The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1915-12-15
THE AMERICAN
HIGHWAY ASSOCIATION

$500, 900 farmers in the United
States, the most of whom raise
something for market. They have
been described by DR.. T. N. Carver,
the Harvard University expert in
economies who was engaged last
year by the Department of Agricul-
ture to draw plans for the organi-
cation of a rural community, as
"temperamentally an Independent,
headstrong, individualistic class,
and, therefore, difficult to organize"
That they are difficult to organize
is evidenced by the fact that there
are 2,0OO,0 900 miles OF unimproved
public roads in the United States
over which they must haul their pro-
ducts to market at a loss of approx
mately $500, 000, 900 every year, or
about the total assessed value of
property, real and personal, in South
Carolina. That they are "indepen-
dent" of good roads to their own
great loss is evidenced by the enor-
nous waste of both money and u
Gle i'm trying to do business without
good roads and their apparent lack
of interest in compelling their rep
resentatives in Legislatures and Con-
gress to provide highways for their
service.
Good roads are equally necessary
to "both the production and dlstrl-
button of farm products" "They
are prerequisite" says Mr.. Hous-
ton, Secretary of Agriculture, in
his last annual report, mot only
to economical production and dis
tribution but to the promotion OF
the broader life of communities.
The great need, obviously, is for
roads which will get products from
the farm to the nearest railway sta
ton, enabling the farmer to haul
when he cannot SOW or reap, and to
haul at a lower rate, to transport
his children to consolidated schools,
and to enjoy comfortably his social
enterprises" There can be, IN
deed, no such thing as community
life without good roads. TO assure
such life there must be ease OF com
m%unication and transportation, and,
as Dr.. Carver expressed it, "as the
characteristic evils of urban life
grow out of congestion, so do the
characteristic evils of rural life grow
out of isolation. Except for a few
are souls, isolation means stagna-
tion."
AS a rule, town schools are better
than country schools because the
means of transportation, or the
streets and roads, are better IN the
towns than in the country. Men are
~greearious animals and they cannot
herd together in the country as
readily as in the town and in many
parts of the country during a large
part of the year, and thepart when
there is the least for them to do on
the farm, they cannot herd at all be-
cause of impossible roads. On the
so-called great highway between
Washington and Richmond, there is
a stretch of about fifteen miles on
which in the Fall and Winter, farm
wagons and automobiles sink to the
hubs and traffic is practically I'M
possible, and this highway between
the two Capitols must be judged by
the soft and not the hard spots: In
regions where the roads have been
improved the farmers are the most
per- and community life has
been developed. In regions where
the roads have not been improved.
the schools, the churches and all
other civilizing agencies have run
down. Clifford Pinchott, Chairman
of the Commission on Church and
Country Life, has just made a re-
port showing that in the last few
wears n out of every nine coun
!. trv churches has been abandoned,
that only one-third of these churches
is increasing in membership n mat
two-thirds have ceased growing or
are slowly dying. It would be
found upon careful analysis of the
reports upon which these conclusions
are based that dying churches are
situated invariably in districts where
the public roads have not been m
proyed. The schools, the churches,
the merchants, the farmers in the
county cannot prosper without good
roads. Mr.. J. Z. Pennybacker,
Chief of Read Economics, U. S. Of
fee of Public Roads, has reckoned
that "our annual bill for hauling
over the public roads is nearly
$3.50, 600, 1000" the half Of which
immense cost may be charged to the
farmers. The cost of hauling over
the average public roads of the coun-
try is about % cents per ton per
ton per mile; the cost of hauling
over hard-surfaced roads is about Is
cents per ton per mile.
No constructive agricultural pro-
gramme, as Secretary Houston mas
emphasized, is possible which Toes
not provide for distribution as well
as for production and there can be
no economic distribution without I'm.