Show THE PROFIT OF GOOD ROADS They would cpr I ion and nd make For nir 1 from rom tho the industrial standpoint st at least distance in this advanced year of grace cap no longer be fairly measure inea surel I in miles and leagues we hare have gone beyond all that london la is nea nearer to N new ew york than was buffalo sixty years ago to accomplish this we have directed the tire national hand and loosened the national ati pursa arse strings to the encouragement of improved industrial methods to t the be e of groat great commercial I 1 and mechanical centers and in certain di b erections ions to the aid of enlarged and quickened means of transportation in viewing the results which seem to have inured to the nation through all thew these time saving anil and distance shorten ing improvements it appears imps impossibly not to observe that their benefits its are I 1 bestowed in a somewhat one sided aided and inequitable way they have saved time thile lightened labor and abridged di stancu in all the operations of the banker tin the merchant the manufacturer and the fol lowers of the barned professions and have lave developed monopolistic features in fit some degree commensurate with the centralizing tendency of population capital and trade their benefits to the farmer while vastly important in themselves eel vesi have not from a relative standpoint at least tended either to allay ina his complaint or to enhance his industrial condition indeed they do not seem to hava have quite reached the fanner or the farm for alast the distance to the american farm like the distance to sun and moon and tue the inaccessible stars is idill measured in miles and leagues 0 meanwhile what of that only avenue of communication which connects tai the it I 1 farmer socially and commercially with the world at large it is the same dirt road that was aed used a hundred centuries ago by the naked sti savage vage in all these years it has not changed except th that at the I 1 modern modem article is more or less churned and mangled by narrow wheel tires and f flanked by costly nud and useless fences I 1 no great country can afford to neglect its tanners farmers or to abandon an reasonable measure by which the encouragement I 1 of agriculture I 1 is likely to be insured yet agriculture within file U united nit states if not actually declining has certainly witnessed a long season zi of depression and lias has been nowhere spurred to the same conditions of increase and thrift that have marked so many indu tries in the cities and towns to them are accorded all the improvements of the age in the great state of new york where the value of farm crops was exceeded last year by those of only two baates iu in the entire union the disproportion between I 1 the wealth of country and town I 1 lias has become BO so marked that the officio official ali estimated value of farm landa lands last yea yen 0 1 was less than 8 per cent and that of the incorporated cities and villager mi more wore than 83 92 per cent of the total I 1 ta taxable values within the state the fist list of abandoned farms in many 1 is growing to such length as to excite public comment and invite official inquiry the population of not a few of our agricultural districts has actually decreased within the list last ten years while the mortgage indebtedness of At american farms is accumulating at the ra rate t of per year it la Is of course no easy taste task to charge these sluggish conditions and shifting 1 fortunes foi tunes of agriculture to any certain cause but in searching for a solution certain facts appear with such conspicuous ous prominence as to make them worthy of mention viz that with the same physical conditions the same market 1 and unchanged prices of farm prot produce luce the american farm has in late years substantially declined in market value talus that the value of farm produce in a given locality is in general determined by the price offered in the local market that the farmer pays the same for all that he buys and get i no more for what he bells sells whether his farni fara be near or distant from the market town that under these condi is eions the most immediate means of relief is to diminish the total cost of placing this produce in the market town that an amazing share of this cost is mado made up by the difficulties of wagon road transportation necessitating scant loads long delays mud blockades breakdowns and extra trips that these or similar hampering conditions are tolerated by no other indr industrial class within the nation and finally that the quickening means for work travel and transportation adopted within and between the mercantile industries of the different towns have added to the attractiveness tr and profits of these pursuits and by force of contrast have detracted from the commercial value of neighboring farms firms but the public roads though placed for some obscure reason within the I 1 ia mediate care of the fa farming population have a paramount importance to the people at 1 rge to whom indeed they in fact in bt the common road is an in eti sti tuti if i f the body politic and it is a sorry counie nt to say that the government me ut has thus far denied to its hu improvement proa me 11 t the same liberal support that it has showered upon the schemes of private capital I 1 the great volume of internal in every state ia is the common road trade it ex exceeds ceede by count countless lebs tons the entire freight tonnage of all the railroads combined tor for besides this freight frei glit which ia is at first carted in one form or another over the public road there is A still greater quantity of produce of all kinds wheeled over these roads to fill the do demands of the local market and to satisfy the requirements of home consumption r the cost of this form of transportation le be it great or email fain is in theand the end paid in part at least by the consumer the time has certainly come when this subtle and 00 too oo long unrecognized effect which our great network of dirt roada roads exerts upon the social and industrial character of the people should be made a 6 subject of popular concern As a nation or ag as separate parate ee states what are we waiting for conden condensed from an art article by isaac B potter in forum |