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Show Pennsylvania Takes The Farmer Out Of The Mud In a recent Issue of the New Republic, Governor Pinchot of Pennsylvania .wrote on "Lilting the Farmer Out of the Mud." Not so many years ago, Pennsylvania's Penn-sylvania's road situation was like that of most other states it had a certain mileage of superhighways superhigh-ways costing $50,000 to $70,000 a mile, and thousands of miles of unimproved or half-i m p r o v e d roads which became a sequence of mud-holes In bad .weather. Then it adopted a new policy. The state took over 20,000 milis of inferior roads with the purpose of transforming them into dust-less, dust-less, mudless hardsurfaced thoroughfares, thor-oughfares, good every day In the year. It studied the construction of cheaper roads for light traffic and found that where old roadbeds road-beds had good bases, a satisfactory satisfac-tory bituminous surface could be laid for from $1,500 to $2,500 a mile. It found that in other cases hardsurfaced roads could be constructed con-structed cheaply with bituminous binders. Whenever possible local materials mater-ials were utilized in building the " road. A type was gradually evolved not the cheapest type, but that which really combined economy with service and long wear and as a result first-class rural roads were and are being built for less than $6,000 a mile. Governor Pinchot describes one of these $6,000 roads. First a 20 foot roadbed is provided, mecessi-tating mecessi-tating cleaning out, widening and easing of curves and grades.. Drainage follows. Then a road 14 to 16 feet wide is built in the center of the bed. The base course Is usually stone and average live Inches in thickness. Over this comes an application of three ts four inches of finer stone. A bi- tumlnous binder is applied. And a """" typical Pennsylvania rural road has been completed. Pennsylvania is to be congratulated congratu-lated and, more important than that, emulated. Every state must, if It Is to prepare for the future, take the farmer out of the mud. |