Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1884 — Good Roads. [ARTICLE]

Good Roads.

A correspondent of the Country Gentleman, writing from Dutchess county, N. Y., says that the town of Amenia, in that county, has tried with marked success the plan of keeping a force of four or five men at work on the highways through most of the year under the supervision of an experienced and skillful builder of roads, who gives his attention constantly to the work. Every part of the seventy-five miles of highway in the town is in good condition, and the expense of keeping it so has been much less than it could have been by the old method. The new plan has greatly relieved the -farmers, who have not been called to work on the roads at a time, when other duties demanded their attention. New York has a law ■which directs that the voters of any town may elect to adopt this plan of hiring a force of men and a competent—Commissioner to make and keep in repair the roads of their town, but the plan once adopted must be followed for not less than three years. It has been found that by the method described the roads have been kept in better condition than ever before, and that the cost of the work has actually been less than that of roadmaking by the old way.