Show BAD ROADS BURDEN ONWARD MARCH OF PROGRESS IS RETARDED BY MISERABLE HIGHWAYS BIG HANDICAP TO PEOPLE costs cost much more to haul produce over bad roads road than it does doea over good roads effect of good roads on social life BY HOWARD H GROSS when one ona makes a study of this groat subject and sees in how many ways the march of progress Is retarded by miserable highways the country over and realizes what a burden this handicap places upon the people it is surprising that the whole whale population does not rise as one man and demand that the highway conditions shall be improved to the standard required for the twentieth century road advocates advocate ii have shown for or years and years how much more it costs casts to haul baul produce over bad roads roada A roadside broadside in jamaica shown the I 1 wild as aa well us as oranges there ata ara few P with less labor than in parts of jamaica ter than the he central centra west ot of tho the united than it does over good food ones how with good roads the farmer can market his produce at any time he be desires to do fo BO and take tak advantage ot of market conditions and get the most for what he has to sell bad roads are a serious handicap to social conditions and sometimes for weeks at a time dwellers dw ellera in the farm home are marooned by stretches of impassable roads roada they cannot get out to see anybody and nobody can get to see them thu town that Is five miles away might as well bo be twice that we know that man to la a sociable thing it is part of hla his nature he can only grow grov and develop by meeting hla big fellow men touching elbows and by social and business intercourse intercourse we know that bad roads road have been responsible in a very large larg degree for driving the young people from the farms to the cities the census for the last thirty years has shown shown an ever increasing drift of the best beat brains and blood of the farm to the city this is true trite notwithstanding that there Is no better business in the world than firming farming it if it is done along up ito tofate to date up p an education under town conditions they are getting betting the town microbe along with tho education they form friendships and become part odthe of tha social life ot of the school they are not willing to go back upon the farm with its HH dreariness and isolation no one ought to blame them for this in fact act they are to be ba commended in many instances the country lass and youth must have the social life that natures demand this sociological tact fact must be reckoned with the national educational comila colmia ston sion made up of eminent educators thoroughly familiar with our conditions has been studying this subject for a long time and it says that the solution Is only to be found in the consolidated town township school where instead of eight or ten isolated school houses placed at intervals at tho the crossroads throughout the township bleak dreary and uninviting there should be one central graded school at the most convenient central point and provisions made to take the children to and from the school good roads are necessary if this Is to be ba done the me school ought to have at least five acres acrea of ground to serve as a miniature experiment peri ment station for the study of agriculture tho the cultivation of which will increase interest in agriculture band and show that farming requires brains at a g 6 ay ZVI EX 4 Z ut of a native these thesa banana trees grov gro acea in the world where one ona can live even here the roads road aro are good far tar bet states state well as muscle in such a school the boy and girl would be able to get a high school education and live lire at home upon the farm the school would be ba the social as aa well as aa the educational center of the township the rallying point where the citizens could go and hold bold meetings it would develop the social life would be strong and helpful and the young people would find in the central school and the associations that go with it and the school spirit that would be developed a satisfying condition that would make life upon the farm attractive instead of otherwise another handicap to progress and a menace to our whole country that is ia very larely traceable to bad roads la is the fact that so many thousands of farms are passing from the hands of owner into the hands of tenants the weaning of the children from farm carries the patents away when advancing years yeara makes it necessary for them to lay lai the burdens down wo are building up a peasantry it sounds hard bard to call it that which promises i trouble in the future and raises the 3 13 1 N f S 4 v abroad A road that ll is untrained undra useless and uninviting aupry Is I 1 it t a a highway or aln th march ot of over ever such nuch roads win will certainly bo be slow low such road mean isolation drudgery poor schools poverty and watched cea the th bi 11 of tood good rodn roada will practically double doublas the value of 0 such auch farm fann land and the and tans federal government ought to chelp build the roads A load read ought to change the th namo ot of such auch locality from mud flats flata to pleasant pleast t plains plain pro greBa salve VB lines linea it renders a surer aurer and larger return than anything else in the worlds work 1 yet the tact fact remains that the boy is not satisfied with farm life with good roads so ao lie he could got get out whenever lift lie desired to with his best beat buggy and girl or perhaps an automobile country lite life would take on an entirely different aspect the handicap of the bad road is certainly a heavy one and Is far reaching education greatly by reason of it the country schools are little attle if any better than they were forty years ago it la Is fin an open question whether they their are as good the wages paid the teachers are small the number ot of pupils is very leml limited led som sometimes three or tour four often not over ft a dozen or fifteen there Is no school spirit there Is no ao anything but dreariness and drudgery with little progress ro gress toward education when the hoy boy and kirl girl get old enough to realize this condition and the parents see 14 t there its IH nothing to do but send johnny or lazle 1 lo 10 6 the nearby rby town lown or city where the schools are better and ft here isherw there here la Is an opportunity getting the rudiments of an education and thile anil ana lizzle lizzie are pic Iring question que allon whether we are not establishing here in the central west the conditions that have been the curse of at ireland for three hundred years the result of this condition la is that the soil la Is losing its fertility the farra farm la is bo be coming foul noxious weida are growing the landlord squeezes the enact for lil all the rent that Is in sight bight and the tenant takes it out of tho the tarm farm he cannot afford for the short lease alease ot of one ona or two years to buy fertilizers he must simp 7 rob the soil for all he be can get and turn it over to his bla successor in worse condition than he found it it lie he cannot go into stock farming on short land tenures so BO he be must bo be what la in known as aa a arrain farmer and tats takes the life out of the soil the tha greatest economic menace or of the world today bar nothing la Is the depletion ot of sot soll fertility and this will jo eo on as tenantry increases thus wesee we atey a taw low of the very many dra drawbacks wricks that are directly and indirectly due to bad roads and we w may add tu to the list as stated by the department part ment of ag agriculture rl culture that the of ma ing farm products to the markot market and getting gerung sappl back to tn the ferm over bad highways causes an extra expense of at air least por per person per year over and above what it 11 would cot cost to perform the same game service over roads that aro are uniformly good one of tho the great world questions la 13 that of good toads roads and the sooner the people wake up to the fact act the faster and surer will our progress be toward higher and better things there la Is ft a widespread clamor for or a parcel post and strong influences are at work to get the federal government committed t to 0 I 1 it t T the he indic ti 0 us a are re that it will bo be tried out on a moderate scale whether the parcel post will prove a bles blessing or otherwise la is an open question and one we e will not at this tithe time discuss we rahy may say fay however that any attempt at the parcel post that extending the service to the rural mall mail routes will prove a i disappointment the condl tlona or of the public roads are such that for weeks at a time it would be physically impossible to make delivery the tha carriers are taxed now to the limit it if he starts out with fifty pounds over bad roada it Is a heavier burden than five times the weight over a good road given the iho parcel post in full owing awing anti and without doubt the weight the carrier must handle will be many times almea what it Is now any one familiar with conditions will wall say that without good permanent highways the delivery ol of pac kafes es over L rural a I 1 routes will be a physical impossibility the first thing to strive for Is good roads let the tha parcel post come later |