Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1916-01-26

! In his last annual report the Secre-
tary of Agriculture emphasized the
intimate relation of good roads to
both the production and distribution
of farm products. "They are" he
said, prerequisite not only to econo-
mical production and distribution but
also to the promotion of the broader
life of the communities. ut does not
require arguments to prove it. The
visible evidence is in every community
where the roads have been improved
| Without good roads suited to the traf-
fic they must bear there can be no
economy in the handling of agricul-
tural products from the field to the
market and every dime or dollar ex-
pended in transportation is tax upon
every pound of stuff brought out of
the soil. Millions have been wasted
on the public roads of the country
because they have not been properly
built in the first place and have not
been maintained after construction.
is required than the building of roads
and one of the most important of the
conditions to be considered is their
proper drainage.
There are in the United States vast
areas of land that might be made pro-
ductive if they were drained effective
ly and through all these regions the
building of good roads ought to 90
hand in hand with the drainage of the
lands. An object lesson of how the
two things should go together is to be
found at Charleston, South Carolina,
where drainage and road construction
have gone together. What has been
done in road building amounts to very
little in respect of distance, but where
drainage and roads have gone togeth-
er there has been very notable in
crease in the volume and ease of traf-
fic with corresponding benefits to the
farmers served in getting their stuff
to market. Thousands of acres of the
most productive land laying idle five
and ten years ago have been brought
under cultivation and are now yield
ing enormous crops. Great sections
where men could not live because of
malarious conditions have been open
ed to settlement and the building of
good roads has made it possible for
the farmers to market their crops
without paying out all the profits for
transportation.
No farm can do it's best without
drainage and no road can be built or
maintained without drainage. Mr..
Marsden, engineer of the Office of EX-
pertinent Stations of the Department
of Agriculture, says that from one
hundred to one hundred fifty millions
Of acres, not including the eighty mil
lions acres swamp and overtiowed
land, in the United States, could be
drained with profit under present con-
ditions of market facilities and cultu-
raj methods. In North Carolina there
are six millions such acres, of which
only about six thousand acres have
been drained In Alabama only about
one thousand acres out of 100000
needing drainage have been cared for.
In the west the same condition largely
obtains. The cost is inconsiderably
compared with the profits derived
from the proper drainage of the land.
1t is not a matter Of guesswork.
Farmers who have drained their lands
testify that its value has been increas-
ed from fifty to three hundred per
cent. Mr. Marsden cites the case of
a farmer in the coast country of
North Carolina who drained twenty
five acres at cost of $3.50 which now
yields a bale Of cotton to the acre,
which at $50 the bale would amount
to $3.50
But what would it profit the farm
er TO drain his land without good
roads over which to haul his cotton
and other farm products TO market?
The two things go together. The cost
of hauling over the ordinary roads of
the country is reckoned at % cents
per ton per mile, or for the immense
tonnage thus transported about $780,
600 900 annually. The cost of hauling
over hard-surfaced public roads would
be about 13 cents per ton per mile
and the saving would be immense,
over $400,000,000 the
years; - about the value of all the
apples, beans. rice, sweet potatoes,
Irish potatoes and honey produced an
nually in the United States. The waste
of the United States would support
in Chinese comfort all the teeming
of the Flowery Kingdom
waste on account of undrained lands,
highways, exorbitant
cost of transportation on the common
roads of the country, all Of which
would be escaped if the people could |
be impressed with the insanity of the |
methods generally prevailing in deal.
ing with these matters.
Just as the improvement of the wa
terways and fair dealing with the
railroads are essential to the pros
perity of all the people, so also are
the drainage Of productive land and
the building of substantial highways, |
which are, as it has been said so well,
'the primary means of transportation |
for all agricultural products-the only |
avenues Of transportation leading |
from the point of production to the
point of consumption or rail ship |
ment." There is in all this, or ought /
to be, confederacy of interest, and !
with the New Year it is the hope of |
the American Highway Association to
these economic forces for the |