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Show ROAD BUILDING IS BOOMING States in All Sections Are Filing Their Projects and Receiving Proper Allotments. (Prepared bv the United States Jlepart-ment Jlepart-ment of Agriculture.) Since early in 1919 there has been a steady increase each month in the federal-aid business in the bureau of public roads of the United States de-nartment de-nartment of sericulture. States in all sections of the country are filing their projects and receiving allotments. The road-building -era is in full swing, and it would seem that the end is not yet. All Indications point to greater records rec-ords in the months immediately to come. Based on complete reports from 44 of the states cash expenditures on the rural roads and bridges of the United States for the calendar year 1918 amounted to $286,098,193. To this should be added the value ef .statute and convict labor, which cannot be fixed with any great degree of ac curacy but probably amounted to not less than $14,000,000, thus making the grand 'total expenditures for the year $3OQ;00O,O0O. This total is made up of the actual expenditures for such items as labor, materials, supervision and administration directly connected with the construction, improvement, and upkeep of public roads and 1 ; IlllllIBilllllllii Siiiii;;;?; : Better Roads Mean More Rapd and Economical Transportation of Farm Produce. j bridges outside the limits of iricor-' iricor-' .porated towns and cities, and does not I include any item for sinking fund 1 payments or redemption and interest ' .on road and bridge bonds. ' The year 1918 offered an urrprece-! urrprece-! dented condition in practically all i lines of highway work. There was : not only a tremendous increase and expansion in the amount of heavy I truck traffic on public roads and an J unprecedented shortage in regard to road materials, labor and ready funds, ; tout also a decided increase in main-' main-' tenance work, which was, however, j .partially offset by a decrease in the J .amount of new construction. |