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Show THE FARMER'S BURDEN. Ha. I Itomlt Responsible for a ;.., J I,.nl r It. If an advance in freight rate jvere to i be made which would increase the co.-t of getting grain to market by from two to "b tenia a bushel, decrease by thai amount the profits of the farmer and proportionately lower the value of Ids laud as an investment, a great cry of remonstrance would go up from every quarter of the country. Vet the farm.'i-bears farm.'i-bears without thinking just such a burden bur-den in the shape of ordinary highways that make the transport of his graiu'lo the nearest market point a tedious and costly job. And this burden is not one that may bo lifted by the competition of railroads or other corporations. It will rest upon him just as long as he fails to join the ngitation for highway improvement. There is no subject on which it would profit the agriculturist more to bring to bear the whole power of his influence and that of the associations to which he may belong. There is none to which he has shown a more complete indifference. It is only lately that general interest has been awakened in the improvement of country roads. But what has been actually done in a few counties shows what the whole country might do for itself if it chose. A professorship h:is been established in one of our colleges, and much valuable matter is being collected col-lected by those who have made a study of the question. The best of this is contributed, con-tributed, by Mr. Isaac B. Potter, whosa recent work on the subject is followed by an article in the latest issue of The Forum, in which he appeals to the self interest of the people to provide them with good country roads. As Mr. Potter says, "With the enlargement enlarge-ment of concentric circles surrounding every American inland town is to lie found an apparently undue diminution of agricultural population, wealth and thrift." While railroads and canals have multiplied, and freight rates have been reduced to a figure undreamed of a few years ago, the dirt road, "that only avenue of communication which connects con-nects the fanner socially and commercially commer-cially with the world at large, is the same road that was used a hundred centuries ago by the naked savage when chased by a storm to the sheltering cave." No better statement of its importance and its average condition than that of Mr. Potter can be given: "Measuring a million miles or more in its various ramifications, dissolving in the rains of April, baking and pulverizing beneath the rays of the midsummer sun, drifting and disappearing in the whirlwinds of November, and presenting at all times but little more than a roughened streak of soil to serve as a land highway for the great volume of internal traffio, the time seems to have come when the American common road may rightfully .asst;rt itself as thq mast .expensive, and by all odds the most extravagantly maintained of all the public institutions." institu-tions." The complaints of the decay of agriculture, agri-culture, the abandonment of farms in many communities aud the charge of a slower relative growth in prosperity for the farmer may all be referred, in considerable con-siderable degree, to the condition of our country highways. The trallic carried -on over them exceeds vastly the freight tonnage of all our railroads combined. Yet this has to be carried under difficulties diffi-culties am at a cost which inoreases immensely im-mensely tbe cost of living to the consumer, con-sumer, while they strip the producer of most of his rightful profit. The difference differ-ence between the transport of country produce over existing roads and its carriage car-riage over such roads as are to be found in England and France is a difference of tens, probably of hundreds of millions of dollars every year. And this is only one side of the question, for, in addition to the argument from economy, there is the social argument. Nothing contributes so much to make the farmer's life barren of interest, to help along the drift of population to the cities, to change the old delight in rural life into a dread of it as an unbearable isolation, iso-lation, as the condition of its avenues of communication, which practically shuts up the inhabitants of the farm during several months of the year, and those just the mouths when they have most leisure for refreshing outings, to the routine and confinement of the farm itself. The country high way is the great barrier that stands today in front of progress, both material and intellectual, for the agricultural population. Nor is it any unknown problem with which we have to deal. The methods of roadmaking are thoroughly well ascertained. ascer-tained. The approximate cost is known. Great Britain has done the work which has helped to inspire so many of her people peo-ple with a passionate love for country life, and to maintain British agriculture in a struggle with the superior productiveness produc-tiveness of America, but for which aid it must have succumbed long ago. We have only to set to work in earnest, and the next generation will see this country far ahead of the rest of the world in the thrift and prosperity of its farming communities. com-munities. Will those who are most vitally vi-tally interested take up the cause? The problem of cost is not entirely ail easy pne. Yet all that is required for its solution is an enlightened self interest. We doubt the advisability of attempting attempt-ing to thrust this great labor upon the shoulders of either the nation or the state. It will cost more in the long run, with endless possibilities of jobbery and favoritism fa-voritism in the meantime. It is the local community which will be first benefited. ben-efited. It is the local community that should take the first step. St. Paul Pioneer Pi-oneer Press. |