Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1910 — GOOD ROADS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GOOD ROADS

P**r Roads Mean Big Amnnal Loaa. Poor roads impose an unnecessary financial burden, not only upon those who moat constantly use them, but upon the men and women who consume the products grown in the rural sections and brought to cities and towns by farmers. No study can be more convincing than that of the economic waste placed upon the shoulders of the 85,000,000 people of this land from the almost criminally shameful condition of J. 000.000 milee of road. Every pound of farm products brought from rural sections to thickly populated centers has placed upon it a fictitious value, because It costs the farmer more to transport it than it would cost him were the roads in passable Condition. The price of the lamb chop that Brooklyn eats for breakfast is based, not upon the real value of the lamb, but upon the cost of bringing that lamb from the western fields to the Brooklyn breakfast table, says the Grands Rapids (Mich.) Herald. The cost of the breakfast roll would be trifling did it not cost the farmer who grew the wheat from which the roll was made 1.8 cents a bushel more to draw that wheat from his farm nine miles to a railroad station than it cost to carry a bushel of wheat from New York to Liverpool, a distance of 3,100 miles. The cost of a soft-boiled egg, which is also closely related to the American breakfast, is established by

the cost of transporting the product of the hen to the hotel, and not because the egg was at all intrinsically worth what was charged for It. Everybody who thinks must concede the evident fact that if a farmer with two horses can draw but 600 pounds to market in five hours, he would save money if with one horse he could haul 1,200 pounds In two hours. Were the roads In good condition, he could do that and more. Any saving in hauling a ton of farm product would bring a benefit, not alone to the farmer, but to the consumer, and if the product hauled each year was large, it is not hard to figure that the saving would be large. Figures have been assembled to prove that owing to the frightful condition of almost all American roads, ib costs 26 cents a ton a mile to haul. The superb roads of the old countries of Europe make possible the hauling of farm products at 12 cents a ton a mile. Therefore, every ton haulad costs the American farmer 13 cents more per mile than the farmers of the old country are forced to pay. The average length of haul of farm products In the United States Is 9.4 miles; therefore, were our roads as good as those of France,- the farmer's gain would be 9.4 times 13 cents, or approximately |1.28. Let us see what that amounts to In a year in hauling but a portion of the products which traverse the country roads in wagons. The United Btates department of agriculture, through its office of public roads, has collected the figures and they may be accepted as approximately accurate. During the crop year of 1905-6, 85,487,000,000 pounds of farm products, consisting of barley, corn, cotton, flaxseed, hemp, hops, oats, beans, rice, tobacco. wheat and wool, were hauled from the places where they originated to shipping points. This vast weight did nvt, means, include all of the crops produced, the most notable exceptions being truck products and orchard products, ths tonnage of those two amounting high In the millions. Neither did .It include any figures for forest or mine products, nor for those things which go in wagons from the cities back to the country districts. Were all those included, one may easily see what a vast annual -saving would be made. As it is, however, of the figures quoted above, at a saving of 13 cents per ton mile, the cash benefit to the farmers would be 258,900,000. : Beyond that, however, the Interstate commerce commission has assemble*

•tliqr 'frnlght figures, a most conserve tlvs estimate and most liberal deductions from their figures tending to prove that 250,000,000,000 pounds are annually hauled. By the same method of figuring as that adopted abovg, the hauling of this would result In > saving of about 1305,000,000 a year. It would appear that'so vast a' sura should not be annually thrown away, simply because those responsible fer appropriations of money to construct roads cannot be brought to a realization of their tremendous importance.