Evening star., 1915-12-12
$3OO,0OO,0OOLOSS
| BY BAD ROADS SEEN
100000 Miles of Unirn-
proved Highways in the
United States.
FARMERS BLAMED
FOR THE CONDITION
Enormous Disadvantage Because OF
Poor Transportation Facilities
Again Is Described.

| There are 6500,000 farmers in the
United States, the most of whom raise
something for the market" says the
American Highway Association.
| ''They have been described by DR.. L.
IN Carver, the Harvard University ex-
pert IN economics who was engaged
last year by the Department of Agrl-
,culture to draw plans for the organl-
zation of rural community. as tenn
| peramentally an Independent, mead
strong, individualistic class, and, there
fore, difficult to organize. That they
are difficult to organize is evidenced
by the fact that there are 100000
miles of unimproved public roads in
the United States over which they must
haul their products to market at
loss of approximately 100000. 900 every
wear. or about the total assessed value
of property, real and personal, in South
Carolina That they are independent
of good roads to their own great loss
is evidenced by the enormous waste or
both money and muscle in trying to do
business without good roads and their
apparent lack of interest in compelling
their representatives in legislatures
and Congress to provide highways for
their service.
Great Need of Roads.
/ Good roads are equally necessary
to both the production and distribution
of farm products They are pre-
requisite says Mr.. Houston, Secretary
of Agriculture, in his last annual re-
port, not only to economical produc-
ton and distribution. but to rhe. pro-
motion of the broader life of commu-
mites. 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 maui at
a lower rate, to transport his children
to consolidated schools and to enjoy
comfortab bly, his social enterprises
There can be, indeed. no such thing as
community life without good roads To
assure such life there must be ease of
communication and transportation, and.
as DR. Carver expressed it, as the
characteristic evils of urban life grow
out of congestion, so do the charac-
teristic evils of rural life grow out of
isolation. Except for few rare souls,
Isolation means Stagnation.'
Results of Bad Roads.
LAS 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 gregarious ami
mails and they cannot herd together in
the country as readily as in the town.
and in many parts of the country dur
ing a large part of the year, and the
part when there is the least for them to
do on the farm, they cannot herd at all
because of impossible roads On the
so-called great highway between
Washington and Richmond there is
stretch of about fifteen miles on which
in the fall and winter farm wagons and
atyf< f<NrVnf hill &c tt,lr fn huh r
fic is practically impossible, and this
highway between the two capitals must
be judged by the soft and not the hard
spots. In regions where the roads
have been improved the farmers are
the most prosperous and community
life has been developed In regions
where the roads have not been i'm
proved the schools, the churches and
all other civilizing agencies have run
down. Clifford Pinchot. chairman of
the commission on church and country
life. has just made report showing
that in the last few years one out of
a abandoned, that only one-third of these
churches are increasing in membership
and that two-thirds have ceased grow
ing or are slowly dying. 1t would be
found, upon careful analysis of the re-
ports upon which these conclusions are
based, that dying churches are situ-
ated invariably in districts where the
public roads have not been improved.
The schools, the churches, the mer-
chants. the farmers in the country can
not prosper without good roads ]. E.
Pennybacker. chief of road economics,
United States Office of public roads. has
reckoned that our annual bill for haul
ing over the public roads is nearly
$3.50, ,o00,000.' the half Of which i'm
mense cost may be charged to the
farmers. The cost of hauling over the
average public roads of the country is
about % cents per ton per mile; the
cost of hauling over hard-Surfaced
roads is about 13 cents per ton per
mile
Problems Must Be Solved.
mo constructive agricultural program
as Secretary Houston has emphasized
is possible which Goes not provide for
distribution as well as for production