The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1919-04-09


that it is not question of saving
money. Bad roads cost the people
great deal more than good roads.
The Taxes Paid On Bad Roads.
TRY, If you please, to purchase any
article at some country store, located
on bad road, ten miles from a rail-
road station, and price that same ar
ticle at a store at the railroad station
and you will find in every instance
that it is considered higher, not be-
cause the country merchant is max
ing any more profit than the town
merchant but II is simply because it
costs him a great deal of money to
haul his goods to his store and that
must be added to his cost price in
order to make the same profit that
is made by the town merchant.
There are instances in some coun-
ties where the roads are so bad that
the farmers could not haul their to-
bacco to market at time to get the
thigh prices which were being paid
this winter and in such cases it can
be figured very easily what the bad
roads cost them. 1t might perhaps
1be as much as Is to 20 cents a pound
on tobacco and we have no assurance
that such thing will not happen next
winter.
Farmers Must Figure Cost F. o. B.
"How is it possible for farmer
living on bad roads to raise hay, corn,
tobacco or wheat in such way that
he can compete with the man living
the same distance from railroad
station as the banking business or dry
goods business or any other kind of
business. In order to figure profit,
you must figure the cost to you {.
o. b. the market place. One of the
reasons why the farmers did not make
money except in the past 3 years is
because they very seldom figured the
cost of things f. o. b. the selling point.
| doubt if there is man within the
sound of my voice who could tell me
how much corn it takes, on the aver
ago, to put pound of flesh on hog,
or how much it.costs to actually grow
an acre of tobacco, or a bushel Of
wheat and the cost of marketing their
crops. But if we intend to run our
farms as other business men run their
business. it is necessary for us to fig
lure every item that enters into the
cost of producing and marketing and
not the least of these costs is the cost
of transportion.
The Profits Derived
From Good Roads.
at is an actual fact and is proved
by statistics that man as purely
business venture could afford, if the
roads are bad and the land is at all
productive, to take options on the
property on both sides of the road
and build the road at his own expense
out of the best kind of materials and
when completed the increase in the
property values alone would pay for
the cost of the road and leave to him
a good surplus.
1T is an actual fact that no County,
State or Nation that has ever built
: roads would dispose of those roads
for cash consideration. You could
select road where perhaps it has
been built solely at the expense of
the property owners along the road
and offer to pay them every cent the
road cost providing they were will
ing to go back to mud holes, and you
konw that those men would not sell
the road for ten times the cost if
they were required to live on bad
roads as they had done before max
ing the improvement That is to me
lust proof that roads are a good in
vestment. If man buys team of
mules for $500 and if before the halt
ers are removed, he is offeral 5000 for
his team, he figures that he at least
made a good purchase. If man
buys farm and he is offered for that
farm as much as he paid for it with
in ashort time after buying it, that
convinces him that he has made a
good purchase, and the same is true
of roads.
Good Roads From Social Standpoint.
81 have touched purely upon the
importance of roads from a business
standpoint. All >of you are aware of
the fact that it is necessary to have
roads before you can have schools.
You cannot have consolidated schools
. where your children receive the bene-
fit of good teaching unless you have
good roads leading to the school