The Punta Gorda herald. [volume] (Punta Gorda, Fla.) 1893-1958, 1922-07-07
TELLS HOW GOOD ROADS
DEVELOP A COMMUNITY


United States commissioner of edu-
cation.
Following is young Armes' essay
How Good Roads Are Developing
My Community"
/. The progress of a community,
state or nation is marked by the con-
dition of its roads. The needs of
the Roman Empire demanded good
roads for the purpose of military con-
quest. Modern civilization demands
them for the sake of commercial ex-
iistence, and to be commercially prof
liable they must be constructed of
such material that they shall be per-
manent, economical and satisfactory.
Good roads are the veins through
which flow the very life's blood of
education, agriculture and commerce.
They have become barometers of civil
/ lization
Truly the old west has passed!
The narrow sand trails or old Flori-
da Natural as the engineers term
them passable only few months in
the year, are giving way to well-built
roads-w d e, adequately drained,
! straight as the surveyors chain can
make them and carefully marked
/ We speak of those old trails not as
hard roads but as 'hard-to-get-o
roads,
"The state is penetrated by the
great trunk automobile roads, or is
connected with them: the Dixie High
way from Chicago, the Miami-Quebec
Highway along the East Coast, and
the old Spanish Trail along the Gulf
to Texas, connecting with the jack
son Highway, Sante Fe Trail and the
Apache Trail to the Pacific, which ac-
commodities millions of people annu-
ally.
Leon county has approximately
two hundred miles of the best sand
clay and gravel roads giving access
to the surrounding country. Farms
have developed from the forests, and
former untitled acres are being lifted
from obscurity to prominent valua-
tons entirely through good roads.
Good roads mean good acres
Therefore, lands have doubled in val
lie in our county since the construc-
ton of the first roads ten years ago.
Crops are not marketed at the con-
Farmers can now market every day
in the year at a much smaller cost
of delivery.
Fine thoroughbred hogs and high
grade cattle are rapidly displacing
the 'razor-back' hog and the lineup
cow
Eight years ago Leon county own
ed two dozen dairies. while now a
creamery is using the entire output
of approximately one hundred dair-
les.
According to a bulletin issued by
the Commissioner of Agriculture:
There are seventy thousand farms
in Florida. From these farms we
market in perishables, staples and
live stock seventy thousand carloads
of products, or approximately one
million four hundred thousand tons
Counting excess labor, expense and
delay, it would cost at least one dol |
lar per ton more to get these pro-
ducts to market over poor roads, |
than over good roads. This means
a direct cost to the producer Of one |
million four hundred thousand dol |
lars per annum. The wear and tear
of vehicles, extra feed and gasoline,
viii amount to another five hundred |
thousand dollars. Good roads, then,
mean a direct gain to the producers
lion dollars per annum in marketing |
farm and grove products alone.
Experts have found that insanity /
is social condition with a distinct
to good roads. Modern
highways are relieving the isolation
of the rural districts, giving the in
habitants opportunities for a larger
which will eventually
result III Giiul lHdtllS inc uHioi tliiIdtp
and pitable conditions so often found
IN the country.
"The consolidated school is gradu
ally replacing the one-room rural
school and becoming the social and
Intellectual centre of communities
he gathering place for public meet
'ngs of all kinds.
THE church has prospered-en-
'iched by the fruits of better high
ways, the congregation has been lib
2ral in improving and maintaining
he church. Just as the network of
Roman roads made the
'apid extension of Christianity posi-
Die. so in our own community, the
'ange of influence for the church has
,roadened, leading humanity over
the highways on which one goeth up
o the House of Cod
with an abounded faith in the -,
uture of our State. her resources
rarely touched, we are facing an era ,
If unprecedented prosperity through