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Show WHAT GOOD ROADS SAVE. Economic Amounting t,i Millions Alu in Rem li ..f ili I'aiu.er. If our common Lo.tt thai we :ue progreai ve, wide asv.tke and in-vmoii.-uatiou is well founded, what can 1 : urged to uxcuse us tor udhering to the antiquated and inefficient methods r milking and keeping our com:noa road., when we have before u the great ecou oiny and splendid results produced bv the adoption of more intelligent tiieihod'-in tiieihod'-in other countries? In many respects we have greater need of hard surface.! roads than has either France or England. Eng-land. Our rainfall is considerably heavier than theirs and our dirt road-, for weeks at a time are half as deep as they are wide. Farm traffic is suspended and horses are kept in idleness. Official statistics show that there ara something oyer 10,000,000 horses and mules on the farms of the United States, and at a moderate estimate of twenty-five twenty-five cents per day a3 the cost of feed for each animal, we see that it costs the farmers of this country about 4,000,00'J per day for this item alone. Less than 50 per cent, of these animals would be sufficient to do all the hauling of farm produce carried on in this country if even the main roads were put in first class condition, but, not to hops too strongly for the attainment of distant things, let us suppose that such an improvement im-provement la projected as would render unnecessary only one-eighth of the total number of the draft animate now employed. em-ployed. This would reduce the entirj number by a little over 2,000,000 and would effect a saving eacli day of about H,000 tons of hay and 750,000 bushels of oats, which, reduced to a money value, equals $300,000 per day, or about $1 14,-000,000 14,-000,000 per year. Add to this the value of the animals, 1140.000,000, and we have a total of $234.-000,000 $234.-000,000 saved for the first year. Of course these figures do not represent the real loss entailed to our farmers by the use of dirt roads. That loss is beyond computation; but in whatever way the computation is directed, and wherever the loss is susceptible of calculation, the same startling exhibit js bound to appear. ap-pear. A recent careful count shows over 300 abandoned farms in the fertile and populous state of New Jersey. Engineering Magazine. " |