Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 69, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1916 — WHAT GOOD ROADS DO FOR US [ARTICLE]

WHAT GOOD ROADS DO FOR US

Increase School Attendance, Improve Social Conditions, and Business. A 15 per cent increase in the proportion of the available children attending schools took place following the construction of good roads in eight counties studied by the office of public roadg and rural engineering of the department it is shown in a recent publication of the office, I Department Bulletin No. 393. The improvement in roads was followed also in several of the counties, the report shows, by consolidation of a I number of the little one-room schools into graded schools, which give the pupils better educational advantagea; by a development of various industries, and by social improvement due to easier intercourse. These improvements are related closely to increases in land values and decreases’ in hauling costs, effects also traced to the construction of improved roads. The studies were made in Spotsylvania, Dinwiddle, Lee and Wise counties, Virginia; Franklin county, New York; Dallas county, Alabama; Lauderdale county, Mississippi, and Manatee county, Florida. In Spotsylvania county, Virginia, the average daily school attendance increased from 57 per cent of the enrollment before the roads were improved to 77 per cent after. Several small schools were consolidated. Between 1909, the year preceding the building of good roads, and 1913, the year following their completion, the shipment of forest products, the principal products of the county, increased more than 78 per cent. The increase during this period in the poultry business in the county was 77 per cent, and in dairying 110 per cent. In Dinwiddie county, Virginia, the average daily attendance for children for thirteen schools on the improved roads was 63.4 per cent of the enrollments in 1912-13, while the average attendance for all other schools in the county was 56 per cent. Several school consolidations have been effected, larger school buildings have been constructed, and pupils have been transported to school at the expense of the educational system since the road improvements were made. Truck gardening and dairying, which were profitable only within three miles of the principal market town of the county before the road improvement, are now carried on profitably within a seven-mile radius. In Lee county, Virginia, a considerable industry has been built up following the road improvements in the shipment of tan bark, extract wood, and pulp wood, products which could not be profitably hauled over the unimproved roads. The improved highway system has at- , traded buyers of farm products who travel from farm to farm and furnish a new cash market for the farmers. There has been a 25 per cent increase in buggies sold by a county vehicle factory. In Wise county, Virginia, social conditions have been bettered since the good roads were constructed, many farmers along the improved highways having built new homes or improved old ones, adding sanitary conveniences. School attendance has increased materially, but since compulsory attendance regulations went into effect about the time the improved roads were completed, the influence of the two factors could not be determined separately. Several school consolidations have been made. Auto registrations in Franklin county, New York, increased from 371 before the road improvement in 1912 to 853 after road improvement in 1914, and two automobile bus lines connecting distant towns in the county were established as soon as the improved roads were opened. There has been a notable stimulation of dairying and general diversification on the farms of Dallas county, Alabama, since the improvement of the roads of that county. In the section of Lauderdale county, Mississippi, where most of the roads have been Improved, the school attendance increased from 72 per cent of the enrollment in 1912, just after the road work started, to 81 per cent in 1913 after the completion of the work. Several school consolidations have been effected. In Manatee county, Florida, which produces chiefly fruits and vegetables, these products could not be hauled over the sandy roads before the improvement was made, except at prohibitive cost. In the one year, 1912-13, following the completion of the good roads, the area in vegetables increased about 1,500 acres. The products of the county, the stndy shows, are now hauled to railway pointe milch more cheaply than formerly.—United States Department of Agriculture.