OCR Text |
Show - 1 1 ..i . . . m , the bulkier ami heavier products, eucli as hay and straw and grain. In many cases the surrounding country is quite capable of supplying sup-plying tm, demand; in all cases it -should do so as far as possible; in most cases it does not. Instead, supplies are brought in by rail or canal far away, perhaps from other streets; while at tho same timo, within a few miles of the market thus supplied, are farms that havo been abandoned as not worth working and others owners are in chronic discontent and despair at the apparent impossibility of getting profitable prices for their crops. The big farms of the west, they say, monopolise 'the markets, and so farming here no longer pays. r Now, one prime secret of the tremble lies in the bad road, which keep the producer and tho consu- mer apart by making it ifficulV....,-.,,.-.;.- if-not imposfcible,for the farmers to get their produce to market.' The farmer 1,000 miles away can. get Jiis.roRs to market by rail or, canal in ore easily and moro cheap- ly than the farmer only ten miles' away can haul hie in over roads . that aro so hilly and rough and miry that half a ton is a heavy-load heavy-load for a horse io draw at a slow footpace. It is not that farms In the east aro no longer productive, nor that, tho eastern market no longer offers, fair prices. It is that tho roads, between tne farms and the markets aro so bad as to make shipment unprofitable. Good roads through out tho farming regions adjacent to the cities nnd towns would do. more than .anything else to restoro: prosperity to tho farmers, enabling enabl-ing them to get theirgoods to the-best the-best possiblo market easily, proni-pity proni-pity and cheaply. Good roads-would roads-would mean good farms, good, markets, good prices and good times for all concerned. I BAD ROADS TO BLAME. Why tbe Farmers in the East find their Buiiness Unprofitable. A highly important feature wf the highways question is the effect good or bad roads have upon the1 local markets nnd their sources of! supply, s y a t;e New York Tribune. Tri-bune. Tn jdi :h. ot arid largej towns of th to there iy a de-' jwind for farm products and for 1 |