Oxford Democrat., 1920-05-11
Main Travelled Roads.

receiving considerable attention. The
trouble is they are not good enough and
the State Highway Commission is trying
to make them better, is making them
better In many places. Because being
made better, they are differentiated from
other roads and assume an Importance
which they did not always possess.
Once road was road no matter where
IL ran. II man took 1t into his head to
build house In the middle of bis do.
main, even II that location was an island
In the midst of swamp, the municipal
ity constructed road to It, and be con-
sidered himself situated just as we'll as
any OF bis neighbors. All 1t took In
those days to make road was q double
line Of stump fences with q cart track
between them. There were no auto
mobiles to demand a good surface and
the old-fasbioned farmer seemed to
think that the deeper ruts he bad on his
particular thoroughfare the more impor.
tant 1t was because 1t showed more
traffic.
To-day, however, there Ia a call for
better roads. Everybody wants them.
There are great many roads and, con-
sequently, all of them cannot be i'm
proved at once. Indeed, 1t begins to
dawn on people that all of them should
not be improved. Indeed, 1t begins to
dawn on people that many of them
should never have been built. So the
roads are being sorted, II such q phrase
can be used; and only the best. the most
desirable, the most used are being i'm
proved. So, at last, We have difference
10 roads. The commission call those
improved and those which 1t deems
desirable to improve primary, or main
travelled roads; while those which seem
never to have had good reason for be-
ing built, secondary roads. These sec.
ondary roads probably never will be i'm
proved unless cement begins growing on
the trees which hang over them and falls
as did the mama on the Israelites.
1t obviously becomes undesirable to
locate on a secondary road. All new
buildings, farmers buildings or other
wise, should be located on primary
roads, because with new means of trans
portation good roads must be had. With
tractors, which do not tire as long as
gasoline holds out, fields some distance
back from the main travelled road can be
cultivated to advantage, and those lands
too far back or undesirable because OF
rough surface can be allowed to grow up
to forest.
This condition Is not Q new one,
although, maybe, new to this compare.
lively new country of ours. Older cOun.
tries have faced 1t before US. In Eng
land they have roads and lanes, the
roads being for travel and settlement
and the lanes simply leading to farms
of the principal thoroughfare.
Farmers, like other people, have been
indulging in automobiles, and the own
er of an automobile must have q good
road; hence the desirability of locating
on the main travelled highway. So far
the auto has been luxury to Q farmer,
because he had to keep horses or other
animals for transportation purposes in
winter; but with hard surfaced roads
and tractors to plow the snow from them
in winter, the auto becomes an all.the
year-round machine and the immediate
vehicle Of transportation.
Some people object to improving roads
and say We cannot discount the future
and the main travelled roads We are
building to-day may be discarded for
new ones built later on to accommodate
conditions we are not now acquainted
With. Parentheticslly it might be sug-
gested that the new ones may be through
the air. Those making these sugges-
tions base them on the fact that the
highways now laid out for improvement
are not always those of our fathers, or
the ones the old yellow Concord stage
coach traversed. Well, it is useless to
dispute facts, but an old highway will
always be interesting. Those of our
fathers are now. Life travelled along
them and mankind dwelt beside them.
Hamlin Garland, whose books every
Oxford County person reads, but per-
baps does not know the author comes
pretty near being an Oxford County
product, as bis father, Richard Garland,
was born in Poland and lived in Green
wood; and the author himself taught
school in the little red school houses
among the Oxford hills, published q
book of short stories which he called
"Main Travelled Roads" and which de-
plotted life-mostly country life and
largely western-sbout and beside them.
All roads, past and present, are inter
esting, the present for the traffic which
goes over them, the factories and resi-.
dencss along their sides; and the old
ones for the memories that cling to
them. There are the cellar holes beside
the present secondary roads, which once
were not secondary, grown up with for
est trees among which one may still see
the old-fashioned red roses our mothers
and grsndmothers planted when they
were young and hope was high, and the
later lilscs, the blossom of which yet
gives off the perfume of their lives and
In them We can feel we have 'lavender"
II not "old lace" for recollection.
But In the haste and hustle of the
present, one has scant time to consider
what is old and discarded, 30 1t is the
new roads and the new methods they
will bring about that gets In the lime
light and perhaps on our nerves.
AQUARIUs.