Show roaf jal MW towey HE greatest public service corporation in the united states to day Is the improvement a s s la t ion said james H mcdonald state highway commissioner of connecticut at the dinner given him on the private car signet by the members of the F yoakum good roads party at new haven a few days ago after a trip of 1500 miles by motor car and miles b train through 17 states the members of the party were disposed to agree with him they were all farmers from the great southwest texas oklahoma louis lana and arkansas and they had just finished a motor car tour of maryland new jersey new york and the new england states in search of good loads this trip will have tangible and am mediate results the delegation from the southwestern states returned home full of enthusiasm tor good roads they promised collectively and andl to devote their efforts to pro doting a cause tor which they learned already had been expend ed in this country and little states like new hampshire and connecticut were appropriating millions of dollars with in a few years the southwestern states will good roads the first actual work of road in spec tion in company with state en ginders was in new jersey where the farmers found roads ranging in cost from 3 to 29 a mile they traveled over roads made entirely of gravel and crushed by heavy steam rollers they found these roads good cor wagon traffic but that heavy motor sen ice wore them out the average bitumen road over which they passed cost from 5 to 7 a mile and furnished very satisfactory service for both motor and wagon traffic they had been laid down in quite a lot of different ways ranging from 25 per cent asphaltum 25 per cent tar and the rest in gravel and sand up to a very high percentage of asphalt the new jersey engineers recommended the lower percentage of asphaltum as they do not get slippery in hot or rainy weather the next state visited by the in vesti gating committee of southwestern farmers was new hampshire they were welcomed at loconia by gov henry quinby who told them that the state had appropriated 17 cor good roads at the last session of the legislature and then proceeded over parts of the three great trunk roads which are being built through the state in company with A W dean state engineer and his assist ants they found the macadam roads in massachusetts and later in new york in which the upper course Is mixed with tar costing from S to 9 per mile this combination makes an extremely sound road for both wagon and motor traffic it is customary cu tomary to oil the surface of these from time to time in the spring and fall As cold weather comes on they cease this oiling as extreme cold is apt to produce a bad surface under heavy traffic conditions at the conclusion of their first day in massachusetts the party tendered a dinner in boston to aleut gov froth ingham among those present was W E mcclintock chairman of the chelsea board of control who had been for 15 years previous connected with the massachusetts state highway commission and for 12 years of that t me chairman of that body he spoke eichi spastically upon the subject of good roads and said in part I 1 know of several instances where the highways have been so improved tl at where it formerly took two horses all day to haul one ton it now takes one horse only halt a day to haul tac tons you can figure out the percent age of profit for yourselves the load on improved roads has increased ac to 50 and 75 per cent and the horse power is reduced farmers and state granges are en thusia advocates of the good road movement in this state and becom mend the continuation of the appropriations then these men from the southwest ern states heard about something real in the way of appropriations from col W D chairman of the massa chu state highway commission they learned also that all the prod acts used in bitumen construction in the east are coming from the western states oklahoma and texas should abound in thee natural oil products used in the construction of the best roads known to the science of road building in the east they learned that the cost of these materials is much lower in the west than it is tor example in massachusetts the mas highway commission Is forced to pay from 30 to 40 per cent more than the same material can be procured for in oklahoma and texas col schier said in part A foundation Is necessary for a rod good 12 months in the year here in massachusetts we appropriate 2 in five year terms and spend a year when we build through townships they pay us back 2 per cent of our outlay we have spent 7 dollars in building state highways amounting to a little less than miles of road we spend ao 20 a year in towns of less than a million valuation with no per paid back this road where the township asks tor the money is constructed under the specifications of the state highway commission the greatest necessity in road build ing is to keepf the roads in repair we must ananie tor maintenance as well as construction this is where adassa chu is ahead of the other states aur materials are oil sand and gravel why exclaimed J P connors of oklahoma we have acres of asphaltum and oil in oklahoma that has belonged to nobody except for a year or two the party concluded its trip through rhode island by a 25 mile dash from narragansett pier to westerly in 45 minutes giving a practical demon stra tion of the value of good roads when you desire to catch a train W J BENJAMIN |