, unim-
proved road. The farmer was COM
PEELED to unload 5000 pounds of his
load and to obtain two additional
mules to haul the remaining 1000
pounds over the other three miles OF
road. He then he'd to make three
more trips to get the remaining 3,OO1
pounds to his farm. 1t took him from
ten o'clock in the morning of the first
day until evening, and from early In
the morning Of the second day until
eleven o'clock to haul two tons four
miles. Had the road been improved
the whole distance, the original team
of two mules could easily have hauled
the entire load from the freight sta
ton to the farm in two and one-l.alt
hours.
Prior to the issuance of bonds for
road improvement in Jefferson Couaty
Tenn, the road between cambridge
and Jefferson, distance of ten miles.
was so bad that twenty bushels of
wheat made a good two-horse load ut
almost any tine Of the year, and an
entire day was REQUIRED to make the
r.,id trip. Thts road was im"r.Nt d
by regarding and resurfacing with ma
cadam, and the s.me teams wura east
ly able to haul G;t, bushels Of whea;
and to make the round trip in conai'l-
cradle less than one day. Figuring
the team at three dollars per day, it
cost fifteen cents per bushel over the
unimproved road to deliver the wheat
to the railroad, while it cost but about
10 h,,s shol IN aalxo Tho do =.