LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 Deceived /7' 1*3/7^ , 
 
 < 
 
 Accessions No. (3. CLns No. 
 
NEW 
 ROADS AND ROAD LAWS 
 
 IN THE 
 
 UNITED STATES 
 
 ROY STONE 
 
 / * 
 
 VICE-PRESIDENT NATIONAL LEAGUE FOR GOOD ROADS, AND IT. S. SPECIAL AGENT 
 AND ENGINEER FOR ROAD INQUIRY, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY 
 
 23 MURRAY AND 27 WARREN STREETS 
 
 1894 
 
COPYRIGIIT, 1894, 
 BY D. VAN NOSTEAND COMPANY, 
 
 TYPOGRAPHY BY ]. S. GUSHING & Co., BOSTON. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE greater portion of the material for this work was 
 gathered before the establishment of the Government In- 
 quiry into " Systems of Eoad Management in the United 
 States," and when the writer took charge of that inquiry, 
 it was thought best, iiVview of the urgent demand for a 
 publication of this character and the delay involved in 
 organizing the inquiry and making a proper digest of its 
 results for publication, to carry out the original intention, 
 and publish, in a private form, the information already at 
 hand, and such additional matter as might come in through 
 the inquiry or otherwise during the preparation of the 
 volume for the press. In addition to supplying a present 
 need, it is hoped that this book may still further stimulate 
 public interest in the subject, and thus promote the success 
 of the official inquiry. 
 
 The demand for information on this subject generally 
 relates 
 
 First, To the new legislation for road improvement and 
 the working of that legislation ; 
 
 Second, To the cost and methods of road construction; 
 
 Third, To the effects of road improvement where it 
 has been accomplished. 
 
 iii 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 Until the organization of the National League for Good 
 Roads, no serious attempt appears to have been made to 
 gather this information in the United States. 
 
 By means of the Consular Reports a knowledge of for- 
 eign road-making has been widely spread, but the densest 
 ignorance still prevails in respect to our home efforts and 
 their results. 
 
 This work attempts only to give a condensed account 
 of recent progress in American road-making, with details 
 of the examples which have been most conspicuously 
 successful, together with some suggestions for legislation 
 and for road construction. 
 
 New developments succeed each other rapidly in this 
 field : since the body of this book was in type, committees 
 of the New York State Legislature and Boards of Super- 
 visors have visited the State Aid Road Districts of New 
 Jersey, and on their return have passed a State Aid law 
 through the lower house by a vote of four to one. 
 
 This visit and its result have been widely discussed, and 
 another winter will see a movement for State Aid in many 
 States ; for the visitors have spread far and wide the news 
 of farming communities actually getting rich in these hard 
 times, and attributing their prosperity entirely to their 
 
 good roads. 
 
 ROY STONE. 
 WASHINGTON, D.C., May 4, 1894. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Recent Progress in Road Improvement 1 
 
 II. The Government Road Inquiry 19 
 
 III. The New Roads of Canandaigua, N.Y 35 
 
 IV. Modern Kentucky Road-Building 43 
 
 V. Connecticut Roads 40 
 
 VI. Cheap Stone Roads in Virginia, Michigan, New Jersey, 
 
 and Maryland 50 
 
 VII. Ineffective County Road Laws. Local Option Law of 
 
 New Jersey 55 
 
 VIII. Proposed Amendments to the New Jersey Road Law . 59 
 
 IX. Further Modification of the Same Law suggested ... 62 
 
 X. State Aid, and the Method of giving it 69 
 
 XI. Another Form of State Aid. Convict Labor .... 74 
 
 XII. What the Railroads will do for the Highways .... 81 
 
 XIII. Road Materials in the United States ....... 87 
 
 XIV. The Best Road for a Farming District 91 
 
 XV. The Best Construction for a Narrow Hard Road. Some 
 
 Farm Roads in Illinois 94 
 
 XVI. Treatment of Sandy Roads 97 
 
 XVII. Treatment of Dirt Roads 101 
 
 XVIII. Wide Tires 103 
 
 XIX. The Report of the Ohio Road Commission 109 
 
 XX. Farmers and the Roads 114 
 
 XXI. The Wheelmen's Campaign for Roads 118 
 
 XXII. The Attitude of Commercial Organizations 120 
 
 XXIII. Road-Building and the Revival of Business . 123 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abstracts of New Koad Laws in Sixteen States 139 
 
 Proposed Law for State Aid in New York . ...... 147 
 
 Proposed State Aid in Pennsylvania . . 151 
 
 State Highway Commission. Law of Massachusetts, 1893 . . . 154 
 State Engineer Department. Law proposed by the Maryland 
 
 Road League 161 
 
 Free Road Materials by Convict Labor. 
 
 1. Laws of Delaware, Chap. 670, 1893 . . 163 
 
 2. Proposed Law in Iowa . 166 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Stone Road, Canandaigua, N.Y. . 35 
 
 Canandaigua Roads . 40 
 
 Mud Road at End of Stone Road, Canandaigua, N. Y 43 
 
 Country Road, Alexandria County, Va ... 50 
 
 Washington and Alexandria Turnpike, March, 1894 . 54 
 
 Church Road, Camden County, N.J .62 
 
 Transverse Sections of New Jersey Telf ord Roads ... .66 
 
 Church Road, Camden County, N. J., before Macadamizing . . 68 
 
 Road-Building in North Carolina, Blowing up Stumps .... 80 
 
 Cross-Sections of Narrow Stone Roads 96 
 
 Judge Caton's Farm Roads in Illinois ... 97 
 
 Church Road, One Mile East of Merchantville 114 
 
 Farm Teams on their Way to Market .... ..... 117 
 
 Road-Building in North Carolina 123 
 
 vii 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 RECENT PROGRESS IN ROAD IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 THE task of transforming a million miles, or more, 
 of bad roads into good ones, a task which involved the 
 disruption of century old systems, the development of 
 new lines of legislation in all the States of our Union, 
 and, in many, even the changing of their constitutions, 
 and which has threatened to require an expenditure 
 running into billions, has commonly been deemed so 
 vast and difficult as to be utterly hopeless ; but it sud- 
 denly appears that the few good citizens who have had 
 the courage to attempt it, here and there, have reason 
 to be astonished at their own success. Not only have 
 the ways and means been found without oppression to 
 the taxpayer, but the actual cost of good road-making 
 has been brought far below the early estimates. Sixteen 
 States have passed new road laws, more or less radical 
 in their nature, and one has amended its constitution 
 to permit the adoption of such laws. Many hundreds 
 of miles of good roads have already been built, in local- 
 ities widely separated, under varying conditions and 
 through various methods of administration, finance, and 
 construction. 
 
Z NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 It is therefore no longer necessary to go abroad for 
 instruction in this reform, but, on the other hand, 
 highly necessary to learn what is being done at home ; 
 the country is so vast, that what is done and well done 
 in one section is often unknown or misunderstood in 
 another, and each community has, so' far as regards 
 the experience of others, wrought mostly in the dark. 
 Some recent developments of the road movement tend, 
 however, to\vard a thorough investigation of the subject, 
 and a wide diffusion of the knowledge so gained. 
 
 In Chicago a year ago last October, in the midst of 
 the universal excitement and enthusiasm which attended 
 the opening ceremonies of the Great Fair, and the dedi- 
 cation of the White City, a representative body of men 
 coming from all parts of the land, and from every walk 
 in life, drew aside from the contemplation of the tri- 
 umphs of American civilization to counsel together on 
 one great reproach to that civilization, the condition 
 of the common roads of the country. In this gathering 
 there were delegates from all the existing State organi- 
 zations for road improvement, from many Boards of 
 Trade and Agriculture, from Agricultural Colleges and 
 Universities, and from Farmers' Clubs and Wheelmen's 
 Leagues, besides many individual leaders in the general 
 movement. No more harmonious assemblage ever dis- 
 cussed a public question. Each speaker presented only 
 a varied phase of the same picture of the country's need 
 and its opportunity. 
 
 One said : " Columbus discovered America in vain if, 
 after four hundred years, we are still behind the ancient 
 
PROGRESS IN ROAD IMPROVEMENT, 3 
 
 Peruvians in one of the elements of civilization, and are 
 not ashamed of it; a people not yet emerged from bar- 
 barism, with no written language, and no means of 
 record or communication better than a knotted string, 
 yet possessing a system of roads which astonished their 
 Spanish conquerors more than all the other marvels of 
 that marvellous land." 
 
 " A Spanish writer of the day pictured the Great Road 
 from Quito to Cuzco in this lofty language : 4 1 believe 
 that in all the history of man there has been no account 
 of such grandeur as is to be seen in this road, which 
 passes over deep valleys and lofty mountains, by snowy 
 heights, over falls of water, through live rocks, and 
 along the edges of furious torrents ; in all places level 
 and paved; along mountain slopes terraced; through the 
 living rock cut; along the river banks supported by 
 walls ; in the snowy heights with steps and resting- 
 places ; in all parts ten paces wide, clean swept, clear of 
 stones, and, at intervals, post-houses and storehouses 
 and temples of the Sun.' " 
 
 Another speaker said : " A strange apathy has fallen 
 upon the country, and a strange paralysis upon the gov- 
 ernment, since the time when the Fathers of the Republic 
 declared it the duty of Congress to bind the Republic 
 together with roads and canals" 
 
 A well-known Western editor said : " The building 
 of the needed highways of the land is of no less 
 consequence to America in the development of its 
 resources than the building of its 200,000 miles of 
 railroad. Fortunately for all interests involved, 
 
4 NEW ROADS AND EGAD LAWS. 
 
 magnitude of the undertaking does not appall any one, 
 but the whole country, without excepting the smallest 
 fragment, favors the good work. There is not an insti- 
 tution of learning, from the highest university to the 
 primary school, but teachers and pupils favor good 
 roads. If money talks, every dollar in the land is 
 speaking a good word for better roads. It is an object 
 which permeates all society, without room for an un- 
 friendly thought. It concerns every phase of religious 
 belief, but steers clear of sectarianism. It takes com- 
 plete possession of all politics, but avoids all parties. 
 In a word, the continent is solid for good roads." 
 
 " How shall they be built? To answer this, the most 
 important question which can come before the Ameri- 
 can people in the next century is the scope, object, 
 and purpose of the National Road League which this 
 National Convention is assembled to organize." 
 
 The Secretary of the Iowa Road Improvement Asso- 
 ciation, after describing the waste- and losses due to bad 
 roads, said: *' Build permanent country roads, passable 
 during twelve months in the year, and these adverse 
 conditions disappear. The farmer sells his grain or 
 stock when prices tempt him; he delivers when his 
 other duties permit without sacrifice of time ; he buys his 
 supplies on rainy days, emancipated from the spasmodic 
 and uncertain market ; he reforms his methods and the 
 character of his farming, raising a greater variety of 
 crops, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products, many of 
 them perishable with uncertain and bad roads, but 
 profitable with good roads open every day in the year. 
 
PROGRESS IN ROAD IMPROVEMENT. 5 
 
 His lands, as a result of this diversity in farming, 
 increase in fertility and in value, and he becomes a 
 prosperous social being. 
 
 "The merchant can then engage in business with less 
 capital and can carry smaller stocks of goods. He 
 ceases to become an enforced money-lender to the 
 farmer, as he is when he sells on credit, and in turn he 
 meets his own obligations promptly and in cash. The 
 manufacturer and jobber distribute throughout the year 
 instead of in seasons, thereby releasing much of their 
 capital for other enterprises. The railroad company 
 cuts down its investment in useless rolling-stock, if 
 freed from the congestion of spasmodic transportation, 
 and performs its duties toward its patrons without fric- 
 tion, promptly and efficiently, and with the resultant 
 good-will of the entire public." 
 
 The President of the American Bankers' Association 
 said: "The distressingly improvident and wasteful 
 condition of the common roads of the United States, 
 that are quagmires half of the year and beds of dust the 
 other half, and the great necessity for their improve- 
 ment, are becoming universally recognized. The people 
 are at last beginning to realize that bad roads annually 
 entail losses that in magnitude are beyond computation, 
 and that their permanent improvement would yearly 
 affect the saving of untold millions to the nation. 
 
 " There is no man, woman, or child in the land that 
 has not a personal interest in the question of better 
 roads. There is no article produced, imported, or 
 exported, the cost of which is not in some degree 
 
6 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 affected by the character of the common roads over 
 which it is transported from the field, the mine, the 
 mill, or the ship, to the user or consumer; and the 
 worse the roads over which it is transported, the less it 
 yields the producer, and the more it costs the user or 
 consumer; and the loss thus borne year after year by 
 the entire people of the nation is so enormous that it 
 cannot even be reasonably approximated. 
 
 "While the vast improvement and extensions of rail- 
 ways, and the increase in number, size, and means of 
 propulsion of vessels have reduced the cost of transpor- 
 tation by rail and water to a minimum, the cost of 
 transportation over our common roads means practically 
 the same at near the close of the world's greatest cen- 
 tury of progress in other means of transportation as it 
 was at its beginning. It costs less to transport com- 
 modities across the continent by rail, or from continent 
 to continent by water, than it does over a single mile 
 of some of our common roads during nearly half the 
 year." 
 
 The outcome of this notable gathering was the incep- 
 tion of the NATIONAL LEAGUE FOR GOOD ROADS, and 
 that organization was so well established by the follow- 
 ing winter that it Avas able to hold a convention in 
 Washington, with more than half the States of the 
 Union represented. 
 
 The Press of the country was constant and earnest in 
 its aid of the movement, its columns containing many 
 such articles as the following: 
 
 " The National League for Good Roads is wasting no 
 
PROGRESS IN ROAD IMPROVEMENT. 1 
 
 time nor letting any circumstance delay its work. 
 Amid the tumult of the Columbian celebration at 
 Chicago it brought together a large and interested body 
 of practical men for formal organization; and to-day, 
 amid the culminating excitement of the presidential 
 campaign, its executive committee meets in this capital 
 to perfect plans for extending its work immediately into 
 every school district of the United States. The object 
 of the League should enlist the sympathy and co-opera- 
 tion, as its personal composition commands the confi- 
 dence, of all public -spirited citizens; without which, 
 indeed, its success will not be easily attained. To 
 provide the nation with good roads is a stupendous 
 undertaking; but, in the way the League indicates, it 
 can be accomplished, and it should be and must be 
 accomplished." N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 "It is a remarkable evidence of the hold which the 
 good roads reform has upon the American people, that 
 in the midst of the absorbing festivities of Columbus 
 week it was possible to hold a large and enthusiastic 
 meeting at Chicago in its interests. The gathering at 
 Central Music Hall contained prominent representatives 
 of many States and many industries from East and 
 West, North and South. To the promoters of the good 
 roads movement is due the honor of inaugurating a 
 reform which is bound before long to enlist the best and 
 most powerful elements of our population." Chicago 
 Post. 
 
 " Good roads mean blessings of untold value 
 
 sections where bad roads are at present the rale. The 
 
8 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 improvement of the public highways will tend to largely 
 augment the benefit of railway communication, will 
 bring the farmers and merchants into closer relations, 
 will shorten the distance to markets, will save an 
 immense amount of wear and tear to vehicles and stock, 
 will help trade, help commerce, help education, help 
 investments, help everything that conduces to the ma- 
 terial welfare of the people. All honor and success, 
 therefore, to the proposed national organization." 
 Washington Post. 
 
 The Washington Convention aroused the strongest 
 interest and sympathy in all departments of the gov- 
 ernment; and many senators, members of Congress, 
 and executive officials attended and took part in the 
 deliberations. 
 
 Senator Manderson, President of the National League, 
 said: "It would be waste of time for any one in this 
 presence to speak of the necessity for the work that we 
 are engaged in. I know of, no subject more important 
 than the bettering of the roads of the United States. 
 No detailed statement of the deplorable existing condi- 
 tion is necessary. We know the fact that we must get 
 out of the present methods and mend our ways x the 
 country over. We can congratulate ourselves that 
 there is such widespread interest on the subject of 
 educating the people for their own good. The IICAVS- 
 papers all over have taken up the matter and have 
 created such interest that in some localities better roads 
 have already resulted. It was a source of very great 
 pleasure to me that in the county of Douglas, in which 
 
PROGRESS IN ROAD IMPROVEMENT. 9 
 
 I live, in the State of Nebraska, largely as the result of 
 the agitation of this- question by the newspapers, the 
 people have already started to build better roads, and 
 have in that county voted $150,000, to be issued in 
 bonds, the proceeds to be expended for that purpose. 
 This experience has been repeated all over the land." 
 
 Among the remarks made by other speakers were the 
 following: 
 
 By Senator Chandler: " Mr. Chairman and gentlemen 
 of the National League for Good Roads : I am glad to 
 say a few words on this important subject. It is one 
 that deeply interests my own State. I am here at the 
 request of Governor John B. Smith, who has just been 
 inaugurated* and of Ex- Governors David H. Goodell 
 (vice-president of your League for the State of New 
 Hampshire) and Hiram A. Tuttle, all of whom take a 
 warm interest in this subject. 
 
 " The question of good roads in New Hampshire has 
 connected itself with that of forestry, because, in order 
 to keep New Hampshire prominent, as we know it now 
 is, among the summer resorts of the United States, it is 
 necessary for us not only to have good highways and 
 good roads, giving easy access to our natural scenery, 
 but we must preserve our forests and our watercourses. 
 
 " Now, the first thing that we have thought of has been 
 to abolish working out the taxes, because the towns do 
 not get full advantage of the money that is voted under 
 the existing system. .We expect to be instructed by 
 the National League for Good Roads as to other meas- 
 ures for improving the roads of our State." 
 
10 NEW EOADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 Regarding action by Congress, the Senator said: 
 "Therefore, gentlemen, state what you want Congress 
 to do. Either a national commission should be ap- 
 pointed, or the Secretary of Agriculture should be 
 authorized to make investigation and ascertain the 
 needs of the country and the best methods of improving 
 our roads, and the aid of the National Government 
 should be in other ways invoked to arouse our people 
 to the necessities which are upon the country in con- 
 nection with improving roads. Beyond that, as to what 
 should be asked of Congress, I desire to be instructed. 
 I know I express the sentiment, not only of myself, but 
 of the chairman, Senator Manderson, and of General 
 P. S. Post, whom I see here, and of many other senators 
 and representatives, when I say that if you will state 
 in what way you think the aid of Congress ought to 
 be invoked in this work, assuming the request to be 
 reasonable, we will do all we can to assist in accom- 
 plishing your wishes." 
 
 By the Secretary of Agriculture, Hon. J. M. Rusk: 
 "The U. S. Department of Agriculture is in full 
 sympathy with this movement. It ought to be, as ^ the 
 national representative of the agricultural interest. A 
 clollar saved in transportation is a dollar added to net 
 production. What shall the farmer do with his surplus 
 product, and why raise this surplus, if his way to the 
 outside world is barred by impassable highways, or 
 obstructed by obstacles which increase threefold the 
 expense of realizing the fruits of his industry? Can 
 we enlighten him by showing him a better way of 
 
PROGRESS IN ROAD IMPROVEMENT. 11 
 
 expending the taxes levied upon him for the improve- 
 ment of his roads ? Can we show him such a system, 
 well driven home with clear persuasion and positive 
 assurances, as will induce him to take hold of the sub- 
 ject with energy? I believe that the time is ripe to 
 submit this matter to the intelligence of the American 
 public. There should be a unity of interest between 
 the city and the country. The city is almost as much 
 interested in getting good roads as the country itself. 
 To the country it means enhanced net value to country 
 products ; to the city it means a greater variety and no 
 essential increase in cost to the consumer. 
 
 " No one man can improve the highways of a neighbor- 
 hood. All must act together in behalf of their common 
 interest, and people in yielding something to the com- 
 mon interest will in the end, by intelligent co-operation 
 and systematic methods, be the recipients of benefits far 
 beyond any possible results arising from discordant and 
 uncompromising individual demands. Every person 
 must be brought to see this and be induced to yield his 
 individual interest to a wider range of road improve- 
 ment, and to a single system wider than the horizon as 
 seen from his own doorstep." 
 
 By Major Sanger, U.S.A.: "I am not a delegate to 
 this convention, but the representative, by proxy, of a 
 relative, who is a delegate from the State of New York. 
 I have taken advantage, however, of my temporary 
 connection with the convention to bring the objects of 
 the Road League to the notice of the military authori- 
 ties in Washington, and it affords me much pleasure to 
 
12 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 say that both the Secretary of War and the Major- 
 General Commanding the Army are in full sympathy 
 with this movement in behalf of good country roads, 
 not only because of their great value to military opera- 
 tions, should they ever be necessary, but because of 
 their effect generally, in facilitating intercourse in 
 those sections where railroads and telegraphs are not 
 relied on, as yet, for communication. I have been 
 requested by the Secretary and by General Schoneld to 
 assure the convention of their wish to co-operate with 
 all the means at their disposal, and to request the con- 
 vention to point out to them in what way this can be 
 done so as to best promote the objects of the League. 
 General Schoneld has given the subject of roads much 
 consideration, more especially those along our Canadian 
 border, on both sides of the line, and fully appreciates 
 their importance, no matter in what part of the country 
 they may be situated. As you are doubtless aware, the 
 army has been for years the pioneer of Western emigra- 
 tion in this country, and by its marches and the posts 
 it has built has been largely instrumental in determin- 
 ing the sites of our Western cities and the main lines of 
 communication between them. It is my belief that the 
 intelligence and experience of the army can be made a 
 valuable auxiliary in the establishment of good roads, 
 and I am quite sure, from what the military authorities 
 have said, that they would be glad to use them for that 
 purpose." 
 
 By Judge Thayer, President of Iowa State Road 
 Association: "This great uprising is not local. It is 
 
PROGRESS IN ROAD IMPROVEMENT. 13 
 
 as broad as the continent and foreshadows the grandest 
 moral and physical revolution that ever aroused a 
 civilized people. It means a nation stirred up from 
 centre to circumference. 
 
 " It may be that a higher education in road-making is 
 essential to a proper comprehension of the movement 
 which is covering the land. But I cannot believe that 
 is the case. Never since the foundation stone of yonder 
 Capitol was laid has there been any long-continued 
 period but object lessons in bad road-making were as 
 familiar to the person who walked or drove a team as is 
 the plough to the husbandman. Those object lessons 
 exist to-day all over this broad land, in front of every 
 farmer's dooryard, and they keep him company on every 
 journey he makes to the village or to the church ; they 
 stare at him with a ghostly glare when he takes his 
 dead to the burying-ground, and his little children 
 trudge homeward from the schoolhouse with those 
 lessons the most impressive of all they learn. 
 
 " I believe the education is complete. Every man has 
 his fill. He has drank deep at the fountain of that 
 kind of knowledge. Now he is prepared for reform, 
 and if he is ready to get out of the rut as well as the 
 mud, this earthquake which is waking people up will 
 keep them awake until the good roads become object 
 lessons that put the finest paintings in the shade, and 
 the bad roads become forever obsolete. 
 
 " The education complete, then comes practical road- 
 making. What is it? How is it done? ,^'irh confi- 
 dent that to carry on road-making on an eiensive scale 
 
 : , *-! ^' ^ 
 
 , V <?- 
 
 ' > T-? 
 
 C- 
 
14 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 as would be wise or prudent will not require an increase 
 of taxation. The average taxpayer has a greater horror 
 of adding more taxes to his burdens than he has of 
 adding to his roads more mud. He will be an enthusi- 
 ast in favor of better roads; he will take a front seat 
 at road meetings and applaud every reference to road 
 reform, but when it comes to suggesting more taxes he 
 feels like rising up, taking his hat, and hunting a little 
 fresh air. He is no longer in it. He wants to be 
 counted out. Nor do I blame him. Not that taxes are 
 unreasonably high, considering the blessings and advan- 
 tages the people derive from the institutions of the 
 land, which must flourish to a certain extent by means 
 of taxation, but in this matter of good road taxes he has 
 gotten into a rut, and nothing so nicely fits the wheel 
 as the rut; and unless there is something just as good, 
 without additional time, trouble, or expense to reach 
 it, he prefers to jog along in the old groove to the end 
 of the chapter or the road. But fortunately the tax- 
 payer can throw up both hands for road improvements 
 and enter the arena of road reform with his coat off and 
 his heart and hands earnestly in the work, and be satis- 
 fied without a scruple of doubt that the better roads the 
 whole country is advocating may come with taxation 
 reduced rather than increased. 
 
 "Not only must there be a radical change in the 
 manner of paying road taxes, but the money thus paid 
 must be expended in a different way. The local method 
 of building roads must in a great measure be aban- 
 doned. The next generation must be asked to help 
 
PROGRESS IN ROAD IMPROVEMENT. 15 
 
 bear the expense of building the roads which the next 
 generation will enjoy. To do this, the road taxes need 
 not be increased, but use the taxes to pay the interest 
 on loans for money advanced to build good roads 
 economically and on an extensive scale. 
 
 " Construct roads on the same plan whereby the great 
 enterprises of this land have been built up. If it is 
 thought the best policy to limit road-building to a 
 county, and not make the State the chief factor, provide 
 that all the road taxes shall be paid into the treasury, 
 and, instead of being used in the repairing of the roads 
 already built, devote the larger portion to building 
 permanent roads and the rest to repairs. If there 
 should be a prejudice in any county against borrowing 
 money on long-time bonds at a' low rate of interest and 
 spending the money as rapidly as it can be done to 
 advantage, and using the taxes to pay the interest and 
 creating a sinking fund to pay the principal when due, 
 then adopt a plan for building, with the annual taxes, a 
 certain number of miles of good road every year. Dif- 
 ferent communities will have different views as to 
 which policy it is best to pursue. But it is well 
 enough to bear in mind that the larger number of the 
 great improvements in this country have been brought 
 about on borrowed money. One man never undertakes 
 to build a railroad. For one man, or even one com- 
 munity, to undertake to build so much of a railroad as 
 runs through his or its school district would be a slow 
 method of building trunk lines of railroads. It might 
 be done that way in time, but railroads have not been 
 
16 NEW ROADS A$D ROAD LAWS. 
 
 constructed in that way. The vast railroad system of 
 this country is the work of the ablest financial geniuses, 
 the best skilled engineers, the most successful business 
 men the century has produced, and I believe that 
 to-day, without loans on bonds, there would be less 
 than 20,000 miles of road where there are 200,000 
 miles. Other great industries conducted on a colossal 
 scale, and which are the pride and boast of the nation, 
 owe their success to a combination of purses advancing 
 money to be repaid in the future. 
 
 "So it is no unexplored field I take the public into 
 when I ask it to enter upon a system of road-making 
 that shall equal any undertaking in which the country 
 has ever engaged, not excepting the building of nearly 
 200,000 miles of railroad. 
 
 "With the work undertaken on a large scale, the 
 railroads will become an important factor in road- 
 inaking, as it would be to their interest to haul the 
 material at the cost of the service. The prison labor 
 could be utilized, because it would pay the State to put 
 the prisoners at work at such places where stone quarries 
 were extensive, or at points where stone in the rough 
 could be delivered at nominal cost, and make them 
 central points from which the railroads would distribute 
 the broken stone into sections of the State where there 
 are no such quarries. 
 
 " Western cities are engaged in a general system of 
 paving streets. They would not do this in any other 
 way than the issuing of improvement bonds to run 
 several years. The burden falls lightly on the shoul- 
 
PROGRESS IN ROAD IMPROVEMENT. 17 
 
 ders of each property-owner, and the cities have the use 
 of the paved streets years in advance of the all-cash- 
 down system. 
 
 "But the cities are as much interested as the countrv 
 
 J 
 
 in good roads, and they are willing to bear a share of 
 such improvements. In order that they should have an 
 opportunity to help on the work, the State should all 
 the more contribute a certain amount for each mile of 
 standard road built to be paid out of the general fund." 
 The Committee on Agriculture of the House of 
 Representatives, being invited to meet the convention, 
 sent the following reply : 
 
 "COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 
 
 " HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, U.S. 
 
 " Washington, D.C., January 18, 1893. 
 
 "GEN. ROY STONE, 
 
 " General Vice-President and Secretary : 
 " SIR : Replying to your kind invitation to attend your 
 conference at 11 A.M. of this date, the Committee on 
 Agriculture are compelled to decline on account of lack 
 of time. At some future time we hope to be able to 
 attend; and at to-morrow's session at 11 o'clock the 
 committee by unanimous vote extend an invitation to 
 representatives of the National League for Good Roads 
 to be present, and present the matter in any way they 
 may deem proper. 
 
 " Very respectfully, 
 
 "W. H. HATCH, 
 " Chairman Committee on Agriculture." 
 
18 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 Agreeably to this invitation, a large delegation waited 
 upon the Committee ; the subject of national aid to the 
 movement was fully discussed, and, as a result, the 
 Committee inserted in their appropriation bill the 
 following item : - 
 
 "To enable the Secretary of Agriculture to make 
 inquiries in regard to the systems of road management 
 throughout the United States, to make investigations 
 in regard to the best method of road-making, to prepare 
 publications on this subject suitable for distribution, 
 and to enable him to assist the agricultural colleges and 
 experiment stations in disseminating information on 
 this subject, ten thousand dollars ($ 10, 000)." 
 
 This appropriation becoming available at the begin- 
 ning of the present fiscal year, the Secretary of Agricul- 
 ture on the 3d-of October, 1893, instituted the office of 
 Road Inquiry, by the appointment of a special agent 
 and engineer to carry out the wishes of Congress in the 
 matter. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE GOVERNMENT ROAD INQUIRY. 
 
 UPON his appointment, the officer in charge of the 
 Road Inquiry received the following instructions : 
 
 " SIR: You have been this day appointed to supervise 
 and carry out the investigation pursuant to the Statute 
 approved March 3, 1893, which has four branches: 
 
 "First: To make inquiries in regard to the systems 
 of road management throughout the United States. 
 
 "Second: To make investigations in regard to the 
 best method of road-making. 
 
 " Third : To prepare didactic publications on this 
 subject, suitable for publication. 
 
 "Fourth: To assist the agricultural colleges and ex- 
 periment stations in disseminating information on this 
 subject. 
 
 "It will not be profitable to enter upon all of these 
 points at first. The work under the appropriation will 
 need to be of gradual growth, conducted at all times 
 economically. Therefore it is not expected that there 
 will be any considerable force of clerical help, and, 
 aside from your salary, no considerable expenditure for 
 
 the present. It is understood that you have at your 
 
 19 
 
20 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LA 1VS. 
 
 command, the data for a compilation of the laws of 
 several of the States, upon which their road systems are 
 based. It should be your first duty, therefore, to make 
 such collection complete, and prepare a bulletin on that 
 subject. 
 
 "Incidentally, Avhile preparing this bulletin, you 
 should charge yourself with collecting data relating to 
 different methods of road-making, which, in the first 
 instance, should be generic in their character; includ- 
 ing, - 
 
 " First : The best method of constructing a common 
 highway, without gravel or stone. 
 
 " Second : Gravel highways. 
 
 " Third : Macadam, and other stone roads. 
 
 " Fourth : Data upon which to base suggestions for 
 the transportation of material within reasonable access, 
 for the proper surfacing of the road-bed. These data 
 should form the foundation for the second bulletin, or 
 second series of bulletins. 
 
 "There are certain restrictions I wish specifically to 
 bring to your attention. It must be borne in mind 
 that the actual expense in the construction of these 
 highways is to be borne by the localities and States in 
 which they lie. Moreover, it is not the province of 
 this Department to seek to control or influence said 
 action, except in so far as advice and wise suggestions 
 shall contribute toward it. This Department is to 
 form no part of any plan, scheme, or organization, or 
 to be a party to it in any way, which has for its object 
 the concerted effort to secure and furnish labor to 
 
THE GOVERNMENT ROAD INQUIRY. 21 
 
 unemployed persons, or to convicts. These are matters 
 to be carried on by States, localities, or charities. The 
 Department is to furnish information, not to direct and 
 formulate any system of organization, however efficient 
 or desirable it may be. Any such effort on its part 
 would soon make it subject to hostile criticism. You 
 will publish this letter in the preface to your first 
 
 bulletin. 
 
 "Yours truly, 
 
 " J. STERLING MORTON, 
 "Secretary." 
 
 Upon receipt of these instructions letters of inquiry 
 were prepared and sent : 
 
 1. To the Governors of all the States and Territories, 
 as follows : 
 
 "The Congress of the United States having made 
 provision" (here follows the appropriation as above), 
 "I have the honor to request your Excellency's aid and 
 co-operation in inaugurating this important inquiry. 
 
 " The information regarding foreign roads and road- 
 making gathered by the Department of State through 
 its consular representatives has proved to be of great 
 value, and a corresponding home inquiry should be even 
 more profitable. So many States and communities are 
 attempting road improvement, and so many others are 
 considering it, that a definite knowledge of what each 
 has proposed or accomplished might be invaluable to 
 many of the others. Such knowledge can be practically 
 reached and disseminated only through a central agency, 
 
22 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 but that agency will need the assistance of all the State 
 and local officials concerned, in order to bring its work 
 within the means allotted by Congress and within a 
 proper limit of time. 
 
 "The officer in charge of the inquiry has therefore 
 been instructed to communicate with the Secretaries of 
 State of the several States on the subject, and the 
 Department would respectfully ask your Excellency, if 
 it meets with your approval, to give your sanction to 
 his requests, together with such voluntary aid as it may 
 be in your power to give or procure, and will be further 
 indebted to you for any recommendations or suggestions 
 regarding sources of information or the scope of the 
 inquiry itself, which is yet somewhat undefined. 
 " I have the honor to remain, Sir, 
 " Yours very respectfully, 
 
 "(Signed) EDWIN WILLITS, 
 "Acting Secretary." 
 
 2. To the Secretaries of State : 
 
 " SIR : The act of Congress making appropriations for 
 this Department for the current fiscal year contains the 
 following provision : 
 
 "To enable" (etc., as before). 
 
 " The scope of this inquiry corresponds closely with 
 that of the one successfully made by the State Depart- 
 ment, through its consular representatives, into the road 
 laws and methods of road construction in foreign 
 countries. 
 
 "The success and value of a home inquiry will 
 
THE GOVERNMENT ROAD INQUIRY. 23 
 
 depend much upon the aid given it by the various State 
 and local officials who have been concerned in road 
 improvement. I have the honor, therefore, to request 
 your co-operation in this important work, to the extent 
 at least of furnishing the names of all such officials, 
 and of any individuals who may in your judgment be 
 able to give valuable information or suggestions per- 
 taining to the subject. 
 
 " I take leave also to ask for copies of all recent laws 
 or compilations of laws bearing upon roads and high- 
 ways. 
 
 "As the inquiry progresses, the Department will fur- 
 nish you with copies of all published results." 
 
 3. To Members of Congress : 
 
 "DEAR Sm: In pursuing the inquiry into 'systems 
 of road management ' and 4 methods of road-making, ' 
 authorized by the Fifty-second Congress, the Depart- 
 ment of Agriculture desires to communicate on the 
 subject with the best- informed authorities and private 
 individuals throughout the United States, and, to ex- 
 pedite the matter, I have the honor to request your aid 
 in procuring the names of all counties or townships in 
 your district which have made a systematic attempt at 
 modern road improvement, and also the names and 
 addresses of the officials and of some of the individuals 
 most actively concerned in such improvement, whether 
 in respect to legislation or road construction. 
 
 "If you are personally interested in the subject, I 
 
24 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 shall be glad to receive any further information or sug- 
 gestions from you pertaining to the inquiry." 
 
 4. To the State Geologists : 
 
 "DEAR SIR: The U. S. Department of Agriculture 
 has been assured of the general and hearty co-operation 
 of the State Governments in the inquiry authorized bv 
 Congress 'into the systems of road management and the 
 best methods of road construction throughout the United 
 States ' ; and as one of the most important branches of 
 the inquiry relates to road materials, and thereby comes 
 within your province, I take leave to ask for such infor- 
 mation on that head as you may be able to give 
 having in view the supply not only of your own, but of 
 adjacent States if you have material of superior 
 quality. The general use of the highest class of mate- 
 rials involves the cost of railway transportation for most 
 of them, but the Department is already assured by 
 many of the railway companies of their disposition to 
 accord extremely low rates on such traffic, for the 
 encouragement of road-building; and if this action be- 
 comes general, a haul of one hundred, or even two hun- 
 dred miles, may not be prohibitory, so that the very best 
 roads may be built in regions which have no local 
 supply of material. 
 
 "I send, herewith, the general circular of inquirj T , 
 and shall be glad to receive any information you may 
 be able to give or obtain on other branches of the 
 subject." 
 
THE GOVERNMENT HOAD INQUIRY. 25 
 
 5. To Railroad Presidents : 
 
 "Srn: The Department of Agriculture has been au- 
 thorized by Congress to make inquiry into the systems 
 of road management throughout the United States, and 
 the best methods of road-making, and to collect and 
 distribute information regarding the same. 
 
 "The interest uniformly shown by railway managers 
 in the improvement of highways warrants the Depart- 
 ment, which has been charged with this inquiry, in 
 asking their assistance. The -undersigned, therefore, 
 respectfully requests : (1) Such information as can be 
 gained through your engineering department regarding 
 the supply of good road materials along or near your 
 lines their location, character, accessibility, and the 
 cost of preparation and loading on cars; (2) Your 
 schedule rates for transportation of the same ; (3) A 
 statement of any reduced rates or free transportation 
 that may have been granted or offered in special cases 
 to encourage road-building; (4) Any information, 
 recommendations, or suggestions from yourself, or any 
 of your staff, that may promote the success of this 
 inquiry or the general interest of road improve- 
 
 6. General circular of inquiry: 
 
 "The Department of Agriculture, being charged by 
 Congress with an inquiry into the systems of road 
 management and the best methods of road construction 
 
26 NEW ROADS AND MOAD LAWS. 
 
 throughout the United States, desires information upon 
 the following points : 
 
 "1. The practical working of the recent road laws 
 of the various States, \vherever the same have been 
 tested; the difficulties found in their application, and 
 suggestions for their amendment. 
 
 " 2. The character and cost of the roads built under 
 these laws, the materials used, and the present condition 
 and prospective durability of such roads. 
 
 " 3. The location and character of any superior stone 
 for roads which is accessible by railway or water, the 
 cost of quarrying, preparing, and loading the same, the 
 mileage rates of transportation, and any instances of 
 reduced or free transportation given by railways for the 
 encouragement of road-building. 
 
 "4. The same information, so far as applicable, 
 regarding materials naturally prepared, such as the 
 Paducah and Tishomingo gravels, the Hamilton sand- 
 stones, and the Chickamauga flints. 
 
 "5. The results of any experiments in the construc- 
 tion of narrow and cheap hard roads, or of roads having 
 one track of earth and one of stone or gravel, with full 
 particulars as to cost and method of construction. 
 
 " 6. The result of any practical experience in the use 
 of burnt clay for roads. 
 
 " 7. The cost and benefits of tile drainage of roads, 
 as shown by practice. 
 
 " 8. The best method of constructing a common 
 highway without gravel or stone, and with or without 
 under-drainage. 
 
THE GOVERNMENT ROAD 
 
 "9. Definite facts as to the enhancement of property 
 values through road improvement. 
 
 "10. The results of any experiments in the employ- 
 ment of convict labor on roads or the preparation of 
 road materials. 
 
 "11. The detail > of all bond issues for road improve- 
 ment, and how, \\here, and at what cost the bonds were 
 marketed. 
 
 "12. The rates allowed in each State for men and 
 teams in working out road taxes, and the actual value 
 of such work as compared with labor paid for in cash. 
 
 "All communications should be addressed to 'Office 
 of Road Inquiry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 
 Washington, D.C.'" 
 
 A brief summary of the operations of the Office of 
 Road Inquiry for the first two months, prepared in 
 December for the Annual Report of the Department, 
 shows encouraging results from these inquiries. 
 
 " The responses of the Governors and Secretaries of 
 State have been most hearty and cordial, giving evidence 
 of the warmest interest in the work and promises of all 
 the assistance in their power. 
 
 " Many members of Congress have responded in like 
 manner. The State geologists are beginning to supply 
 the information asked for of them. Fifty railroads 
 have already sent in reports of their engineers or other 
 officers, many of them very complete and satisfactory. 
 This information is being tabulated, and wj^js^ffi^^ 
 all received, with that of the geologist^;! "}%ljj3l bo* ' 
 
 /**& &*> '" \y'J 
 
 fe^y 
 
28 NEIV ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 enabled to make a map showing the location and cost 
 of the best road materials throughout the United States. 
 
 "In this work the office of the United States Geo- 
 logical Survey .is rendering valuable assistance, and it 
 could be of the greatest service in the general inquiry 
 if its means permitted. 
 
 "Nearly all of the Railroad Companies show a will- 
 ingness to promote the improvement of highways by 
 cheap transportation of materials ; and since in any 
 general system of improvement railway transportation 
 will be almost universally required, if the best materials 
 are to be used, this is one of the most encouraging 
 features of the situation. 
 
 "Recent State Higliivay Legislation. 
 
 " The first bulletin of this office is now in the hands of 
 the printer, and is composed of a brief of the new road 
 laws of fourteen States, Avith full extracts of the essen- 
 tial portions of the same, and some recommendations 
 made by influential public bodies but not yet carried 
 into legislation. 
 
 "The advance in road legislation proceeds on several 
 distinct lines : 
 
 "1. In the direction of more rigid provisions for 
 carrying out the old systems without radical change in 
 the systems themselves. 
 
 "2. More liberal tax levies. 
 
 "3. Substitution of money for labor taxes. 
 
 " 4. Local assessment, according to benefits, for con- 
 struction of new roads. 
 
THE GOVERNMENT EGAD INQUIRY. 29 
 
 "5. Construction by townships, with power to issue 
 bonds. 
 
 "6. Construction by counties. 
 
 " 7. State highway commissions. 
 
 " 8. Provision for working convicts. 
 
 " 9. Direct State aid to road-building. 
 
 "10. Building of State roads. 
 
 " The new Road Law of Tennessee (1891) is an 
 admirable example of the first of these classes. By 
 giving to the County Courts full power and direct 
 control over the whole subject of roads, it should elim- 
 inate at once the evil influences of local politics and the 
 easy-going methods that generally prevail. The Court 
 classifies the roads, establishes the districts, and appoints 
 the commissioners ; each commissioner divides his dis- 
 trict into sections and appoints the overseers. The com- 
 missioners have full control of the roads and bridges, 
 and can remove the overseers at pleasure. The Court 
 assesses the road tax, within a limit of eight days' work 
 for each male inhabitant between eighteen and forty- 
 five 3 r ears of age, and of 25 cents per $100 of 
 property. The overseers may dismiss any man \vhose 
 work is unsatisfactory and proceed against him by 
 suit, as in case of refusal to work or failure to pay 
 the property tax. Damages in such cases are collectible 
 out of any property, except the homestead, or out of 
 wages. 
 
 " The overseer on his part is liable to be sued by any 
 citizen for neglect of duty, and to be fined $20 
 therefor, and commissioners for the same offence are 
 
30 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 liable to be indicted and fined 850. Such fines to go 
 to the Road Fund. 
 
 "In the direction of increased tax levies, Vermont, 
 New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Oregon are conspic- 
 uous, the last-named State allowing the County Courts 
 to levy a special tax of 50 cents on the $100, and $2 per 
 head, for a County Road Fund. 
 
 "The abolition of labor taxes is absolute in New 
 Jersey, also in Wisconsin, excepting those towns which 
 specifically vote to retain it, and absolute in those 
 counties of New York whose Boards of Supervisors 
 adopt the County System ; and it is optional with all 
 the towns in New York by affirmative vote at town 
 meeting, many having already availed of this privilege. 
 
 " Construction on the local assessment plan, extend- 
 ing to a limit of three miles on each side of the line of 
 road, obtains to some extent in Oregon, Indiana, and by 
 special acts, in Ohio. In Oregon the county may 
 assume 50 per cent of the cost, and in Ohio a larger 
 share is usually placed on the county list by the act. 
 
 " Construction by townships has been quite extensive, 
 and in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, township bonds 
 have been largely and successfully used. 
 
 " The County System, however, is the especial feature 
 of recent legislation, many of the new States having 
 started out with it in some form, and many of the older 
 ones having adopted or seriously considered it. The 
 issue of county bonds is provided for in New York, 
 New Jersey, Indiana, Michigan, and Washington, but in 
 the last two a popular vote is requisite to authorize the 
 
THE GOVERNMENT ROAD INQUIRY. 31 
 
 iosue, and in Indiana the term of payment is limited to 
 five years. 
 
 "State highway commissions have been constituted 
 in Massachusetts, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michi- 
 gan, and possibly in other States; these are generally 
 temporary bodies, charged only to inquire and recom- 
 mend, but in Massachusetts the commission is perma- 
 nent and has important duties connected with actual 
 road improvement. 
 
 "In the working of convicts on roads, New York is 
 making an experiment near Clinton Prison, with State 
 prisoners, and Tennessee makes all persons confined 
 in county jails or work-houses available for highway 
 labor. 
 
 " New Jersey is probably the only State giving direct 
 aid to road-building. Such aid is limited to one-third 
 of the cost of roads built by the counties, and to the 
 sum of 175,000 per annum. 
 
 " The Highway Commission of Pennsylvania has re- 
 ported a bill for State aid to the amount of $1,000,000 
 per annum, to be distributed among the townships in 
 proportion to the road tax paid by them, on condition 
 that they set aside 25 per cent of their tax for making 
 permanent highways. 
 
 "Building of State roads has been practised in some 
 Western States, and Washington is now building a road 
 through the Cascade Mountains, under charge of a 
 special commission. 
 
 "The Massachusetts Highway Commission JiJ 
 thority to adopt any road as a State hi) 
 
 Ktf 
 
 V A A - f^u *2r 
 
32 XEll r ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 constructed and maintained as such if the Legislature 
 make appropriation therefor. 
 
 " Co-operative road-building, as provided for in New 
 Jersey, has been very successful, abutting land-owners 
 paying one-tenth of the cost, the State one-third, and 
 the county the remainder. Under this law ten miles 
 of road were built in 1892, twenty-five in 1893, and 
 sixty-four are applied for by land-owners for 1894. 
 
 " New Ho ad Construction. Reduced Cost. 
 
 "Information on this head is meagre as yet, but 
 enough has been gained to show that new construction 
 is proceeding in many parts of the countr} r , and that, as 
 might be expected, increased knowledge and skill, 
 improved machinery and methods, and extended practi- 
 cal experience, are rapidly lessening the cost of good 
 roads. Mr. E. G. Harrison, C.E., of Asbury Park, 
 N.J., under whose supervision permanent roads 
 have been constructed in that State, says: 'Three or 
 four years ago the cost of road-building was $10,000 
 per mile. Last year I built roads for $3500 per mile; 
 the stone was brought by rail at a cost of 81 per ton 
 for transportation.' Major M. H. Crump, of Bowling 
 Green, Ky., who has built many miles of the excel- 
 lent highways in that State, says a good Telford road 
 can be built for $2000 per mile, including grading. 
 J. B. Hunnicutt, Professor of Agriculture in the Uni- 
 versity of Georgia, states the cost of good hard roads 
 recently built in that State, giving one track of stone 
 and one of earth, at $1200 per mile. H. G. Chapin, 
 
THE GOVERNMENT ROAD INQUIRY. 33 
 
 Supervisor of East Bloomfield, Ontario County, N.Y., 
 reports the building in the town of Canaiidaigua, 
 N.Y., of ten miles of single-track stone road, with an 
 earth track 011 each side, for $900 per mile, the crushed 
 stone being laid one foot deep and eight feet wide. In 
 this case the township owns a movable crusher and 
 prepares its own material, the neighboring farmers 
 delivering field stones at the crusher for 20 cents per 
 load. 
 
 " Benefits of Road Improvement. 
 
 "Information in this regard is more abundant; I 
 select a few well-authenticated cases. 
 
 " Hon. Edward Burrough, President of the State 
 Board of Agriculture of New Jersey, says that on the 
 new stone road from Merchantville to Camden, his' 
 teams haul eighty-five to one hundred baskets of pota-j 
 toes where they formerly hauled only twenty-five. Mr. 
 Burrough says further that 'one of our counties has 
 issued $450,000 of 4 per cent bonds and put down sixty 
 miles of stone roads, averaging sixteen feet wide, and 
 though they pay the taxes to meet the interest on these 
 bonds, their tax rate is now lower than it was before 
 the roads were built.' 
 
 "Mr. Chapin, heretofore quoted, says of the Canan- 
 daigua roads, that the}^ are as good in March as in 
 July, that they have increased the value of the adjoin- 
 ing farms many times the cost of the roads, and that the 
 cost of keeping them in good repair is much less than 
 that of keeping poor roads in poor repair. Mr. Gar- 
 
34 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 field, speaking at the Michigan Engineers' Convention 
 in 1893, says that in his township, while farms have 
 generally been declining in value, the building of a 
 gravel road four miles in length has increased the value 
 of those adjoining it 25 to 40 per cent, and this is not 
 a free, but a toll road. 
 
 "The owner of a large tobacco plantation, some 
 miles from Henderson, Ky., having great difficulty in 
 moving his product to market in that city, organized a 
 company and built a toll road. He estimates the 
 increase in the value of his property at threefold, while 
 the road has paid annually over 10 per cent in 
 dividends." 
 
go 
 
 s 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE NEW ROADS OF CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. 
 
 THE people of Canandaigua "builded better than 
 they knew," when they resolved that the way to build 
 roads was to build them, and commenced the construc- 
 tion of what are becoming famous as the cheapest good 
 roads in the country. They Builded for all the people 
 of the United States, and opened wide the door of hope 
 for better roads everywhere. They did not wait for 
 legislation nor outside help, but plunged into the work 
 with energy, zeal, and discretion, and the results are, to 
 say the least, remarkable. A neighbor of theirs, the 
 supervisor of an adjoining town, writes regarding the 
 New York County Road Law, the roads in Canan- 
 daigua, and the lessons taught b}^ these roads, as 
 follows : 
 
 " The Question of Good Roads. 
 
 "In your issue of November 3d, in an article on 
 'How to Improve Our Roads,' you say: 'We hope those 
 who are interested in this reform will abandon the 
 advocacy of national roads, of town roads, of county 
 roads, and concentrate their energies in favor of the 
 
 35 
 
36 NE\V 110 ADS AND EOAD LA \VS. 
 
 State road plan.' There are in Ontario County a great 
 many friends of the County Road Law, and we regret 
 very much that a paper so highly esteemed, and so 
 largely circulated in the county as the Post Express, 
 should disparage the adoption of that system and advo- 
 cate another, the adoption of which seems to be impos- 
 sible. The State Road Bill (or Richardson Bill) 
 advocated by Governor Hill was defeated in the Legis- 
 lature within a few years, and the same influence Avhich 
 defeated it then would, in all probability, defeat it 
 again. 
 
 "The County Road Law has passed the Legislature 
 and only awaits adoption b}- the boards of supervisors 
 to become operative in the several counties. Let us see 
 how it would work in Ontario County ; for what can be 
 done in this county can be done in any county in the 
 State. 
 
 "Within the last thirty years there have been ex- 
 pended on the highways in this county over 1200 per 
 mile, and, with the exception of a few miles in the 
 town of Canandaigua, they are no better than they Avere 
 at the beginning of that period; and, should the same 
 system be continued for the next thirty years, a like 
 sum would have been expended and the condition of 
 the highways would be just about the same as it is 
 now. The few miles referred to in Canandaigua are 
 crushed stone (or macadam) roads, built at an expense 
 to the town outside of the regular highway tax. Four 
 or five years ago the town bought a stone-crusher and 
 has expended the $2000 per year allowed by law, under 
 
NEW ROADS OF CANANDAIGUA, N.T. 37 
 
 the direction of their very efficient highway commis- 
 sioners, in building macadam roads, consisting of a 
 crushed stone road-bed about eight feet wide and nearly 
 a foot deep in the centre of a turnpike some twenty-five 
 feet to thirty feet wide, sloping enough to shed the 
 surface water, but not too steep to drive on any part of 
 it, at an expense of $400 to $700 per mile (the smaller 
 sum in cases where the stone has been contributed and 
 drawn into piles by the neighboring farmers without 
 expense to the town). As a result, they have in that 
 town ten miles or more of such roads, and so well 
 pleased are they with the improvement, that they have 
 had a special act passed by the Legislature, during the 
 last session, empowering the town to vote upon the 
 question of expending $2000 per year in addition to 
 the $2000 already allowed by law, in building such 
 roads. Those roads are just as good in December or 
 March as they are in July or September; they have 
 increased the value of the adjoining farms many times 
 the cost of the roads, and the subsequent cost of keep- 
 ing them in good repair will be much less than the cost 
 (under the ordinary system) of keeping poor roads in 
 poor repair. 
 
 "Now suppose our supervisors should adopt the 
 County Road Law and select one hundred miles of 
 highway to be built and maintained by the county, 
 for which the money is to be raised by the sale of 
 bonds running not less than twenty years and drawing 
 not more than 5 per cent interest. These roads must 
 be selected outside of incorporated villages, and as the 
 
38 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 incorporated villages in this county pay 29 1 per cent of 
 all county taxes, the farming community will receive 
 nearly all the benefit and pay only about seven-tenths 
 of the cost; but the villages do not object, for they 
 think (and rightly, too) that access to the villages will 
 be made easier and better. 
 
 "But the best feature of the law is that, bv its adop- 
 tion, the highway taxes become payable in money 
 instead of labor, thus doing away at once with the 
 miserable old system under which much of the expendi- 
 ture has been worse than Avasted, and compelling the 
 man who has been in the habit of leaning on a hoe and 
 gossiping with his neighbors, to pay just as good a 
 dollar as the one who has tried to do an honest day's 
 work on the road. As soon as the law is adopted, each 
 town can buy a stone-crusher, and have its commis- 
 sioners of highways (using the county roads as models, 
 if they choose) expend the tax, in the same amount that 
 is now assessed, in building crushed stone roads, and 
 thus all of the roads in this county can be macadamized 
 in fifteen years. The cost for the first fifteen years, 
 including cost of crushers and rollers, and interest on 
 the bonds, would be about 18 per cent greater than 
 it is now; bat, once constructed, the cost of maintain- 
 ing such a system would be much less, so that at the 
 end of thirty years the county would be money ahead, 
 the bonds would have been paid, and the total expense 
 to the county and to the several towns would have been 
 $1,000,000, while under the present system the cost of 
 keeping roads (passable for three or four months in each 
 
N.Y. 3D 
 
 year, and full of ruts or mire during the balance of the 
 time) for thirty years, at the present rate of expenditure 
 would have been 11,200,000. After that time one- 
 half the sum now expended would maintain the mac- 
 adam roads in perfect repair. I need not occupy your 
 space in giving all the computations which have led up 
 to these results, for any of your readers can take pencil 
 and paper and make the computations himself. 
 
 "Of late years we have heard a great deal of com- 
 plaint among producers in regard to the excessive cost 
 of transportation. The produce shipped from this (East 
 Bloomfield) station is transported by railroad, on an 
 average of about five hundred miles to the consumers ; 
 and it is transported by wagon roads on an average of 
 three miles from the farms to the station. With the 
 present roads it costs the farmers one-half as much to 
 haul this produce the three miles as they pay the rail- 
 roads to haul it five hundred miles. With a system of 
 macadam roads the cost of this short haul would be 
 reduced 50 per cent, thus reducing the whole cost of 
 transportation from the farm to the consumer by one- 
 sixth, which would be a saving to the farmers of an 
 amount each year equal to the interest on from $10 to 
 $30 an acre, according to the crop raised (the larger 
 sum being the saving on the potato crop, which is one 
 of the main crops here), and would increase the value 
 of the land (either to hold or to sell) by a like amount. 
 These figures may seem startling, but they are none the 
 less correct. ______ 
 
 " We agree with youxri^^ f aysgjtfeflf State roads, 
 
40 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 under which the cities would pay three-fourths of the 
 cost of the country roads, is desirable; but, strange as 
 it may seem, the farmers defeated the Richardson Bill, 
 and would no doubt do so again should the cities give 
 them another opportunity; so that there is very little 
 prospect of ever accomplishing anything by advocating 
 such a system, while there is a law already enacted (the 
 County Road Law) which we can adopt, and which is 
 well suited to accomplish its purpose, the best law, we 
 think, of the eleven passed by as many different State 
 Legislatures during the last two or three years, and all 
 having the same object, ^the permanent improvement of 
 the country roads. We hope, then, that you will aban- 
 don the advocacy of the State road plan, and use the 
 influence of your valued paper in urging the boards of 
 supervisors to adopt the County Road Law. 
 
 "HAKRY G. CHAPIN. 
 
 " East Bloomfield Station, N.Y., Nov. 6, 1893." 
 
 The writer of this book, after a visit to the spot and 
 a careful investigation, is able to confirm all that Super- 
 visor Chapin says of the Canandaigua roads, except 
 that a more careful computation of the cost in detail, 
 including interest and depreciation on machinery, and 
 full pay for volunteer labor and superintendence, would 
 bring the total for the best of them up to about $900 
 per mile. The visit to these roads, being timed in the 
 midst of a winter thaw, gave an excellent opportunity 
 to test the merits of their construction ; they were found 
 so good that farmers were hauling two tons of hay 
 
I 
 
 O 
 
 cr 
 
 Q 
 
 Z 
 < 
 
 z 
 < 
 O 
 
 To face p. 40 
 
NEW ROADS OF CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. 41 
 
 Avith two horses over them, when other roads near by 
 required two horses to a buggy. 
 
 The total distance built is about fourteen miles, of 
 which a part is of sufficient width to allow a dirt track 
 on each side of the stone, and part has only the stone 
 track, with a shoulder of earth four or five feet wide on 
 each side. The difference in cost is not great, being 
 only in the grading and culverts ; the farmers seem 
 entirely satisfied with the narrower roads. The follow- 
 ing are items of cost, etc., given by the Highway Com- 
 missioner in charge, Mr. Ira P. Cribb: 
 
 " Built in 1891, in the village of Canandaigua, west 
 part of Bristol Street, 64 rods of road, graded 36 feet 
 wide, macadamized 9 feet wide in the middle, and 9 
 inches deep, except in a low wet place 20 rods long, 
 where it was made 18 inches deep; all broken stone, not 
 screened nor assorted; 110 roller used; crushing cost 18 
 cents per cubic yard, not including interest or use of 
 crusher; average haul from crusher, one mile; three 
 and sometimes four teams used in hauling; three men 
 placed the stone; wages $1.50 for men, $3 for team and 
 man ; average total cost, $2.68 per rod. 
 
 " Lake Shore road, one mile cost $447, nearly all the 
 stone delivered free, and some labor volunteered (about 
 8100). 
 
 " Bristol road, three miles, graded 32 feet wide, 
 macadamized 9 feet wide at top and 10 feet at bottom ; 
 100 rods of it is 18 inches deep, balance about 1 foot; 
 average cost $850 per mile ; other roads about the same, 
 
 "In some cases the Commissioners pay 20 cents per 
 
42 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 cubic yard for the stone delivered at the crusher, in 
 other cases they break up boulders in the fields, at a 
 cost of 30 cents per cubic yard, and the farmers haul 
 them free of charge, in order to clear their fields. 
 
 " It is the general opinion that these roads have added 
 820 or more, per acre, to the value of adjoining lands ; 
 the average loads hauled throughout the year are fully 
 doubled." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MODERN KENTUCKY EOAD-BUILDING. 
 
 THE State of Kentucky was famous for its fine roads 
 a generation ago, before many of the Eastern States had 
 made any serious attempt at the improvement of their 
 highways. It is fair to presume, therefore, that Ken- 
 tucky knows what good roads are, and that her recent; 
 road-building is fully abreast if not ahead of the times, 
 and certainly that the standard of excellence in con- 
 struction has not been lowered. In this view the fol- 
 lowing details of a portion of the work lately done 
 there are important and interesting. They show a 
 thoroughness of design and an economy of execution 
 which are instructive to road-builders everywhere. 
 
 These details are furnished by Major M. H. Crump, 
 C.E., who has superintended the construction of $200,- 
 000 worth of Telford and gravel roads in that State in 
 the last ten years. Major Crump says: "Many miles of 
 18-foot stone roads have cost less than $2000 per mile, 
 and many miles of 16-foot road have cost less than 
 $1600 per mile. They are built of good limestone, 
 generally found within a mile of the road. These stone 
 
 roads were constructed by county aid, $1000 being 
 
 43 
 
44 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 allowed on each completed mile, when not less than 
 three miles were assured. Bonds running thirty years 
 at 5 per cent were sold at par and all taken by citizens of 
 the county. Warren County expended $60,000 in this 
 way, and the county levy has been decreased every year 
 since the roads were built." 
 
 The specifications for construction are as follows : 
 
 " For an 1.8-Foot Roadway. 
 
 "Excavation must be 24 feet Avide. Embankment 
 the same. 
 
 "Road-bed is graded carefully with a crown of 4 
 inches. 
 
 "Paving consists of selected stone not more than 6 
 inches long, 4 inches wide, and 9 inches high, which are 
 carefully set by hand, large end on ground. The stone 
 are carefully broken down with long-handled light 
 hammers to a uniform surface and thickness of 8 inches, 
 this surface still to retain a rise or crown of 4 inches. 
 Headers, as the outside courses of stone are called, 
 must bs set with great care, so as to bind and hold the 
 pavement together. 
 
 "Metal. O,i this paving an average thickness of 4 
 inches of metal broken so as to pass through a 2J inch 
 ring, and so spread as to be 6 inches in the centre and 
 gradually thin to 2 inches at the headers. 
 
 "Clay. On this metal may be spread one or two 
 inches of clay, to act as a binding material. This is 
 essential on country roads, when a roller is not used 
 and the travel is light. 
 
MODERN KENTUCKY HOAD-BUILDING. 
 
 45 
 
 "Embankments. I nail cases there 
 must be at least 3 feet of earth outside 
 of the line of headers, which must be 
 carefully packed so as to retain the 
 headers in place till they become 
 firmly set. 
 
 "Excavations. Not less than 3 
 feet outside of headers, and occasion- 
 ally more space is required for drain- 
 age ditches. 
 
 "The same specifications apply to 
 16-foot roadways, which are the prin- 
 cipal widths used in this section. 
 The all-important matter is proper 
 shape to the road-bed, so as to pro- 
 duce the proper drainage, the careful 
 setting of headers, and sufficient 
 backing to retain them in place. 
 
 " The crown for 16-foot roadway 
 may be made 3 inches, but my experi- 
 ence has always been that 4 inches is 
 better, since on country roads almost 
 the entire traffic occurs on the centre. 
 
 "Grading and shaping the road- 
 bed costs from $200 to $500 per mile. 
 The average cost of an 18-foot road, 
 including grading, has been $2200 
 per mile. Some miles have been 
 constructed for $1800, and some for 
 $2500 per mile." 
 
 O 
 
 cr 
 
 o 
 
 Ld 
 GO 
 
 CO 
 CO 
 
 O 
 
 cr 
 o 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 CONNECTICUT ROADS. 
 
 A QUESTION still open to discussion, and one which 
 interests all localities where field stones or quarry spawls 
 are abundant, is whether it is important to crush all the 
 stones that are put into the road. 
 
 At the meeting of the Connecticut Board of Agricul- 
 ture in 1893, Mr. Perry of Worcester said: "From my 
 standpoint I think it is wholly unnecessary to crush all 
 the stones. As far as my experience is concerned, and 
 I have had some experience, two-thirds or three-quarters 
 of the stones that are put in a macadamized road are 
 just as good, if not better, before they are crushed as 
 afterwards, which makes a wonderful difference in the 
 cost of a road. It costs a great deal to carry stone to 
 the stone-crusher, crush it, and then carry this stone 
 back from one to five miles. Supposing you want to 
 improve a highway and want to macadamize it, I would 
 say, put that road into shape, open it out. In our 
 section we have lots of stone. The farmers want to get 
 rid of the stone. One man has said here to-day that he 
 put 168 loads of stone directly into the roads where they 
 
 were wanted in order to get rid of them. You can 
 
 40 
 
CONNECTICUT ROADS. 47 
 
 readily see that it costs but very little to build macad- 
 amized roads if you build them without crushing more 
 than one-quarter of the material. I do not think, on 
 the average, it would cost more than one-half as much, 
 and when you have done it, you have got just as good a 
 road as if you had crushed all the stone. 
 
 "My idea of macadamized road is that it ought not 
 to cost more than from $1000 to $2000 dollars per mile. 
 When you put $5000 into a mile of road you have got 
 too much money there, and too little somewhere else. 
 On all your farms around here you have got hundreds 
 of thousands of loads of stone. Some of them you want 
 to get rid of. When you have a load of stone of any 
 shape, bring that stone on to the road that you want to 
 macadamize, let somebody be there to look after and 
 take care of it, and then when you have got your stone 
 in in good shape, put a few crushed stone on top ; and if 
 you put on good gravel, and perhaps a little clay to 
 make it heavy, I will guarantee that you will have as 
 good a road as can be made with all crushed stone, and 
 at not more than half the cost." (Applause.) 
 
 Mr. Kirkman said: "I was very glad to hear Mr. 
 Perry tell us how a good road should be made. I live 
 in a small town, with a grand list of half a million. 
 Our tax is about $5000 a year, and we appropriate $3000 
 of that for our roads. We build from half a mile to a 
 mile of macadamized road every year, and have done it 
 for the last fifteen years. We join the city of Hartford, 
 and our roads are better than the roads in the outskirts 
 of the city. Our roads have cost less than $1000 a mile. 
 
48 NEW ROADS AND liOAD LAWS. 
 
 We have a range of trap rock 300 feet high that is 
 accessible, and the stones are put at the bottom as large 
 as they can be thrown into the cart; smaller stones are 
 put on top, and then gravel on top of those, and \ve 
 slope the road, if it is 25 feet wide, 2.^ feet on each 
 side; so that our own roads are made very economi- 
 cally. Farmers do the work and take the pay." 
 
 Mr. Augur. " I would like to ask Mr. Perry the 
 depth of the crushed stone that he puts on." 
 
 Mr. Perry. " I say I should not think it necessary 
 to have more than three or four inches of crushed stone/' 
 
 Mr. Augur. " The distinct difference between a Tel- 
 ford road and a macadam road is that Macadam's theory 
 was that the stone should all be crushed to nearly a 
 uniform size, and for the reason that whjn stones are 
 put on a road to the thickness of about ten inches, the 
 larger stones will have a tendency to work up all the 
 time to the surface, just as, if you shake a pan of 
 gravel, you will find the larger stones on the top. That 
 is a tendency we shall have to admit. Telford's theory 
 was that larger stones could be used for the bottom. 
 His system was to make a sort of pavement, setting the 
 stones with some care, and then applying a thinner layer 
 than Macadam would have recommended, of crushed 
 stone. Telford argued that the bottom course of cheaper 
 stone was really the foundation for the road proper, 
 which was of the crushed stone. I think that Mr. 
 Perry conveyed the idea that a very thin layer of 
 crushed stone is necessary. Now, my observation is, 
 that it is not wise to lay too thin a layer of crushed 
 
CONNECTICUT 1WADS. 49 
 
 stone upon the surface of other stone underneath, and 
 for this reason, that you need to get more than one or 
 two stones on top of each other. If you are going to 
 make a permanent surface of crushed stone, put on 
 enough to pack together; otherwise you will have the 
 crushed stone working loose constantly, which is a 
 source of trouble in a road, and your surface will be 
 gone just at the time it ought to be in its best 
 condition." 
 
 Here we have both sides of the question fairly pre- 
 sented, and by their ancient champions as well as by 
 their modern. Fortunately, it would seem now to be 
 only a question of ascertainable facts, "a condition, not 
 a theory that confronts us "; for if on these Connecticut 
 roads, built in this manner and tested for years, the 
 large stones do not "work up to the surface " under the 
 stress of that frosty climate, and the thin crushed stone 
 or gravel surfacing does not "work loose" under the 
 wheels, then that form of construction may safely be 
 adopted elsewhere, and will be a great saving in cost in 
 many localities. The Canandaigua road-builders, for 
 instance, might by this means save $200, or more, per 
 mile, on the present low cost of their roads, and put 
 more stone in them than they do now. 
 
 Where roads are constructed with tile or other sub- 
 drainage, or on a thoroughly porous subsoil, and the 
 action of frost practically eliminated, it would seem to 
 be a thoroughly safe method to put a good proportion of 
 the stones in the bottom without crushing. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CHEAP STONE ROADS IN VIRGINIA, MICHIGAN, NEW 
 JERSEY, AND MARYLAND. 
 
 THE low-priced hard roads in New York, Connecti- 
 cut, and Kentucky, heretofore described, are all located 
 where the material was close at hand, abundant, and 
 cheap ; but there are some instances of good roads built 
 at low cost under the opposite conditions. 
 
 In Alexandria County, Va., a portion of the old 
 mail road from the Washington and Ohio Junction 
 northward, lately rebuilt, was covered with 4 inches of 
 hand broken stone, 9 feet wide, and overlaid with 6 
 inches of gravel, at a cost of $1139 per mile. In this 
 case the stone was gathered with some difficulty, and the 
 county paid $1.50 per cubic yard for it in place and 
 broken ; the contractor paid 25 cents per yard for break- 
 ing it by hand on the road-bed. The road was well 
 rolled and stands well under a heavy travel. 
 
 Alexandria County levies a tax of 50 cents per $100 
 for road purposes, and this road was built out of the 
 proceeds of such tax. 
 
 The experience of Bay County, Mich., carries some 
 
 50 
 
< 
 
CHEAP STONE EOADS. 51 
 
 valuable lessons. It was related by Mr. H. C. Thomp- 
 son, at the Engineers' Convention, as follows: 
 
 " Stone Roads in Bay County. 
 
 "In 1880, the board of supervisors conceived the idea 
 that the highways should be improved permanently, and 
 set themselves at work to formulate a plan for so doing. 
 A proposition to raise $100,000 on the bonds of the 
 county was submitted to a vote of the people, and wa ; 
 carried. Committees were appointed by the board of 
 supervisors to visit localities where permanent roads 
 had been constructed, and work was begun on several 
 of the main thoroughfares. 
 
 " There being no suitable material in the county for 
 constructing the roads, stone was procured in Ohio, and 
 conveyed by boats to the Saginaw River, where it was 
 placed on docks and drawn by teams to the respective 
 roads. 
 
 "The Ohio stone not proving satisfactory, being 
 too soft, a better quality was obtained on the shore of 
 Lake Huron, at Bay Port, where it was loaded on cars 
 and conveyed by rail to its destination. Considerable 
 gravel was used in the construction of the roads at dif- 
 ferent times, and this was procured from gravel beds 
 near Mason. All the material used had to be imported, 
 thus making the cost considerable; but the result of 
 having good roads at all times of the year is shown in 
 there being a uniform price and market for all faun 
 products, and never at any time is there a scarcity of 
 any of the necessaries of life, on account of bad roads. 
 
52 NEW ROADS AND EOAD LAWS. 
 
 " The soil is a sandy loam, and the surface practically 
 level, rising about three feet to a mile from the level 
 of the bay, which affords sufficient grade to convey 
 surface water through artificial channels. The first 
 object to be sought was drainage, and this was accom- 
 plished by constructing suitable drains on both sides of 
 the grade. An excavation twelve feet wide and about 
 one foot deep was then made on one side of the grade to 
 receive the first layer of stone, which was composed of 
 the larger stones, laid flat with edges close together. 
 This foundation would average four inches in thickness. 
 Upon this layer were placed stones of smaller size, and 
 in the early part of the work the surface was made 
 smooth by pounding with hammers, until the stones on 
 the surface would be about one and a half inches in 
 diameter. Later, the top dressing was put on entirely 
 with crushed stone. Gravel was also used as a top 
 dressing, but this was so easily displaced that the 
 crushed stone was adopted. There was no roller used 
 in compacting the stone or the sub-grade. On this 
 account a great many of the stones would be displaced 
 by the traffic, and it would require some time before a 
 uniform surface would be made, and this not until the 
 ruts made by the wheels had been filled by raking in 
 the loose material. A road machine or scraper has been 
 used to do this work, with good results. The first few 
 years the practice was to make the width of stone twelve 
 feet, but later nine feet was adopted, with a margin of 
 two feet of earth on one side and eleven on the opposite, 
 making a road-bed twenty-two feet wide. 
 
CHEAP STONE ROADS. 53 
 
 "This has proven to be of sufficient width for all 
 purposes. The surface of the road has a crown of one 
 foot, and the stone work has a crown of four inches 
 which soon wears down to level, and after about three 
 years' use, requires a top dressing of fine broken stone, 
 to fill up uneven places. The depth of material laid 
 loose was twelve inches, but when compacted would not 
 be more than eight inches. The stone costs, delivered 
 on the railroad, about $5.80 per cord, which would lay 
 about three rods in length. The earth work, hauling, 
 and laying the stone was let by contract to the lowest 
 bidders, and varied from $1.60 per rod where the mate- 
 rial did not have to be hauled more than one -half mile, 
 to $5.50 per rod where the distance was five miles. 
 
 " The act authorizing the issue of bonds also provides 
 that a sum not exceeding two mills each year could be 
 spread upon the cities and townships, including the 
 stone road district, and the money thus raised, about 
 $30,000 annually, could be used in extending and 
 repairing the roads, which has been done each year, 
 until there are at present about fifty miles in good 
 condition. 
 
 " The cities have paid about nine-tenths of the whole 
 amount expended. The average cost has been about $6 
 per rod." 
 
 Returning to cases where the material is close at 
 hand, AVC have another cheap road in Hopewell, Mercer 
 County, N.J. 
 
 In this case small field stones were delivered in the 
 road-bed, and the top ones broken by hand, for 35 cents 
 
54 NEW EOADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 per ton; this was covered with screenings from a stone- 
 crusher and made an excellent road, at a cost for single 
 track of about 81000 per mile. 
 
 Professor Miller, Director of the Maryland Agricul- 
 tural Experiment Section, at the late meeting of the 
 State Road League in Baltimore, gave an instance of 
 the improvement of a bit of very bad road by the 
 co-operation of the road supervisor and the neighboring 
 farmers, through whose efforts a half-mile of excellent 
 stone pike had been built for $200. 
 

CHAPTER VII. 
 
 INEFFECTIVE COUNTY ROAD LAWS. THE LOCAL 
 OPTION LAW OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 VERY high hopes were entertained by the friends of 
 road improvement in New York, of immediate good 
 results to flow from the optional County Road Law, 
 enacted in that State last winter through the persistent 
 effort of Governor Flower and others; but these hopes 
 have faded steadily as board after board of supervisors 
 has rejected the law, on the ground of its being unsatis- 
 factory to their several constituencies. In Missouri the 
 same state of things prevails, and nearly the same in 
 Michigan, where only two or three counties have 
 accepted the law, although the constitution of the 
 State was amended expressly to admit its passage. 
 
 All this seems to indicate that legislation in this 
 direction has gone beyond the education of the mass of 
 voters, and that a new line of advance must be secured. 
 Under these circumstances we turn naturally to those 
 various other methods of improvement which have been 
 more successfully introduced and are in actual and 
 effective practice. Among these none is so conspicu- 
 ous as the New Jersey Local Option and Co-operation 
 
 55 
 
56 NEIV ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 Plan briefly described in Chapter II. This plan in 
 detail is as follows : 
 
 The law provides that " whenever there shall be pre- 
 sented to the board of chosen freeholders of any county 
 a petition signed by the owners of at least two-thirds of 
 the lands and real estate fronting or bordering on any 
 public road or section of road in such county, not being 
 less than one mile in length, praying the board to cause 
 such road or section to be improved under this act, and 
 setting forth that the}' are willing that the peculiar 
 benefits conferred on the lands fronting or bordering on 
 said road or section shall be assessed thereon, in propor- 
 tion to the benefits conferred, to an amount not exceed- 
 ing 10 per centum of the entire cost of the improvement, 
 it shall be the duty of the board to cause such improve- 
 ments to be made ; provided^ that the estimated cost of 
 all improvements made under this act in any county in 
 any one year shall not exceed one-half of 1 per centum of 
 the ratables of such county for the last preceding year. 
 
 " 4. And be it enacted, that one-third of the cost of all 
 roads constructed in this State under this act shall be 
 paid for out of the State Treasury; provided, that the 
 amount so paid shall not in any one year exceed the 
 sum of ^75,000; if one-third of said cost shall exceed 
 said sum, the said $75,000 shall be apportioned by the 
 Governor and the President of the State Board of Agri- 
 culture amongst the counties of the State in proportion 
 to the cost of roads constructed therein for such year, as 
 shown by the statements of costs filed in the office of 
 the President of the State Board of Agriculture." 
 
INEFFECTIVE COUNTY ROAD LAWS. 57 
 
 Under this law, as before stated, 10 miles of road were 
 built in 1892, 25 miles in 1893, and over 60 miles are 
 laid out for the current year. 
 
 This is a satisfactory rate of increase, and shows that 
 this system has met the wants of the people of New 
 Jersey in a remarkable degree. 
 
 It has the merit that it offers a local initiative, and 
 does not require the education of a whole county to 
 start the Avork ; while the object lessons with which it 
 is filling the State are fast completing the general 
 education of the people on the road question. 
 
 It gives the opportunity for any community of enter- 
 prising citizens, or for those having especially bad roads 
 or especial need of good ones, to help themselves with- 
 out delay, and to have the help of the county and State 
 as well. 
 
 It "helps those who help themselves," in a practical 
 fashion; and no locality can be jealous of the help so 
 given to others, since the same help is offered to all. 
 
 The authors of this law are justly proud of its suc- 
 cess, and proud of the fact that their State is the first to 
 give direct aid to road-building through any co-operative 
 plan. 
 
 If it shall prove that general county road-building is 
 in advance of public sentiment, it would seem wise for 
 other States to avail themselves of the experience of 
 New Jersey, whereby, instead of awaiting the slow pro- 
 cess of education alone, they can have education and 
 road- building going on together, hand in hand, and 
 with constantly augmented speed and power; for in 
 
58 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 every State, and probably in every county, some neigh- 
 borhoods will be found with enterprise and courage 
 enough to take prompt advantage of such an opportu- 
 nity. 
 
 This plan can no longer be regarded as an experiment, 
 since its success has been so pronounced; still, it may 
 be entered upon on ever so small a scale and its applica- 
 tion expanded by degrees, as its merits are shown, in 
 each State. It requires no costly State organization, 
 but may be committed at first, as it is in New Jersey, 
 to the State Board of Agriculture, or to some other 
 existing organization. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE NEW JERSEY 
 ROAD LAW. 
 
 THE State Aid Law of New Jersey has been so 
 successful in practice that any suggestions of improve- 
 ment in that law, made by those concerned in its admin- 
 istration, are of especial importance. 
 
 At the recent meeting of the State Road Association 
 at Trenton, the President, Hon. Edward Burrough, 
 who, as Chairman of the State Board of Agriculture, 
 has charge of the execution of the present law, made 
 the following recommendations for its amendment: 
 
 "1. Amend Section 1: Making it obligatory for the 
 engineer to file a copy of the specifications and a diagram 
 of the road with the President of the State Board of 
 Agriculture (or the State officer who executes the func- 
 tions now performed by him). 
 
 " 2. Amend Section 2 : (a) Requiring the supervisor 
 to be selected from among the signers of the petition or 
 a judicious freeholder residing in the taxing district, 
 or in one of the townships through which the road runs. 
 
 "(5) Reduce the pay of supervisor from $5 to $3 per 
 day. 
 
 59 
 
60 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 "(V) Compel the townships to do the grading, accord- 
 ing to lines approved by engineer and State officer as 
 their contribution. 
 
 "(tf) Contractor to keep the road in repair for one 
 year after the acceptance of the same by Board of Free- 
 holders, and 5 per cent of the cost to be and remain in 
 county treasury until the expiration of the yearly limit 
 (this can be provided in the contracts now). 
 
 " 3. The duty now performed by the President of the 
 State Board of Agriculture to be placed on a State officer 
 known as Commissioner of Roads, who shall have an 
 office in the State Capitol, and be furnished with office 
 supplies, maps, etc., and who shall be considered in all 
 respects a State officer, and supplied with railroad passes, 
 and have his actual travelling expenses when on duty 
 for the State paid, and who shall have a stipulated salary 
 in lieu of all fees or other compensation of any kind. 
 
 "4. Increase the annual State appropriation to at 
 least $150,000, and the percentage of State aid to (say) 
 50 per cent. Should the State do this, it might be well 
 to amend Section 7 so as to reduce the amount author- 
 ized by a county to be spent, to one-third of 1 per cent 
 of the ratables." 
 
 After much discussion, mainly on the subject of 
 extending the State aid to the construction of gravel 
 and shell roads as well as of stone roads, the Associa- 
 tion finally agreed to recommend the following amend- 
 ments to the Road Law: 
 
 "First. That the amount to be appropriated by the 
 county in any one year for road-building and repairs 
 
AMENDMENTS TO THE NEW JERSEY ROAD LAW. 61 
 
 shall not exceed one-fourth of 1 per cent on the ratables 
 of said county. 
 
 "Second. That the State shall pay 40 per cent, the 
 townships 25 per cent, the adjacent taxpayers 10 per 
 cent, and the county the balance. 
 
 "Third. That after the word 'stone' in the section 
 describing the material of the road-bed, be inserted the 
 words 'oyster shells, gravel, or iron bog ore.' 
 
 "Fourth. That the Board of Freeholders shall select 
 from the roads petitioned for the ones to be built, they 
 having in mind the most used ones and the distributing 
 of the benefits to all parts of the county. 
 
 "Fifth. That the President of the State Board shall 
 not approve of more roads in one year than the State 
 appropriation will pay its 40 per cent of the building, 
 nor the Board of Freeholders put under contract in any 
 one year more than the year's appropriation will pay 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FURTHER MODIFICATION OF THE SAME LAW SUG- 
 GESTED. 
 
 THE special feature of this law, aside from the State 
 aid of one-third, is the giving to the property-holders 
 along any section of road the right to demand the 
 improvement of their road upon their agreeing to bear 
 one-tenth of the cost of the work. 
 
 In some of the Western States roads are built by 
 assessing a part of the cost on a strip of one, two, or 
 three miles wide on each side of the road, and the part 
 of the cost so assessed is generally much more than one- 
 tenth. But neither of these plans is quite just. In 
 the one case, the property-holders fronting on the road 
 may be very little more benefited than those behind 
 them, Avho use it quite as much as the abutters, while 
 they pay no more than distant citizens of the county ; 
 in the Western method, a strip of any given width 
 might take in farms that were not benefited, or leave 
 out others that were. In fact, the benefits will rarely, 
 if ever, follow parallel lines. Roads that are important 
 enough to require systematic reconstruction will gener- 
 ally bo such as radiate from railway stations or boat 
 
 62 
 
FURTHER MODIFICATION OF THE SAME LAW. 63 
 
 landings, market towns, county seats, or villages, and 
 the district benefited by each will widen rapidly as the 
 distance from the common centre increases. Taking 
 the case of four main roads diverging from a railway 
 station, at right angles to each other, these roads at a 
 distance of five miles will be seven miles apart, and the 
 benefit district of each will be a triangle with its apex 
 at the station and a width of seven miles at the base. 
 The bounds of the district, moreover, will be modified 
 by many such natural obstacles as streams, swamps, hills, 
 valleys, etc., which will divert travel to or from a par- 
 ticular road, or by artificial conditions, like the location 
 of factories, creameries, grain elevators, schools, or 
 churches. All these conditions, however, are suscep- 
 tible of a fairly exact determination, and the benefit 
 district of a road can be almost as accurately defined as 
 the drainage area of a stream. When it is so defined, 
 such a district forms an ideal unit of action for road 
 improvement; the interests of all its people are identi- 
 cal though unequal, and the share of expense each ought 
 to bear can be safely left to the commissioners charged 
 with its assessment, with an appeal to the courts, as it 
 is done under the New Jersey law; so that nothing 
 should prevent the harmonious action of the inhabitants 
 of the district, and there need be no fear of unequal or 
 undue burdens being imposed on any one of them, the 
 only question to settle being whether, as a body, they 
 can afford to be assessed for their share of the cost of 
 the road. 
 
 Just what should be the share of those "peculiarly 
 
64 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 benefited," or, in other words, of the "habitual users" 
 of a certain section of road, is open to much discussion. 
 At first glance it would seem proper that it should be a 
 large one; but when we consider that the same people 
 must ultimately, through their county and State taxes, 
 help to pay for all the roads in the State, a very moder- 
 ate share would seem sufficient; and if this plan is to 
 be relied upon to produce object lessons for the whole 
 State, it must be made attractive enough to secure its 
 prompt acceptance by many localities. The benefit 
 district would include, of course, much more territory 
 than the abutting farms, and should therefore pay more 
 than one-tenth, if that is the just share of such farms ; 
 if it paid one-sixth, and the State one-third, the county 
 would have to pay only an even half. 
 
 The Local Option Law does not supersede the County 
 Road Law in New Jersey, and should not in any other 
 State. It fills a gap until the County System can be 
 established by the acceptance of the people ; it applies 
 more especially to the distinctly rural regions. Coun- 
 ties which are largely suburban, or which contain large 
 cities, can see more direct advantages in the building 
 of good roads through immediate rise in value of lots 
 and lands, and will be more ready to incur the necessary 
 expense or debt than those situated at a distance from 
 the centres of population and dependent wholly upon 
 agriculture. 
 
 Following the New Jersey law in general plan, a 
 Benefit District Act would take something of the fol- 
 lowing form : 
 
FURTHER MODIFICATION OF THE SAME LA W. 65 
 
 1. Whenever there shall be presented to the Board of 
 Supervisors of any county in the State, a petition signed 
 by the owners of not less than one-half of the lands front- 
 ing or bordering on any section of road already estab- 
 lished, or proposed to be established, in such county, 
 asking for a survey and estimate of the cost of building 
 or rebuilding such road in a substantial and permanent 
 manner, it shall be the duty of said Board to cause such 
 survey and estimate to be made and suitably published 
 for the information of the petitioners. 
 
 2. Whenever, thereafter, the petitioner shall file with 
 the Board of Supervisors a map or description of the 
 lands which will, in their opinion, be peculiarly bene- 
 fited by the construction or improvement of such road, 
 together with the written consent and request of the 
 owners of three-fifths of such lands, that all the lands 
 so benefited, together with the personal property in the 
 same district, shall be assessed in proportion to the 
 benefits conferred, for the cost of such construction or 
 improvement, to the amount of one-sixth of the total 
 cost thereof, payable in six annual instalments, it shall 
 be the duty of the said Board of Supervisors to cause 
 such road to be constructed or improved in the manner 
 provided 'by the County Road Law for the construction 
 of county roads, whether said Board has or has not 
 adopted the general county system under said law. 
 
 3. The said Board of Supervisors shall assess upon 
 any township in which said road shall lie, one-sixth of 
 the cost of the portion thereof lying in said township, 
 and shall pay one-third of the total cost out of the 
 county treasury. E 
 
66 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 4. The remaining one-third of the cost of all such 
 roads shall be paid out of the State treasury upon the 
 certificate of the State Engineer that the road has been 
 properly constructed and that he has furnished the 
 specifications therefor, and has properly supervised the 
 construction thereof; and for this purpose he is author- 
 ized to appoint an inspector to be paid out of the State 
 treasury, at the rate of four dollars per day. 
 
 5. All roads built under the provisions of this act 
 shall be held to be county roads, and shall be kept 
 permanently in repair by the county. 
 
 6. The assessment of one-sixth upon the township 
 shall be spread over a term of years, or the township 
 may issue and sell bonds for its prompt payment. 
 
 7. The county m.iy issue and sell its bonds for the 
 purposes of this act, as provided by the County Road 
 La v for the building of county roads. 
 
 Upon the basis suggested, the cost to the inhabitants 
 of the benefit district would not be onerous compared 
 with the benefits conferred, nor even when compared 
 with the customary taxation for road purposes. 
 
 Supposing the district to average two miles in width, 
 there would be an area of two square miles, or 1280 acres 
 of land, to bear the one-sixth part of the cost of each 
 mile of road. If we should double the cost of the 
 Canandaigua roads heretofore mentioned, as a safe esti- 
 mate for average country roads, we should have $1800 
 per mile. One-sixth of this would be $300, or 24 cents 
 per acre; or, if paid in six years, 4 cents per acre 
 annually. This is supposing the whole amount to be 
 
cr 
 O 
 
 I 
 
 Q 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 -j 
 
 
 UJ 
 
 
 UJ 
 
 * 
 
 
 T-HEWHIT 
 
 IEW STONI 
 
 son, County 
 
 IA, CAMOEN Co 
 
 1893. 
 
 u_ 
 
 
 ^ 
 UJ 
 
 X 
 
 g 
 
 I 
 
 t 
 
 
 z 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 rr 
 
 _; 
 
 
 
 h- 
 
 
 Q 
 
 -a 
 
 
 
 Ul 
 
 z 
 
 
 
 
 CO 
 
 Z) 
 
 
 
 
 cr 
 
 UJ 
 
 5 
 
 Cfl 
 
 
 
 
 co 
 
 
 
 
 
 cc 
 
 
 
 
 
 To face. p. 66. 
 
FURTHER MODIFICATION OF THE SAME LAW. 67 
 
 assessed on farming lands and the usual personal 
 property of farmers. If there were villages, factories, 
 mills, or banks, on the line of road, or persons pay- 
 ing taxes on any considerable amounts of personal 
 estate, the amount per acre would be lightened accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 The justice of including personal property in this 
 assessment can hardly be questioned when the same is 
 done by the county and State in respect to the other 
 five-sixths of the cost of the road. 
 
 The amount paid by the inhabitants of the district in 
 the period of six years would be trifling compared with 
 the advantages of the improvement to them during that 
 time; the future advantages would be clear gain. 
 Another gain would be in the reduced cost of mainte- 
 nance of a good road, as compared with a bad one. 
 The average expenditure on country roads is probably 
 $30 per mile per year ; the few stone roads in this 
 country have drawn so much travel from other roads 
 that the cost of repairs on them is above a proper allow- 
 ance. In some cases, however, it is given as low as 
 $10 per mile yearly, and on purely country roads 
 should not exceed $20 per mile for many years. 
 
 The New Jersey law makes all roads built on the 
 co-operative plan, county roads, and provides that they 
 are to be maintained at 'the county cost forever. This 
 arrangement would enable the benefit district to put all 
 its ordinary road tax on the improvement of branch 
 roads tributary to the improved road, and gradually 
 bring these roads up to an equally good condition. 
 
68 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 The average annual road tax is about 10 cents per 
 acre, and the increase of 4 cents would not be seri- 
 ously felt, but it might be judicious to exempt the 
 benefit district from a part of the ordinary road taxes 
 during the six years period, and place a much higher 
 share of the improvement tax upon it. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 STATE AID AND THE METHOD OF GIVING IT. 
 
 ONE chief advantage in giving State aid to road 
 construction is that the cit}^ population of the State is 
 thereby enabled to contribute something toward its due 
 proportion of the needed outlay: we may say enabled 
 rather than compelled, since a willingness to do this 
 has been in many cases especially conspicuous. 
 
 Inhabitants of cities find their own interests sub- 
 served by the improvement of country roads, in many 
 ways; indeed, the tax levied by bad roads is a more 
 direct money tax upon them than upon the rural popu- 
 lation. The farmer, in the season of mud, can stay at 
 home and live on what he has raised, and when he is 
 driven by necessity or tempted by high prices to drag 
 some of his produce to market, unless he hires the 
 hauling done he does not pay the mud tax in hard cash, 
 and often does not feel it, while the city dweller can- 
 not live without his daily supplies from the farm, and 
 must pay daily and in money the larger share of all extra 
 cost attending their transportation, wherever and how- 
 soever it may have been incurred. 
 
 In Springfield, 111., a few years ago, during a long 
 
 69 
 
70 NEW ROADS AND HO AD LAWS. 
 
 period of wet weather in the early spring, the price of 
 hay went up to $30 per ton, and the market was sup- 
 plied by railroad from outside of the State, while on 
 farms a few miles from the city, hay was plenty at $10 
 per ton, but embargoed by mud. In this case the mud 
 tax could not have been more direct if it had been levied 
 on every horse and cow in that city, and if so levied, 
 the rate would probably not have been less than 820 per 
 head on all such animals. The farmer lost a market, 
 but the townsman lost money in hand. Instances of this 
 sort could be multiplied indefinitely. Again, all the 
 active business of cities, whether commercial or produc- 
 tive, would clearly be promoted by the improvement of 
 country roads, through the cheapening of the distribu- 
 tion of goods and collection of raw materials, while the 
 yearly increasing sojourn of city residents in country 
 districts gives them a very direct interest in the condi- 
 tion of the highways and byways therein. 
 
 Taking for granted, then, the willingness of the cities 
 to contribute their share, and assuming the recent 
 action of various legislatures as indicating a general 
 disposition toward State aid in some form, the question 
 as to what shape such aid should take becomes pertinent 
 and important. 
 
 Massachusetts boldly proposes the building of State 
 roads wherever its commissioners may approve; New 
 York has twice nearly passed a law appropriating ten 
 millions of dollars for a great system of highways 
 uniting all the county seats in the State, on east a:ul 
 west, and north and south lines; while Washington 
 
STATE AID, AND THE METHOD OF GIVING IT. 71 
 
 and Idaho are both building State roads at this moment. 
 New Jersey, on the other hand, gives a local contribu- 
 tion to the pioneers of road-building in any part of the 
 State, and Pennsylvania proposes to follow this example 
 on a vastly larger scale. 
 
 The Massachusetts law has the prudent proviso, that 
 while the commission may lay out and establish State 
 roads ad libitum, such roads are only to be built when 
 the Legislature makes the required appropriations, and 
 it remains to be seen whether local jealousies will not 
 prevent any practical result from this law. In the New 
 York plan, while local jealousy on a large scale is done 
 away with by the grandeur of the scheme (a sort of 
 universal log-rolling), it is probable that when all the 
 lines were laid out, and it became evident that in some 
 places stretches of practically useless road were to be 
 built to carry out a geographical plan, while a large 
 share of the business centres and actual thoroughfares 
 in the State were neglected, such an opposition would 
 speedily arise as would put an end to the whole scheme 
 and leave the State worse off than before. 
 
 The same money spent in building the same length 
 of road in each county, but so located as to radiate from 
 shipping points and other business centres, and to con- 
 nect towns and villages not joined by railroads, would 
 be of much greater benefit; and how much greater still 
 if it were used to stimulate local effort and contribu- 
 tion, and so induced the expenditure of twice or thrice 
 as much by counties, towns, and neighborhoods, in the 
 same direction! 
 
72 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 Ten millions of dollars spent by the State, on the NCAV 
 Jersey basis of one-third State aid, would secure the 
 expenditure of thirty millions, and, at an average of 
 $1500 per mile, the building of 20,000 miles of road, 
 which is about one-fourth of all the roads of the State. 
 
 An important branch of State aid, or rather a pre- 
 liminary to such aid, in States which have not reached 
 the point of helping in actual road construction, consists 
 in providing, 
 
 1. A permanent highway commission. 
 
 2. A State engineer for roads, with suitable assist- 
 ance. 
 
 3. A careful survey of the State for road materials. 
 None of these involve any great outlay compared with 
 
 the benefits to be expected, nor do they necessarily 
 commit the State to any further action involving such 
 outlay. 
 
 A model for the first is found in the Massachusetts 
 law, epitomized in the appendix to this volume, and 
 for the second, in the report and bill of the Maryland 
 Road League. 
 
 Regarding the need of a survey of road materials, the 
 Massachusetts commission uses the following language : 
 " To put the road-masters of the State in possession of 
 the knowledge required in their difficult tasks, it will 
 be necessary to make a somewhat careful study of the 
 bed rocks, from the point of view of their fitness for the 
 construction of highways, and to delineate the results 
 on appropriate maps, to be accompanied by the necessary 
 descriptions. The information thus obtained should be 
 
STATE AID, AND THE METHOD OF GIVING IT. 73 
 
 so presented that the supervisors of highways in each 
 town may know the relative value of all the resources in 
 the way of construction materials which they can com- 
 mand. The cost of such an examination and descrip- 
 tion would probably not exceed the expense now 
 incurred in constructing ten miles of ordinary good 
 highway, and the saving which would be effected in 
 any one year would probably repay many fold the 
 expense of the inquiry." 
 
 In connection with and supplementary to this survey, 
 the Highway Commission might be charged to negotiate 
 with all railroad companies in the State, and if need be 
 in adjoining States, in order to secure the lowest possi- 
 ble rates of transportation, not only for the best surfac- 
 ing metal obtainable, but for such inferior materials as 
 wo aid serve for the substructure of roads, where the 
 best qualities of stone would be too costly. On many 
 accounts this service might be the most important the 
 Commission could render. The railroad companies are 
 fully alive to their interest in highway improvement, 
 and many of them are prepared to make great conces- 
 sions in its aid when approached with the full authority 
 of the State and the assurance of its earnest effort in 
 that direction. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ANOTHER FORM OF STATE AID. CONVICT LABOR. 
 
 THERE are three sides to the question of working 
 convicts on the highways, or rather two sides and a 
 broad middle ground. The negative side is taken by 
 the Prison Association of New York, and by penologists 
 generally, and is defended by the New York society in 
 this language : 
 
 "Touching the proposed law, entitled 'An act to pro- 
 vide for the employment of convict labor on the wagon 
 roads of this State,' the following resolution was 
 unanimously adopted by the executive committee of the 
 Prison Association of New York : 
 
 "' Resolved, That this association most emphatically 
 deems the employment of convicts upon the public roads 
 as demoralizing alike to the public and the convicts 
 themselves ; and that the corresponding secretary be 
 instructed to reply to the communication of the New 
 York State Board of Trade an expression of the opinion 
 of this association.' 
 
 " There were present at the meeting of the executive 
 committee, Messrs. Edward B. Merrill, James McKeen, 
 
 Lispenard Stewart, Felix Adler, John R. Thomas, Ben- 
 
 74 
 
CONVICT LA II OH. 75 
 
 jamin Ogden Chisolm, Frederick G. Lee, and the cor- 
 responding secretary. 
 
 " There was a full expression of opinion, and previous 
 utterances of the association on the subject were brought 
 before the meeting. The feeling expressed was 
 
 "1. That such employment of convicts would as 
 seriously interfere with labor outside the prisons as any 
 other form of convict labor. 
 
 " 2. That the State convicts could only be employed 
 on State roads, unless there was a violation of the law 
 which prohibits the employment of convicts under con- 
 tracts. If the counties employed them, they would be 
 obliged to make a contract with the State for them. 
 
 "3. That a very large body of keepers would be 
 required to prevent escapes; that escapes would fre- 
 quently occur; and that there would be a constant 
 necessity for shooting convicts in order to prevent their 
 getting away. There would soon be a death rate among 
 our convict population approaching that known to have 
 existed among the convicts of the South who were 
 employed on public works. 
 
 "4. In many cases the prejudice against convict 
 1 ibor would require a military force to protect the con- 
 victs who were at work. 
 
 " 5. (a) It has been found a hardening and demoraliz- 
 ing process to the convicts themselves to employ them 
 in public places ; () and it has been found by penolo- 
 gists to-be a demoralizing process to the public at large 
 to see this daily spectacle of shame. 
 
 "These are but a part of the reasons advanced for a 
 
 K-Stt^ 
 
 i-rtU* <**<& 
 
 X ** . ~<* ^ xS -it 
 
76 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 protest from the Prison Association of New York upon 
 the passage of this bill. I am sure that an investiga- 
 tion will show you that this decision is fully in harmony 
 with that of the most advanced penologists, not only of 
 this country, but of the entire world. 
 
 " With great respect, I am yours, very sincerely, 
 "WM. M. F. ROUND, 
 
 " Corresponding Secretary. 
 " FRANK S. GARDNER, ESQ., 
 
 "/Secretary Neiv York State Board of Trade, 
 55 Liberty Street, Neiv York." 
 
 This is a view of the question natural to men whose 
 minds are fixed on the need to society of the reformation 
 of criminals; opposed to it is the opinion of many 
 equally good citizens who seek the public good in other 
 ways, and especially in the direction of improved means 
 of communication, and who see, in the multitude sup- 
 ported in idleness in our jails and prisons as a reward 
 for crime, or employed in prison manufactures to the 
 injury of honest artisans, a labor force sufficient to 
 mend all the roads in the country if it could be so 
 applied, and which they believe could be so applied 
 without prejudice to free labor, since it would be 
 employed on work not now done at all and would 
 therefore not compete with any class of workingmen. 
 The advocates of convict road-work insist further that 
 the outdoor life and exercise afforded by such employ- 
 ment must benefit the health and morals of the prisoners, 
 that the public and visible punishment of criminals 
 
CONVICT LABOR. 77 
 
 would deter others from the commission of crime, and 
 that the labor so supplied would accomplish a great good 
 not attainable by any other means. 
 
 They point to the practical working of the system in 
 many places, for instance, at Cranston, R.I., and at 
 Charlotte, N.C. : in the latter place, convicts have 
 built many miles of beautiful roads running out 
 of the city in all directions, and with such satis- 
 faction to the people that the special law under 
 which it was done is now being extended to other 
 counties. 
 
 In other Southern States, where the Convict Lease 
 System with all its objectionable features still prevails, 
 it is clear that a transfer of the prisoners from irrespon- 
 sible and often inhumane private employ to the care 
 of States or counties would be a saving kindness to 
 them, while it would wipe out a public disgrace and 
 benefit the entire community. 
 
 Some of the apprehensions of the New York Prison 
 Association do not appear to have been well founded. 
 
 The Legislature passed the bill in spite of their 
 protest, and an experiment having been made, in the 
 employment at road-making, of the convicts at Clinton 
 Prison, the results as reported by Warden Thayer "are 
 entirely satisfactory." There was no interference with 
 the convicts by citizens except in two cases where 
 intoxicated men offered them liquor; no apparent de- 
 moralizing effects on the prisoners or the public; no 
 shooting of convicts, and only three men attempted to 
 escape. The Warden therefore, in his report on the 
 
78 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 subject, concludes as follows : " That a limited number 
 of convicts can be worked successfully is now an estab- 
 lished fact." 
 
 But, on the other hand, when we examine the 
 Warden's financial statement, AVC find but little, if any, 
 economy in the use of convicts, as compared with the 
 employment of free labor for the same work. The cost of 
 guards and of the search for escaped convicts was equal 
 to 91 cents for each day's labor done, which, considering 
 the comparative efficiency of such labor, is very near its 
 full value, the day's work being only eight hours. 
 
 Again, it may be safely predicted that when road- 
 making becomes a great business of the country, the 
 introduction of labor-saving appliances will do away 
 with a large share of the hand labor now requisite in 
 laying a stone or gravel road ; the material being gener- 
 ally transported by railroad, Avill then be transferred to 
 wagons without shovelling, and from the wagons me- 
 chanically spread in its place, so that almost nothing 
 will be left for convicts to do on the line of the road. 
 
 These considerations strengthen the position of those 
 who hold the middle ground of the question, which is 
 that State prisoners should be employed wholly in the 
 preparation of road materials, and in places where they 
 can be guarded and secluded as easily and cheaply as 
 in the prisons. 
 
 The plan proposed for this is in substance as follows : 
 for the State, 1. To buy some of the territory which 
 contains the best rock within its limits. 
 
 2. To make the necessary railway connections, hav- 
 
CONVICT LABOR. 79 
 
 ing first secured the permanent agreement of all its 
 leading railroad companies to carry road materials at 
 the cost of hauling, on condition, if required, of the 
 State furnishing to them a certain amount of track 
 ballast free of charge, or at cost. 
 
 3. Having erected the necessary buildings and walls 
 or stockades, and provided the best machinery for quarry- 
 ing and crushing rock, to bring all able-bodied State 
 Prison convicts and put them at this work. 
 
 4. The counties to put their jail prisoners and tramps 
 at the work of grading, draining, and preparing the 
 roads for macadamizing. 
 
 5. The State to furnish the broken stone free on 
 board cars, as its contribution to road improvement. 
 
 The cost to the State, in addition to the maintenance 
 and guarding of the convicts, would be only that of fuel 
 and oil, explosives, and use of machinery, or, according 
 to the Massachusetts Commission report, 6^ cents per 
 cubic yard of broken stone, amounting, for the 1200 
 yards required to lay a mile of single track road 9 feet 
 wide and 8 inches deep, to $81.60. 
 
 The remaining cost would be the railroad freight, 
 amounting, for an average distance of 100 miles, to not 
 more than 28 cents per yard,* $336; the wagon haul, 
 averaging possibly 2-J- miles, 30 cents per yard, $360; 
 and the rolling, superintendence, and incidentals (not 
 including engineering, which would be a general county 
 charge) 10 cents per yard; making the total local cost 
 68 cents per cubic yard, or $816 per mile. 
 * See page 86. 
 
80 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 The wagon haul is estimated on the basis of the 
 country price of $3 per day for team and driver, and of 
 hauling (over the hard road as it is made) two yards at 
 a load, and an average travel for a team of 25 miles a 
 day. 
 
 This plan brings the expense of road improvement so 
 low that no elaborate scheme of taxation, bonding, or 
 borrowing would be necessary, and all its benefits could 
 be speedily and universally realized. The best plan for 
 carrying it out would perhaps be to let the "benefit 
 district," as heretofore defined, pay one-third of the 
 cost, by instalments, and the township one-third; the 
 county to pay the remainder, and to advance the amount 
 for the district, with a rebate or discount to all individ- 
 uals who preferred to pay in cash, so that no one would 
 be put in debt against his will. 
 
 The cost to the district on this basis of division would 
 be $272 per mile. Taking the average width benefited, 
 as in Chapter VII., at 2 miles, or 1280 acres for each 
 mile of road, the total charge per acre would be 21 cents, 
 or 3 cents per acre annually, if spread over seven years. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 WHAT THE HAILKOADS WILL DO FOE THE HIGHWAYS. 
 
 THE deep concern of the railroads of the country in 
 the condition of its highways is universally recognized ; 
 it was particularly well expressed at the Michigan 
 Engineers' Convention by Mr. E. W. Muenscher, Chief 
 Engineer of the M. & G. R. Railway, who said: "No 
 interest in the State of Michigan would be more bene- 
 fited by good roads than the railroads. During a large 
 part of the year much of their rolling-stock is lying idle 
 because farmers cannot bring their produce to the station. 
 At other times they cannot get cars enough to haul away 
 this produce, and the sidings, elevators, and warehouses 
 are gorged to overflowing; extra train forces must be 
 employed; men in other lines of traffic who need cars 
 are denied, and general disturbance of business, delay, 
 and loss follow. Good roads would distribute this busi- 
 ness more uniformly over the year, to the mutual advan- 
 tage of the companies and their patrons, to say nothing 
 of the increase of population, and production and pros- 
 perity which would follow." 
 
 The same speaker made these excellent practical 
 
 suggestions. "There is one way in which the railroads 
 
 81 F 
 
82 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 might greatly help on and hasten the good work without 
 cost to themselves. If we are ever to have anything 
 better than dirt roads in Michigan, we have got to 
 depend almost entirely on gravel. This material is 
 found in vast quantities in the drift which covers the 
 entire lower peninsula, but the deposits are local, and 
 there are large sections in which a stone as large as a 
 hazel nut would be a curiosity. The cost of hauling 
 gravel by wagon to such localities is so great as to 
 forbid its use. It is here that the railroads could do 
 good work. Most of them pass through or near large 
 gravel beds. If, at times when many of their flat cars 
 are lying idle, they would load them with gravel and 
 deliver it at each station along their lines at bare cost, 
 to be used in building gravel roads each way from those 
 stations, they would greatly diminish this most serious 
 obstacle. Some of them also OAvn their OAVII steam 
 shovels, which at times could be used in loading the 
 cars, Avith a further saving in cost; and other roads 
 might Avell afford to purchase these excavators for this 
 purpose." 
 
 The disposition of the railway companies themselves 
 to aid in road improvement may be judged by the folloAv- 
 ing extracts from a portion of the letters received by the 
 Road Inquiry office on this subject, from which, and the 
 fact that while some of the other roads are noncommittal, 
 none of them are opposed to giving such aid, it would 
 seem that the companies generall}^ Avill be ready to do 
 their full share, wlienever the opportunity offers to pro- 
 mote road-building on any extended scale. 
 
WHAT THE RAILROADS WILL DO. 83 
 
 BIRMINGHAM & ATLANTIC RY. " We shall be pleased to offer 
 special inducements in freight rates for the betterment of our 
 public roads." 
 
 ATCHISON, TOPEKA & SANTA FE RY. It has been the custom to 
 make the rates on road materials very low, in order to encour- 
 age the building of good roads tributary to our line. Each 
 case is handled on its merits as the question arises, and rates 
 arranged in accordance with the circumstances of the case. 
 
 LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE RY. Have made reduced rates in so 
 many cases to encourage road-building that it would be im- 
 practicable to recapitulate them. 
 
 WEST VA. CENTRAL & PITTSBURG RY. Is anxious to do its ut- 
 most to encourage the construction of good public roads. 
 
 WABASH RY. Have hauled material free, the local officials un- 
 loading the same. 
 
 WABASH, CHESTER & WESTERN RY. Would make rates at bare 
 cost of hauling or less. 
 
 WILMINGTON, NEWBERN & NORFOLK RY. Would give half rates. 
 
 ILLINOIS CENTRAL RY. Have reduced rates to encourage road- 
 building and advanced the payment of our taxes for two years 
 to assist localities. 
 
 It has always been 
 
 HANNIBAL & ST. JOE RY. 
 
 ST. Louis & KEOKUK RY. 
 
 KANSAS CITY & COUNCIL BLUFFS RY. 
 
 CHICAGO, BURLINGTON & KANSAS CITY RY. 
 
 the policy of these 
 roads to make 
 liberal conces- 
 sions on material 
 
 to improve roads. 
 ORANGE BELT RY. Has furnished material free and reduced 
 
 rates on transportation. 
 PITTSBURG, AKRON & WESTERN RY. Would offer reduced rates 
 
 or free transportation to encourage good road movement. 
 SAVANNAH, AMERICUS & MONTGOMERY RY. Rates are very low. 
 ST. Louis, ALTON & TERRE HAUTE RY. Would be glad to give 
 
 reduced rates to encourage road improvements. 
 STUTTGART & ARKANSAS RY. Would make very low rates if any 
 
 movement was made toward road improvement. 
 
84 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 f" It is the policy of these roads to 
 
 encourage road-building by 
 TOLEDO & OHIO CENTRAL RY. 
 
 , r \ very low rates of freight and 
 
 KANAWHA & MICHIGAN RY. 
 
 furnishing facilities for han- 
 
 v dling road material. 
 CHICAGO & EASTERN ILLINOIS RY. Will do 'all in their power to 
 
 promote the construction of good roads. Will make very low 
 
 rates. 
 
 ELMIRA, CORTLAND & XORTHERN RY. Very low rates. 
 FALL BROOK RY. OF PENN. & X.Y. Would offer reduced rates 
 
 or free transportation if good material was offered for road- 
 making. 
 INDIANA, ILLINOIS & IOWA RY. Have offered to haul stone free 
 
 to improve roads to depots, and always ready to co-operate in 
 
 road improvement. 
 
 JACKSONVILLE, ST. AUGUSTINE & INDIAN RIVER RY. Have al- 
 ways given one-half rates for road material. Will gladly assist 
 
 in any way possible. 
 LAKE ERIE & WESTERN RY. Take pleasure in making the rates 
 
 as near actual cost as possible. 
 LOUISVILLE, NEW ALBANY & CHICAGO RY. Would reduce rates 
 
 one-half as an inducement to improve roads. 
 
 MIDDLETOWN & CINCINNATI RY. Will assist all in their power. 
 NEW YORK, ONTARIO & WESTERN RY. Have made half rates to 
 
 induce road improvement and frequently subscribed money 
 
 for improving roads. 
 NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA & NORFOLK RY. Always transport 
 
 at reduced rates to improve roads leading to stations. 
 CHARLESTON, SUMTER & NOUTIIKRN RY. Have donated and 
 
 delivered free the material for building a road at Su inter, S.C. 
 WILMINGTON, COLUMBIA & AUGUSTA UY. Have donated and 
 
 delivered free the material used for road improvements. 
 UNION PACIFIC RY. " We are of course interested in the improve- 
 - ment of .highways throughout the territory readied by our 
 
 lines, but systematic effort in this direction is of recent growth. 
 
 No reduced rates or free transportation has yet been asked for." 
 
WHAT THE RAILROADS WILL DO. 85 
 
 CENTRAL PENN. & WESTERN UY. "We have never been called 
 upon to make special rates for the transportation of road- 
 making materials, but would do so to encourage road-building." 
 
 PENN. LINES WEST OF PITTSBURG. This company is favorably 
 disposed to encourage the building of good public roads, anrl 
 will render what aid it consistently can. 
 
 These various companies, located in all parts of the 
 country, have thus made, or offered to make, concessions 
 in aid of road construction ranging all the way from 
 "reduced rates " or "half rates " down to "bare cost of 
 hauling or less," and even to "free transportation" and 
 "free materials." 
 
 A fair average of these concessions would perhaps be 
 the hauling at bare cost, and it would seem that if the 
 companies could be brought to a united consideration of 
 the matter, and with the prospect that their favorable 
 action would result in a decisive movement for road 
 improvement throughout the country, they might decide 
 to make the " cost basis " universal. Precisely what this 
 means or would amount to is of course uncertain ; one 
 president of a transcontinental road puts it at "one mill 
 per ton per mile on straight and level roads," but it 
 would be safer to double that rate, which would bring 
 it nearly up to the present actual cost of moving coal. 
 At this rate a yard of broken stone weighing 2800 pounds 
 would be carried 100 miles for 28 cents, or for the cost 
 of moving it one mile on our average roads by wagon. 
 Such a rate of transport presupposes, of course, a very 
 large movement and the best arrangements 
 quick loading and unloading. 
 
86 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 Several of the railroad companies give the cost of 
 crushed stone put on board their cars at 30 to 80 cents 
 per cubic yard, and of gravel at 10 to 25 cents per cubic 
 yard. Taking the former to average 50 cents, and the 
 latter 15 cents, and the rates of hauling as above, it 
 appears that road material can be delivered at any dis- 
 tance up to 200 miles at a total cost of $1.06 per cubic 
 yard for stone, and 71 cents for gravel. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ROAD MATERIALS IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 TAKING for granted the desire of the railroad com- 
 panies to aid in the general improvement of highways, 
 and their ultimate general consent to the establishment 
 of such low rates for transport as will permit the move- 
 ment of the small amounts of superior material needed 
 for surfacing roads to distances reaching 200 miles, and 
 of the inferior sort suitable for substructure, to a dis- 
 tance of 100 miles, it may safely be said that no consid- 
 erable part of the United States will lack a ready and 
 full supply of road material. 
 
 Glancing over the country somewhat in detail, and 
 beginning in the far northeast, the State of Maine 
 could surface all her roads with the chips from her 
 granite quarries, and underlay them with the surplus 
 stone from her fields ; a large part of the remainder of 
 New England needs only to run a portion of its stone 
 fences through rock-crushers to have an endless supply 
 of good material, and wherever the local supply fails, a 
 very short railroad haul will permit making a selection 
 from almost all the good kinds of rock. 
 
 In New York the entire canal region, not otherwise 
 
 87 
 
88 NEW KOADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 provided for, can be supplied with its choice of trap, 
 granite, limestone, or iron ore, from the Hudson River, 
 carried at a minimum cost by the fleet of grain boats 
 returning empty from the city, whenever there is demand 
 enough to warrant making the necessary arrangements 
 for the quick and economical loading and unloading of 
 broken rock ; the northern projection of the State has its 
 own granite hills and boulders ; the southern tier coun- 
 ties have abundant good gravel and rock, while at the 
 point where "three States meet," New York, NCAV Jer- 
 sey, and Pennsylvania, is found a remarkable deposit of 
 debris from the Hamilton sandstone cliffs, lying massed 
 against the mountain on the west bank of the Delaware 
 for a stretch of thirty miles, already "broken to sizes," 
 and waiting only for the railroad and steam shovel, to 
 furnish all the good road material that could ever be used 
 in the three States, at the cost of loading and hauling. 
 New Jersey has the best of road metal in the trap rock 
 of the Palisades and other dikes further west; Penn- 
 sylvania has rock in abundance, though much of it is 
 unfit for use, and in many districts railroad transporta- 
 tion will be demanded. Maryland and Virginia have 
 shells on the coast, and rock further inland. The Caro- 
 linas have clay enough to mend their sandy roads in the 
 lowlands, and good stone in their upland regions. 
 Georgia and Alabama have the same, and Florida has 
 its coquiiia and clay. Mississippi has the Tishomingo 
 gravel, an excellent material; Tennessee, the Chatta- 
 nooga flints ; and Kentucky, the famous Paducah gravel, 
 which cements itself when laid. Ohio has limestone in 
 
HO AD MATERIALS IN THE UNITED STATES. 8 9 
 
 abundance, and Indiana excellent gravel. Michigan 
 has abundant good gravel in the southern half of the 
 State, with some rock and boulders further north. 
 Illinois has gravel and limestone in the north end of 
 the State, and quarries of quartz in the south; while 
 the great drainage canal, which is intended to turn a 
 river out of Lake Michigan into the Mississippi, is 
 already throwing up a mountain range of broken stones 
 for a length of twenty-five miles, sufficient, with some- 
 thing better for surfacing material, to macadamize all 
 the roads within a hundred miles. Wisconsin has srran- 
 
 o 
 
 ite, gravel, and coarser glacial drift. Minnesota has 
 excellent quartzite in the southwest portion of the State, 
 also granite and glacial drift in other parts. Iowa has 
 some gravel and limestone, but neither is of the best 
 quality except in the northern portion, and in limited 
 areas elsewhere. Missouri has plenty of good road 
 material, though it is not well distributed. The cherts 
 or flints of Arkansas are excellent for roads, and will 
 help to supply the near-by sections of Louisiana, Texas, 
 Kansas, and Oklahoma. Southern Louisiana is pro- 
 vided with the Rosetta gravel; Texas has occasional 
 beds of good rock, gravel, and shells ; Eastern Kansas, 
 some fair limestone ; Nebraska has a very limited supply 
 of good materials, but South Dakota, on the north, has 
 plenty to spare and of the very best, the hard and dur- 
 able jasper of the Sioux Valley. North Dakota has no 
 good rock, but some drift deposits. The mountain 
 States are well provided with rock, but, owing to their 
 favorable conditions of soil and climate, have less need 
 
90 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 of it than the prairie States. The Pacific Slope is 
 abundantly supplied, especially the States of Oregon 
 and Washington. The Union Pacific R. R. Company 
 reports of this region, "that along the Columbia River, 
 from Portland to Wallula, along the Snake and Umatilla 
 rivers, and most streams of any size, there are high 
 basaltic bluffs, under which there are slopes containing 
 vast quantities of broken basaltic rock of excellent 
 quality for macadam. Much of this broken rock is 
 small enough for use, and the remainder can be readily 
 broken up into sizes required for road-making. In many 
 cases these rock slopes extend down to our track, and 
 the rock could be loaded on cars by steam shovel for ten 
 or fifteen cents per cubic yard." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE BEST ROAD FOB A FARMING DISTRICT. 
 
 THERE is little difficulty in determining from experi- 
 ence what kind of road should be built between large 
 towns, in village streets, or in city suburbs ; and there 
 is no great difficulty in getting the right kind of a road 
 built in such localities ; but in this country, so few good 
 roads have been made in purely agricultural districts 
 that experience avails but little in determining what 
 will best serve the needs and suit the means of the 
 farmer. In the first place, the road must not be too 
 costly, or it will not get built; in the second place, it 
 must be as good as the best for its purposes, when it is 
 built, for the farmer should be able to do his heavy 
 hauling over it when his fields are too wet to be worked 
 and his teams are free. 
 
 The roads which have been built by counties have not 
 always satisfied the farmers who had to use them. An 
 enthusiastic Western worker for hard roads lost heart 
 entirely and dropped out of the work, upon visiting a 
 portion of Ohio and finding the country people travel- 
 ling in the ditches to save the bare feet of their horses 
 
 from the macadam roads. He did not stop to think that 
 
 91 
 
92 NEW ROADS AND HO AD LAWS. 
 
 when wet weather came the same people would get their 
 horses shod and thankfully travel over the hardest road 
 they could find. 
 
 The road that seems to fill the farmer's eye, having in 
 view all these considerations, is a solid, well-bedded 
 stone road, but so narrow as to be only a single track, 
 and having an earth track on one side. A visitor at the 
 Road League headquarters in the World's Fair left this 
 memorandum: "Forty years' experience on roads has 
 given me this idea, that there should be a dirt road 
 next to the gravelled road, as in the summer months the 
 dirt road would be used in preference. Where a dirt 
 road has been made alongside, the life of a gravelled 
 road has been found to be five years longer. Dirt roads 
 will keep the snow in winter while no snow will stay 
 on the pike." 
 
 This recommendation was discussed by many subse- 
 quent visitors and very generally agreed to, and the speci- 
 men of very narrow stone road (eight feet wide) with 
 the earth track alongside, exhibited by the League, was 
 usually pronounced much the best for country roads ; in 
 fact, some farmers declared they would oppose the build- 
 ing of stone roads unless a dirt track was provided. It 
 is quite true that a fine, dry, smooth dirt track is the 
 perfection of roads: it is easy on the horses' feet and 
 legs, easy on vehicles, and free from noise and jar. It 
 is equally true that it holds snow better than stone or 
 gravel, and requires less snow to make sleighing; and, 
 where such a track has a stone road alongside to take 
 the wear in wet weather, it will hardly suffer any 
 
THE BEST ROAD FOR A FARMING DISTRICT. 93 
 
 appreciable wear. The stone road, on the other hand, 
 wears by the grinding of the wheels and the chipping 
 of the horses' calks in dry weather as well as wet; if it 
 can be saved this wear for an average of six months in 
 each year, so much will be clear gain. 
 
 The questions raised regarding this method of con- 
 struction are, whether the junction of the earth and 
 stone sections of the road can be kept even, so as not to 
 have a jog in passing from one to the other, and how 
 the meeting and passing of loaded teams is provided 
 for. But practical experience has already been sufficient 
 to settle both these points. The Canandaigua roads, 
 some of which have been in use two or three years, show 
 no sign of the division between the earth and the stone, 
 and those who use them say that no difficulty is found 
 in passing teams; it is only necessary for one of the 
 wagons to run one wheel off the macadam ; and since the 
 earth portion of the road is never used when wet, it is 
 always firm and smooth enough to permit doing this 
 with ease. 
 
 On the whole, this appears to be a case in which 
 "half a loaf" is not only "better than no bread," but 
 better than a whole loaf. The purposes of a wide, hard 
 road are better served by a narrow one, and all the 
 objections to it removed, while the cost is cut down to 
 a moiety, and the charges for repair lessened in even 
 greater proportion. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE BEST CONSTRUCTION FOR A NARROW, HARD 
 ROAD. SOME FARM ROADS IN ILLINOIS. 
 
 THE cross-sections of the Canandaigua roads shown 
 in Chapter III. give the simplest forms for narrow, hard 
 roads ; both these forms are symmetrical, having the stone 
 road in the middle: one of them has a dirt track on 
 each side; the other has none at all, only a shoulder of 
 earth to keep the macadam in place. While the users 
 of these roads are so pleased with the novelty of their 
 hard roads that they do not seem to care for the dirt 
 track, they will doubtless in future find their advantage 
 in having at least one such track in all cases. 
 
 Where roads are already graded wide enough, it is 
 better perhaps to have the three tracks, but tAvo will 
 serve all purposes of use quite as well. Two tracks 
 will require a road-bed about 21 feet wide. In all wet 
 soils or springy places there should be an underdrain 
 beneath the stone track, as shown in Fig. 1, with side 
 outlets at places where the necessary fall can be had. 
 The space above the drain tile up to within six inches of 
 the surface can be filled with any cheap, coarse material, 
 first covering the tile Avith straAv to prevent the earth 
 Avashing into the joints. Field stone, common gravel, 
 
 94 
 
A NARROW HARD ROAD. 95 
 
 sand, or the burnt clay ballast used on some prairie rail- 
 roads, will serve equally well for such filling. This 
 should be well rolled and the road finished with a layer 
 of the best broken stone or gravel obtainable, also well 
 rolled, or, better still, with two layers of three inches 
 each, rolled separate^. 
 
 Where the underlying soil is naturally porous and the 
 underdrain is not needed, the simple construction in 
 Fig. 2 is all that is required, but the ground under the 
 macadam should be well rolled and compacted, and all 
 soft places excavated and filled with good material. If 
 the ground is not porous, yet is not wet enough to 
 warrant the expense of subdrainage, it is well to provide 
 a drainage for the macadam bed in the form shown in 
 Fig. 3; for, without entering into the controverted 
 question whether the macadam is properly a "roof " or a 
 "sieve," or disputing that the former is a "consumma- 
 tion devoutly to be wished," it is wise to be on the safe 
 side and take away the water if it does get through; it 
 certainly is wise to do this if it can be done at a slight cost. 
 
 All that is required for this is to give a slight out- 
 ward slope to the bottom of the bed, roll the ground 
 thoroughly, and provide an occasional drain through the 
 earth shoulder into the ditch. These side drains should 
 be provided in all low places in the road, and at intervals 
 on all long slopes. They may be of tile, or better per- 
 haps of wood, either tarred or charred to prevent decay. 
 
 The three-track road, Fig. 4, requires a road-bed about 
 27 feet wide; its construction corresponds to that of the 
 two-track. 
 
 THH 
 
96 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 Another form of narrow, hard road is one used by 
 Judge Caton of Chicago, on his Illinois farms. 1 While 
 these roads are made for farm use, they would serve 
 equally well for the lesser public roads of a neighbor- 
 hood, and are worth a careful study with that vieAV. 
 The road is made by ploughing two furrows 16 inches 
 wide and about 12 inches deep, under what are to be 
 the wheel tracks, turning the earth inward, and two 
 more for ditches, also turned inward, which results in 
 a slight raising of the road-bed, then filling the inner 
 furrows with field stones or coarse gravel and finishing 
 with a light coating of fine gravel. Figures 1 and 2, 
 respectively, show the road-bed prepared and finished. 
 This plan gives a very solid bed of material under the 
 wheels and a sufficiency elsewhere, and if occasional 
 side outlets are provided, the furrows are quite efficient 
 as blind drains. Occasional passing-places would need 
 to be provided on public roads, for the meeting of loaded 
 wagons; elsewhere, the width shown, 11 feet between 
 ditches, would be sufficient for ordinary light travel. 
 Such a road will use the minimum of material with the 
 maximum of efficiency, and, having a great depth of 
 stone just where it is needed, should bear the heaviest 
 loads without injury, and require only an occasional 
 resurfacing to last indefinitely. The amount of material 
 required is less than 800 cubic yards per mile. 
 
 1 Judge Caton has been for sixty years a prominent figure in the 
 active public work of the Great West, not less distinguished in agri- 
 culture than in law, science, and business affairs ; and he takes as 
 great pride in his good roads as in the greatness of his crops, 
 
QJ 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 TREATMENT OF SANDY ROADS. 
 
 THE usual way of mending sandy roads is to cover 
 the surface with clay, or to mix clay with the surface 
 sand. 
 
 The Massachusetts Highway Commission says it is 
 "questionable whether this method of treatment is in 
 the long run economical." The Commission estimates 
 the average cost of doing this at 15 cents per square 
 yard with renewal in about five years, or 3 cents a square 
 yard annually, and says, " A good macadam road can be 
 constructed for 60 cents a square yard; taking into con- 
 sideration the 'Ismail amount of travel, and that the road 
 is estimated to last twenty years Avith hardly any 
 repairs, the annual cost will be 3 cents per square yard, 
 or the same in each case." 
 
 Other materials have been used for the more or less 
 temporary hardening of sand roads, and some of them 
 with marked success. For this purpose, any strong 
 fibrous substance, and especially one which holds mois- 
 ture, such as the refuse of sugarcane or sorghum, and 
 even common straw, flax, or swamp grass, will be use- 
 ful; spent tan is of some service, and wood fibre in any 
 
 97 G 
 
CO 
 Q 
 < 
 O 
 
 cr 
 
 CO 
 
 z 
 
 O 
 
 h- 
 o 
 
 LJ 
 
 O 
 Q 
 
 CO 
 
 O 
 
98 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 form is excellent. The best is the fibrous sawdust 
 made in sawing shingles by those machines which cut 
 into the side of the block. This has been used to some 
 extent in portions of Wisconsin, and its results are 
 described in the following letter : 
 
 "XECEDAH, JUXEAU COUXTY, WlS. 
 
 " December 1, 1893. 
 
 "MR. ROY STONE, WASHINGTON, D.C., 
 
 " DEAR SIR : Yours of the 28th ult. is at hand, inquir- 
 ing in relation to sawdust roads. The officers of this 
 town, Necedah, have for several years past used shingle 
 sawdust on the principal travelled roads in the town. 
 The land is very sandy. 
 
 "Sawdust is first spread on the road from 8 to 10 
 inches deep; this is covered with sand to protect the 
 road against fire lighted from pipes or cigars carelessly 
 thrown or emptied on the road-bed. The sand also 
 keeps the sawdust damp. The dust and sand will 
 shortly become hard and packed; the wheels of the 
 heaviest wagons make no impression upon it; it appears 
 to be almost as solid as a plank road, but much easier 
 for the teams. 
 
 " The road prepared in the above manner will remain 
 good for four or five years and will then require renew- 
 ing in some parts. 
 
 "How lumber sawdust would answer I don't know. 
 " Very respectfully, 
 
 "J. T. KINGSTON, P.M." 
 
 The ordinary lumber sawdust would of course not be 
 
TREATMENT <VF SANDY ROADS. 90 
 
 so good, but if mixed .with planer shavings it might 
 serve fairly well. 
 
 Another letter from an adjoining county confirms Mr. 
 Kingston's statement, and details some experience with 
 other methods, as follows : 
 
 "FRIENDSHIP, ADAMS COUNTY, Wis. 
 
 "December 21, 1893. 
 
 " ROY STONE, ESQ., WASHINGTON, D.C.,- 
 
 "DEAR SIR: Your inquiry as to the use of sawdust 
 on sandy roads received; we have sandy roads in this 
 county, but never use any sawdust on them ; we use clay 
 and marsh muck; clay we think makes the best road, 
 when put on as it should be. After the introduction of 
 wide-tire wagons (four-inch tires), we find little trouble 
 with sandy roads. Very heavy loads are being hauled 
 over the sandiest roads with no difficulty on four-inch- 
 tired wagons, and I consider the use of wide tire on 
 wagon and buggy of far more importance than any road 
 filling that could be possibly done in this county with 
 the means we have at our disposal for the work. 
 
 " In Juneau County some very fine roads have been 
 made with sawdust; from Necedah to the Wisconsin 
 River, a distance of about three miles, it is the boule- 
 vard of that county, and it is a pleasure to ride over 
 that road in the nice summer day, but they have the 
 sawdust handy by, and can fill the road cheap. 
 
 " In this county, where roads have been well graded 
 and trenches about 18 inches wide and 10 inches deep 
 filled with clay, and about 2 inches of sand on top just 
 
100 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 where the wheels run, it lias made the best lasting roads 
 for all kinds of use, and it is the very cheapest way we 
 can make them. 
 
 " Various plans have been proposed, but none so good 
 for the money as the above. 
 
 "Buckwheat, rye, and sorghum straw have been used 
 with good results. 
 
 "Yours truly, 
 
 "C. M. SIMONS, 
 
 "County Clerk." 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 TREATMENT OF DIRT ROADS. 
 
 WHAT has been said in the foregoing chapters clearly 
 demonstrates that all the important roads of the country 
 can be, and probably will be, macadamized or well 
 gravelled in the not distant future, and this expectation 
 should govern the present treatment of roads every- 
 where ; no labor or expense should therefore be put upon 
 them, more than is necessary to keep them usable, 
 except such as, while it will secure their present better- 
 ment, will count also toward their ultimate improvement 
 as hard roads. 
 
 For the latter purpose they will require attention, 
 first, to their location; second, to grading; and, third, 
 to drainage. If a road goes over a hill which it might 
 go round, the labor put upon it is wasted, and the 
 sooner it is changed, the better ; if on the level it is not 
 already well rounded up and surface drained, it should 
 be, not only for present use but as a preliminary to 
 macadamizing; and if it is not underdrained in all wet 
 spots, that should be the first work done. Nothing, 
 indeed, will pay better for present use than putting in 
 
 good tile or stone drains, and they will count for all 
 
 101 
 
102 NEW ROADS AND EOAT> LAWS. 
 
 they cost in the future road-building; they should be 
 put in wherever the subsoil is of a nature to hold water. 
 
 Hon. W. L. Webber, the Chairman of the Michigan 
 Highway Commission, gives this instance of the benefit 
 of drainage in Saginaw: "In this city, a few years ago, 
 the Common Council placed the drainage of streets 
 under the control of the Board of Public Works, by 
 resolution; whereupon, the Board of Public Works at 
 once let contracts for several miles of tile drains, upon 
 which the Council promptly revoked the authority which 
 had been given to the Board, the tile drains being 
 regarded as an improvident use of the public money; 
 but the contracts made were carried out, and after one 
 year's experience the Council was so thoroughly satis- 
 fied of the advantage of the tile drainage in streets that, 
 since that time, no street has been ordered improved 
 without ordering tile drains in." 
 
 Mr. Webber further says: "Road-beds should be 
 drained in all places where the subsoil is clay or packed, 
 so that the surface of the road will have no standing 
 water under it to a depth of at least three feet, and there 
 is no one word which should be so thoroughly impressed 
 into the minds of all connected ^ ith the making of 
 roads, as the word ''drainage, ' thorough drainage, deep 
 drainage." 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 WIDE TIRES. 
 
 THE Massachusetts Highway Commission, after a 
 thorough study of this subject, reached this conclusion: 
 " From our own observation, and from testimony in the 
 different parts of the State, the wider tires offer many 
 advantages which should commend their use to teamsters 
 in general. There can be no question but that on the 
 ordinary roads larger loads can be hauled with less strain 
 upon the horses and less outlay for repairs on the equip- 
 ments." 
 
 The Commission, however, recommended no State 
 legislation on the subject, mainly on account of the cost 
 of changing the 50,000 wagons in the State at $20 each, 
 amounting to a million dollars, "a sum sufficient to 
 construct about 200 miles of road of the kind which 
 would not be likely to suffer from any width of tires 
 used upon them," and they are of the opinion that as 
 our roads are brought into a proper state the tire ques- 
 tion will become unimportant. Apparently the legisla- 
 ture thought differently; for the Highway Manual of 
 the State of New York, issued subsequently, says: 
 
 " Massachusetts has recently passed a law making man- 
 
 103 
 
104 NEW ROADS AND KG AD LAWK. 
 
 datory the use of four-inch tire upon wagons for heavy 
 traffic." The same authority further says : "In Penn- 
 sylvania, team wagons are required by law to have tire 
 at least four inches in width, and the rear axles are 
 eight inches longer than the forward, so that the wheels 
 can never track each other. In England, the roads are 
 kept free from ruts by the use of wagons with axles of 
 indiscriminate length, so that the wheels of one wagon 
 will not track those of another, and the rear wheels are 
 universally wider apart than the fore wheels. The New 
 York Legislature of 1893 passed a law providing for a 
 rebate of road tax equal to one-half the full amount, not 
 exceeding four days, for the use of three-inch tires upon 
 wagons drawn by two or more horses. This was a move 
 in the right direction, but the width of tire should have 
 been four instead of three inches. The great injury 
 done by narrow-tired wagons to our roads, however 
 expensively and durably constructed, would have war- 
 ranted our legislature in compelling the use of wide 
 tires upon all wagons designed to carry heavy loads. 
 The wide-tired wheels, with the axles of unequal length 
 so that the wheels will not track, under heavy loads, act 
 as rollers and keep the road hard and well packed and 
 always free from grooves and ruts." 
 
 The preponderance of testimony appears to be strongly 
 in favor of wide tires and unequal axles, not only as 
 economical of power in hauling, but as tending to 
 improve the roadway and maintain its improvement. 
 
 The tendency, as roads are improved, to increase the 
 loads moved over them up to the full hauling capacity 
 
WIDE TIEES. 105 
 
 of the teams used, puts the new roads to a severe test, 
 and often before they are fully consolidated. On a new 
 stone road in Camden County, N.J., the writer lately 
 saw loads of 7500 pounds of manure, or an equal weight 
 of farm produce, on wagons weighing themselves over 
 a ton and having the ordinary narrow tires. These 
 wagons were cutting ruts in the road of one to two 
 inches' depth, and constant care was required to prevent 
 worse injury. 
 
 This road had been built by contract, with a per- 
 centage reserved, and the contractors were still caring 
 for it, filling the ruts and rolling it, and its condition 
 showed the wisdom of this arrangement; for if it had 
 been accepted and paid for when it was apparently fin- 
 ished, and left without special care through this open 
 winter, it would have been sadly cut to pieces before 
 spring ; whereas, if the rutting could have been avoided 
 by the use of wide tires and unequal axles, the travel 
 would have benefited the road. It was claimed, how- 
 ever, by those who had watched the construction of this 
 road, that the rutting was due to insufficient rolling of 
 the lower courses of stone, and that this was proved by 
 the fact that wherever the travel had been forced on 
 to the road during construction and the material thor- 
 oughly compacted thereby, as it was laid, no rutting had 
 occurred. The reason given for using narrow tires in 
 that vicinity is that the wagons must track with the 
 horse cars, in Camden and Philadelphia, or be at a 
 serious disadvantage. 
 
 Very careful experiments with wagons of varying 
 
106 NEW EOADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 width of tires have been made by the Studebaker 
 Brothers, and the results are detailed in the Good Roads 
 Magazine for March, 1893. These experiments prove 
 that across fields a three-inch tire has an advantage over 
 a one and a half inch, of one-eighth in starting a load, 
 and one-seventh in pulling it after starting. This 
 advantage, together with the lessened liability to cut 
 through and kill the grass of newly seeded fields, must 
 gradually lead to the introduction of wide tires for farm 
 wagons, and when used on farms they will be used on 
 roads. The tests also showed an advantage in starting 
 a load on a hard road, of one-sixth in favor of the three- 
 inch tire over the one and a half inch, and a small 
 advantage in favor of a four-inch over a one and a half 
 inch in starting and hauling over sandy and gravelly 
 roads, but a slight disadvantage in the wide tires on 
 muddy roads and block pavement. 
 
 The most thorough practical test, however, of the 
 merits of wide tires with varying gauges, considered as 
 road makers and menders as well as load-carriers, is in 
 the experience of the Solvay Process Company, near 
 Syracuse, N. Y., given in Good Roads for January, 1894. 
 This company was persuaded by Mr. William A. Sweet, 
 President of the New York State Road Improvement 
 Association, to try the use of wide tires and un- 
 equal axles in hauling stone from the quarry to their 
 works, a distance of four and a half miles, over what had 
 been a very bad clay road. They improved the road by 
 putting on "rough quarry refuse, and for a part of the 
 distance field stones (from stone Avails) were used, all 
 
WIDE TIRES. 107 
 
 hand broken to two-inch and three-inch sizes. These 
 were covered with fine unsifted quarry chips, and a 
 crown was given to the roadway with an elevation of 
 about six inches in a width of 16 feet." 
 
 Three three-horse wagons were built, with four and 
 six inch tires of varying gauges, and the rear wheels 
 tracking outside of the front ones. The result is told 
 by Mr. Power, one of the Board of Supervisors of 
 Onondaga County : " The constant use of three of these 
 wagons during the last three years has produced a 
 smooth, compact, and regular surface between the quarry 
 and our works, and the substantial crowning of the road 
 has kept the surface well drained, and, therefore, dry 
 and free from ruts. These wide tires and varying 
 gauges excited a good deal of attention at the outset, 
 and conflicting opinions were expressed regarding their 
 utility. The result is eminently in their favor, and the 
 general sentiment has grown constantly in favor of the 
 use of these wagons for heavy loads. We haul loads 
 continually, varying in weight from 8000 to 16,000 
 pounds, with no perceptible wear, weakness, or break- 
 down, either to the wagons or to the roads. The carts 
 used at our works are varied in gauge, and all have 
 given excellent satisfaction in keeping the roadway 
 smooth. When these wagons were first put into use, 
 the road was rough and rutty and the work of hauling 
 was severe on the horses, but soon the broad tires began 
 to roll and pack the road surface, and it is now difficult 
 to exaggerate the great benefit these tires have produced 
 in keeping the road smooth and hard, and the amount of 
 
108 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 labor they have saved in the work of hauling and 
 repairs." 
 
 Mr. Power further says: "These Avagons were all 
 'poled ' for three horses, and the use of three horses 
 tended to combine with the wide tires and varying 
 gauges of front and rear axles to smooth down even the 
 slightest ruts caused by wagons of narrow tires and 
 ordinary gauge, of which there were and are very many 
 in use on this road." 
 
 Confirmation of the foregoing views can be had from 
 many quarters and on good authority. The Committee 
 on Roads, of the Virginia Association of Engineers, 
 says : " In relation to this subject, we would also suggest 
 that legislative steps be taken in regard to the width of 
 wagon tire. 'Brond tires are road-makers, while narrow 
 tires are simply road-destroyers.' The State of Michi- 
 gan set the example of a new era in road-making by 
 enacting a law regulating the width of wagon tires. 
 As an inducement, the law provides for refunding one- 
 half of the annual road tax to every farmer who supplies 
 his wagon with broad tires. We earnestly urge the 
 Association to bring these matters before the next 
 Legislature." 
 
WI7EE 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE REPORT OF THE OHIO ROAD COMMISSION. 
 
 IF the late report of the Ohio Commission is, as some 
 friends of good roads think it, a distinctly retrograde 
 step in the march of road improvement, it is the only 
 one taken by any State authority. 
 
 The Commission recommends to the Legislature to 
 pass no new road laws, but to adopt a plan of masterly 
 inactivity in the matter, mainly upon the ground that 
 the extension of electric railways will greatly restrict 
 the use of wagon roads and curtail the extent to which 
 they need be built. 
 
 The Engineering News of 'New York takes the opposite 
 view of this subject, saying: " We do believe, however, 
 that, especially in the neighborhood of larg-e towns and 
 cities, the present' rapid extension of suburban electric 
 railways will in itself hasten the general improvement 
 of all roads affected by them. These suburban lines, 
 by connecting chains of villages and towns and increas- 
 ing the facilities for travel, tend to enhance the value 
 of country property as a place of residence, and as a 
 consequence create a demand for better roads and make 
 
 it easier to meet the cost of improvement." 
 
 109 
 
110 NEW ROADS AND EOAD LAWS. 
 
 This Commission, appointed by Governor McKinley 
 under joint resolution of the Senate and House, was 
 directed by the Legislature to " thoroughly investigate 
 the whole subject of road construction and the cost of 
 transportation over the various kinds of roads, including 
 those operated by steam power and electric power as 
 well as those operated by horse power; and to report to 
 the Governor what the average cost per ton per mile 
 now is by horse power, and what the approximate cost 
 would be if artificial power should be substituted for 
 horse power; and especially whether it is possible and 
 advisable to construct country roads so that both cars 
 and wagons can pass over the same road, propelled by 
 either horse power or artificial power ; also, the estimated 
 cost of such combination roads as compared with the 
 cost of roads established for horse power only, together 
 with whatever recommendation they have to make as to 
 the road laws of Ohio, or as to the enactment of any 
 new laws by the Legislature of the State." 
 
 The Commission estimates the common roads of the 
 State at 80,000 miles, and the cost of "suitable im- 
 provement " at $5000 per mile, an amount which the 
 Engineering Neivs says is "altogether too high," and 
 which is in fact four or five times as high as the cost of 
 some excellent hard roads in various parts of the United 
 States. Moreover, 10,000 miles of these roads are 
 already improved, and probably 30,000 more are not of 
 such importance as to demand much improvement. So 
 that 150,000,000 judiciously expended ought to give 
 the State a good system of highways. 
 
THE REPORT OF THE OHIO ROAD COMMISSION. Ill 
 
 The Commission says that in some parts of the State 
 the people do not "appreciate nor desire good roads." 
 They say : " There are, undoubtedly, some places in tlm 
 State where material for road-making is sufficiently 
 abundant and cheap, but where the character of the 
 population is such that they prefer the discomforts and 
 loss occasioned by defective highways to the trouble and 
 expense required to improve the roads. It is manifest 
 that no legislation can or should alter such a state of 
 affairs. It is not the province of legislation to change 
 human nature, and where a community deliberately 
 prefers to adopt a course of action that is opposed to its 
 best interests, it should be left to its own devices." 
 
 This is a novel exposition of the relations of a State 
 to its citizens. It is generally considered that to pro- 
 mote education is one of the primary duties of the State, 
 and if any part of its people are so benighted as this, on 
 a subject of such importance to their welfare, it would 
 seem that duty, self-interest, and State pride would all 
 conspire to urge the better-informed sections of the 
 State to work a speedy reformation among them ; and, 
 since no lessons are so useful as object lessons, the most 
 effective and persuasive teaching would be to help build 
 some bits of good road in each of these districts. There 
 cannot be a county in the State in which some neigh- 
 borhood would not jump at the chance to have its 
 market road improved on the New Jersey plan. That 
 State, with an appropriation of only $20,000 for the first 
 year, and only $75,000 subsequently, lias done such a 
 work of education in three years as will speedily result 
 
112 NEW ROADS AND EOAD LAWS. 
 
 in lifting its rural population many degrees in the scale 
 of comfort and prosperity. 
 
 The effect of such lessons is not less marked in some 
 parts of the State of Ohio. Mr. Samuel Huston, County 
 Surveyor, of Steubenville, said at the Road League office 
 in Chicago : " We have a system of county roads, eighty- 
 five miles in one county (Jefferson); they are built 
 under State road law, making it optional for county 
 or township. About twenty townships came in under 
 this provision, and only two were left out; these two 
 were glad to come in afterwards, at an extra cost for the 
 delay, as they saw the advantage of good roads. We 
 have a single-track road, and a dirt road on the side, but 
 where hills are steep, we make full-width roads. County 
 bonds are issued, at 6 per cent, to pay for the roads. 
 Public sentiment is entirely in favor of good roads 
 going on. Before we made our roads an object lesson, 
 nearly every farmer was against the good-roads move- 
 ment." 
 
 The Commission says: "There are counties in Ohio 
 that have improved their roads at their own expense in 
 the past; they have borne the burden willingly and are 
 now enjoying the benefits. To tax these counties again 
 for the purpose of building roads in localities where the 
 people, through lack of enterprise or inability, have 
 failed to secure good highways, is unjust and is dis- 
 couraging to enterprise. Why should Logan County 
 or Hardin County or Union County, in which turnpikes 
 have been built by local assessment, be required to 
 contribute money for the purpose of building roads in 
 
THE REPORT OF THE OHIO ROAD COMMISSION. 113 
 
 Geauga County, where there is not a single mile of 
 turnpike ? " 
 
 To this it might be answered, that an enlightened 
 self-interest would commend to the wealthy counties 
 the policy of stimulating improvement in the poorer 
 ones, to enable the latter to bear in time their proper 
 share of the burdens of the State ; and, again, there are 
 many ties of blood, friendship, and business which cross 
 county lines, and the people who confine their driving 
 to their own county limits are few indeed. The Com- 
 mission has done good service in collecting information 
 regarding the cost of various kinds of transportation, 
 and though it does not propose any further action or 
 investigation, but confines itself to negative recommen- 
 dations, it may be hoped that its report will stimulate 
 private experiment in the direction of such " combination 
 roads," and ultimately bring in a new era of rural rapid 
 transit; meanwhile, it seems a pity to raise up obstacles 
 to such immediate and substantial improvement of the 
 ordinary highways as is progressing elsewhere in the 
 United States, and thus to bring a great State to a 
 standstill in the path of progress. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 FARMERS AND THE ROADS. 
 
 IT has been the fashion among some road-reformers to 
 throw upon the patient and long-suffering farmer all the 
 blame for the present evil condition of the highways; 
 they enlarge upon his ignorance and his blindness to his 
 own best interests, and fervently exhort him to open his 
 eyes and mend his ways. He is supposed not to know 
 a good road when he sees it, nor what he loses by a bad 
 one, and to be firmly set against any change. This 
 view is so far from being correct that it is not surprising 
 if farmers as a class are irritated by it, nor that serious 
 friction often occurs in public meetings on this subject. 
 It may be true that a few old mossbacks cling to the 
 ruts and stones that were "good enough roads for their 
 fathers," and that farmers of more intelligence have at 
 times protested against hasty legislation which might 
 inflict undue burdens upon them ; but no class of men 
 are more awake to-day to the need of road improvement, 
 or more anxious to find practical means for its accom- 
 plishment, than the thinking farmers of the country, 
 whether within or without the f.irmers' organizations. 
 
 In fact, the practical work done in this direction, so far, 
 
 114 
 
FAEME11S AND THE BO ADS. 115 
 
 both in road construction and in legislation therefor, lias 
 been mainly wrought through their efforts and good 
 judgment. The development of the New Jersey law, 
 which has been so successful as to be considered a model 
 for other States, has been the work of the active mem- 
 bers of the State Agricultural Society, and the law has 
 been administered by the President of that society, 
 himself a practical farmer. The good roads in Canan- 
 daigua, N.Y., and many of those in Connecticut and 
 other States were planned and built wholly by farmers, 
 while the farmers' organizations have taken strong 
 ground in favor of the general reform. The National 
 Grange assembled at Concord, N.H., in 1892, passed 
 unanimously resolutions supporting the National League 
 for Good Roads, and the State Grange of New York has 
 this year taken an advanced position in the matter, and 
 charged its permanent Committee on Legislation to fol- 
 low up the work. There is much yet, however, for the 
 organized farmers to do in this direction. 
 
 Every Farmers' Club and every local Grange or 
 Alliance might have its Committee on Roads, with a 
 secretary active in gathering information, and especially 
 in corresponding with those branches of their organiza- 
 tions which are located where road improvement is going 
 on and the problem is being solved by actual experi- 
 ment. With the knowledge thus acquired, the organi- 
 zations would soon be in position to criticise or dictate 
 legislation, to exercise wisely the full power due to 
 their vast numbers, and to shape and direct the move- 
 ment instead of awaiting with apprehension its results 
 
116 NEW ROADS AND EOAJ) LAWS. 
 
 in other hands. When all the farmers in the country 
 know what a few know now, of the benefits of good 
 roads, and the ease of getting them, we shall be far on 
 the way to having them everywhere. Another thing 
 farmers can do to their great advantage is to accept and 
 welcome the help that is ready to be given them by 
 others concerned in the betterment of highways. Many 
 Boards of Trade and commercial organizations have 
 taken up the question with earnestness, but have been 
 repelled and discouraged by the attitude of those most 
 directly interested in its solution. The wheelmen have 
 attacked the problem eagerly, in the hope of helping on 
 the millennium of good roads, but have been charged 
 with selfishly aiming to oppress the farmers that they 
 may enjoy the results. Farmers must remember that 
 to the merchants and the wheelmen is due the willing- 
 ness of the towns and cities to aid largely in the build- 
 ing of country roads, and the fact that, in many parts of 
 the country, city people lead this movement which 
 the country people are slow even to follow. If the 
 time comes when all the friends of good roads can work 
 together in harmony, they can readily command the help 
 of those who are now indifferent, and will then make 
 short work of the undertaking; but the farmers, being 
 the most powerful in numbers and most deeply con- 
 cerned in interest, must take the leading part in organiz- 
 ing and harmonizing the forces enlisted in this great 
 crusade. 
 
 The city man wants good roads, for the better supply 
 of country products and the improvement of trade, and 
 
: s^ 
 
 I7BR3ITT 
 
FARMERS AND THE ROADS. 117 
 
 for the occasional pleasure of driving or riding over 
 them, but they are not essential to his well-being. To 
 the farmer and his family they are a vital concern of 
 daily life, and fortune and happiness wait upon their 
 coming. Farmers in America have an especial reason 
 for taking up this crusade. In marketing their prod- 
 ucts they are forced every year into closer and more 
 disastrous competition with the cheap labor of other 
 countries, and countries whose despotic governments 
 can and do compel the building of good roads to cheapen 
 the movement' of products. In this country such com- 
 pulsion is impossible, and national aid even is hardly 
 thought acceptable. The farmers are left to their own 
 devices and must work out their own salvation. They 
 pay a mud tax, estimated on good authority at $280,- 
 000,000 a year, and a road tax, almost as useless, of 
 forty or fifty millions more. Is it surprising that they 
 are not happy and prosperous ? 
 
 USI7BKS1TYI 
 
CHAPTER XXL 
 
 THE WHEELMEN'S CAMPAIGN FOR ROADS. 
 
 IN the battle for good roads, it would be folly, as well 
 as injustice, not to recognize the great services of the 
 army of wheelmen who have sprung to the front within 
 a few years, and who have often maintained the fight 
 alone, through many discouragements, though their 
 interest in it seems trifling and casual in comparison 
 with that of the mass of road-users. 
 
 When we consider, however, that, for his vehicle, the 
 bicyclist is both driver and horse, and that on bad roads 
 he suffers in person what we have always inflicted on 
 poor dumb brutes, and is entitled, therefore, to speak 
 and fight for them as well as for himself, it is not to be 
 wondered at that he is found in the vanguard, nor is it 
 
 o 
 
 surprising that his zeal sometimes outruns his discre- 
 tion, and impatience prevents his keeping step with the 
 slow march of his allies. 
 
 If the wheelmen are the light troops of the army, they 
 nevertheless carry heavy guns when it comes to legisla- 
 tion, and their audacity stops at nothing. When the 
 writer was urging the passage of a National Highway 
 
 Commission Bill, in 1892, the Wheelmen's League. 
 
 118 
 
THE WHEELMEN^S CAMPAIGN FOR ROADS. 119 
 
 then in session at Washington, took up the affair, and 
 Avere not content with personal work on the spot, but 
 stirred up their home people, and instantly telegrams to 
 members of Congress poured in from all parts of the 
 country with such a rush as to startle both houses out 
 of any indifference to the matter, and the bill passed 
 one house immediately, and only missed it through want 
 of time in the other. 
 
 The wheelmen have kept alive the agitation of this 
 subject when, one after another, associations formed for 
 the purpose among other classes of road-users, have 
 fallen stillborn. Their literature has flooded the coun- 
 try, and their road committees have worked without ceas- 
 ing. The Good Roads Magazine, which they support, 
 has drawn upon the best talent of the country for its 
 articles, and has reached a circulation approaching a 
 hundred thousand copies. 
 
 Whenever the farmers shall be ready in any State to 
 propose legislation for road improvement, the wheelmen 
 will take care that the city members of the Legislature 
 are not indifferent, and whenever the cities are called 
 upon to aid in country road-building, they will move 
 heaven and earth to have that call met. In short, they 
 will render any service to the cause of good roads that 
 a quick intelligence can discover and an earnest zeal 
 can execute, and their aid will be welcomed by every 
 citizen who takes that cause deeply to heart. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE ATTITUDE OF COMMERCIAL ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 WHILE only a few of the many commercial bodies in 
 the country have taken definite action in' favor of 
 improving the highways, those few are among the most 
 important, and there is no question of the hearty con- 
 currence of all the others, whenever they see the occa- 
 sion for their action. 
 
 The National Board of Trade and Transportation in 
 1892 resolved that "we recognize the exceeding poverty 
 of the country, even amid its riches, in the universally 
 deplorable condition of its public highways, and favor a 
 system which will provide for their immediate improve- 
 ment, under control of the State governments." 
 
 The Chamber of Commerce of New York adopted 
 strong resolutions of the same character, and appointed 
 the Hon. Chauncey M. Depew and General Horace 
 Porter to represent the Chamber at the Chicago Conven- 
 tion for the organization of a National League for road 
 improvement. Later, the Chamber heartily indorsed 
 the purposes of the League, and Mr. Camp, of the Com- 
 mittee on Internal Trade and Improvement, expressed 
 the general view of the members in saying that "the 
 
 120 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF COMMERCIAL ORGANIZATIONS. 121 
 
 movement for good roads deeply concerns every com- 
 mercial and financial interest in the land. We are 
 handicapped in all the markets of the world by an 
 enormous waste of labor in the primary transportation 
 of our products and manufactures, while our home 
 markets are restricted by difficulties in rural distribu- 
 tion which not unfrequently block all the channels of 
 transportation, trade, and finance. This state of things 
 has heretofore been thought irremediable, under our 
 system of government; but good roads are not incom- 
 patible with self-government in France and Switzer- 
 land, and the National League for Good Roads believes 
 that education and organization will make them possible 
 here." 
 
 The League itself summarized the varied interests 
 involved and the manner of their concern, in this lan- 
 guage: "No person or association in the land can afford 
 to neglect a movement so vital as this to the country's 
 progress and prosperity; few, indeed, have not, in addi- 
 tion to their concern in the general welfare, some special 
 interest, direct or indirect, in the condition of the 
 highways. 
 
 " Apart from the acknowledged interest in good roads 
 of the builders of wagons, carriages, bicycles, traction 
 and farm engines and implements, of coaching and 
 country clubs, coach and carriage owners, horse-breeders, 
 etc., and of all merchants and manufacturers, in respect 
 to the cheap and speedy distribution of goods and better 
 collection of raw materials and money returns, there are 
 many great semi-public institutions whose interests are 
 
122 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 deeply involved: railroads, in the equal distribution of 
 their traffic through the seasons, securing constant 
 employment of their force and equipment; telegraph 
 and telephone companies, in the extension of country 
 service ; neAVSpapers, in the expansion of their circula- 
 tion through free delivery that will follow good roads; 
 banks and bankers, in the quicker movement of capital 
 in country business ; fire insurance companies, in the 
 ability to reach country fires with town apparatus ; life 
 insurance companies, in the prompt relief of the sick or 
 injured, and in a general amelioration of physical and 
 social conditions tending to prolong life ; labor organ- 
 izations, in the non-competitive employment of convicts ; 
 and all philanthropic associations, in the provision of 
 employment sufficient to abolish Avant and starvation, 
 for a generation, diminish crime and relieve the conges- 
 tion in cities, and in the cheapening of food products to 
 all consumers, and a general promotion of the happiness 
 and Avelfare of the Avhole people/' 
 
 Nothing need be added to this but for the active 
 commercial friends of road improvement to urge upon 
 the trade organizations of which they are members the 
 expediency of taking prompt action in the matter, and 
 of appointing permanent committees on the subject. 
 The establishment of the Government Bureau Avill 
 facilitate the Avork of all such committees in many Avays, 
 and make the collection of information easy. And 
 Avhen the 1300 commercial bodies in the United States 
 are prepared to throAV their united Aveight in favor of 
 definite measures of road reform, the battle Avill already 
 be half won. 
 

 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 EOAD-BUILDING AND THE REVIVAL OF BUSINESS. 
 
 THE present depression in business of all kinds, 
 throughout the country, so far from stopping the agita- 
 tion for good roads, or hindering the work of their 
 construction, furnishes a new motive for the agitation 
 and a rare opportunity for the work. 
 
 The National League, in September last, issued the 
 following circular : 
 
 " The earnest attention of members of the League, its 
 co-workers, and all committees and persons seeking 
 relief for the unemployed, is respectfully called to the 
 present favorable conditions for road improvement, both 
 for its own sake and as a means of giving employment 
 and stimulating business in general. 
 
 " Capital, as well as labor, is idle, and bankers are 
 expecting an era of cheap money, bringing a quick 
 demand for such investments as town and county bonds. 
 
 " Many county and town boards in various States are 
 already authorized to begin road-making and to issue 
 bonds therefor ; others require only the sanction of a 
 
 local election. 
 
 123 
 
124 NEW ROADS AND KOAD LAWS. 
 
 "Men enough could be put to work by these bodies, 
 without waiting for legislation, to give sensible relief 
 to the labor market, and materially ease the hard times 
 in their localities, while the roads would be built at a 
 minimum of cost and of interest charges. Those States 
 that have not adopted the modern ideas would hasten 
 their legislation to avail themselves of the same advan- 
 tages, and the whole country be lifted out of its tem- 
 porary difficulties, by means certain to promote its 
 permanent prosperity. 
 
 " To enforce these considerations upon the attention 
 of the boards having power to act, and upon the people 
 having right to vote such power, is the practical work 
 of the hour. Those who are willing to join actively in 
 this work in their localities are earnestly requested to 
 communicate with the League at these headquarters, 
 and to give full information regarding local conditions." 
 
 The " era of cheap money " has already arrived, and 
 shows signs of staying indefinitely. 
 
 No prophet is bold enough to fix a date for the 
 revival of business, though some light on the subject 
 may be drawn from experience in like conditions. 
 Speaking in 1876, during the great depression which 
 followed the panic of 1873, in reply to the question, 
 "When will business revive?" Senator Thurman of 
 Ohio said: "All that is necessary is for a man to open 
 his eyes and read the history of his country to knoAV 
 when it will revive. At intervals of about twenty 
 years we have one of those things called a panic, fol- 
 lowed by stagnation in business, the result of over-trad- 
 
BOAD-BUILDING AND REVIVAL OF BUSINESS. 125 
 
 ing, over-production, of extravagance of all sorts and 
 descriptions extravagance in individuals, extrava- 
 gance in corporations, extravagance in governments, 
 large and small until at last the bubble bursts, and 
 then comes a season of retrenchment, of economy. And 
 how long does that last? How long is it before debts 
 are liquidated and a surplus is accumulated, so that 
 there begins to be an upward tide in the business of the 
 country ? Never has it been less than four years in the 
 United States. 
 
 " One of the first things that I can recollect when I 
 was a very small boy, not higher than this desk, was 
 the condition of monetary affairs in 1819. How long 
 did that stagnation last? It lasted until 1823. Then 
 business began to revive throughout the country, and a 
 period of great prosperity followed. Then came the 
 panic and suspension of 1837, and the great stagnation 
 in business that followed. How long did that last 
 before business revived and the country began to be 
 prosperous again? Five years. Then came 1857, at 
 an interval of twenty years, and business had not 
 revived when the war broke out and changed the whole 
 face of affairs. And now comes the stagnation of 1873, 
 and nothing but time, economy, honesty, and retrench- 
 ment, will liquidate indebtedness and accumulate a 
 surplus which will set business in motion again and 
 make the country prosper once more." 
 
 A writer in one of the morning papers brings to- 
 gether reports of the business situation in this country 
 in the years immediately following the panic of 1873, 
 
126 NEW ROADS AND 11OAD LAWS. 
 
 in order to show the course of business recovery after 
 that financial disturbance. He sums up the result as 
 follows : 
 
 " It thus appears that the recovery from the collapse 
 of 1873 did not fairly begin until the summer of 1877, 
 or four years afterward, and was not complete until 
 1879, or six years afterward." 
 
 Should then the fifth great panic of the series, that 
 of 1893, be like in its results to the other four, we may 
 expect to spend the remaining years of the nineteenth 
 century in "stagnation, retrenchment, and liquidation." 
 
 But history may not always repeat itself, and the 
 genius of the age is bold enough to undertake any 
 promising short cut to prosperity, regardless of all the 
 landmarks of history and precedent. Unfortunately, 
 the most of these short cuts yet proposed are by the way 
 of inflation of the currency, which promises nothing but 
 to drive out foreign capital and alarm home investors. 
 Thurman himself, who was not always for sound money, 
 ridiculed the idea that the effect of a panic could be 
 overcome by inflating the currency. 
 
 It is not the lack of money, but the lack of circulation 
 for it, that makes the hard times at present. The first 
 effect of the panic was to take the money out of banks 
 and hide it; the second effect was to take it out of 
 business ; the former was soon over, and the money has 
 gone back to the banks for safe keeping, but the latter 
 goes on. Confidence in the banks has returned, but 
 confidence in business has not ; the capital withdrawn 
 from business, which gave employment to labor, is 
 
EO AD-BUILDING AND REVIVAL OF BUSINESS. 127 
 
 being added to the mass of bank deposits, and labor is 
 turned adrift. Money is idle in banks, and workmen 
 are idle at home. Employment for both is wanted, and 
 neither can get it without the other; the deadlock i.j 
 complete; money will not go back into the ordinary 
 channels of employment, on account of the uncertainties 
 of the future, and labor cannot employ itself. 
 
 To break this deadlock it is only needful to find a 
 safe and profitable way to use money; and it need not 
 be so very profitable either, for money is as eager as 
 labor to be employed, and will accept small returns, if 
 they are only sure. 
 
 Causes quite independent of the money panic have 
 helped to bring about the present state of things. In 
 particular, the gradual diminution of railway-building, 
 in consequence of over-building, has, within a few 
 years past, thrown out of employment, or forced into 
 occupations already over-crowded, nearly all the men 
 who were engaged in it. The number employed 
 directly in railway construction, or collaterally in the 
 manufacture of material, equipment, and supplies for 
 new railroads, was, in 1887, according to the New Yurie 
 Sun, 800,000. 
 
 Of this vast army, all who are idle are a direct charge 
 upon the public, which cannot let them starve; those 
 who have found work have probably through their 
 competition cut down the wages of others more in the 
 aggregate than all they have themselves earned; this 
 again, by lessening the purchasing power of still larger 
 numbers, ha; diminished employment in other fields; 
 
128 NEW EOADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 and thus in ever-widening circles, this one disturbance 
 has spread disaster through all our industries. 
 
 Coincident with it, the fall in price of silver, and the 
 substitution of machinery for hand labor in iron mining, 
 have thrown thousands of miners out of work; the 
 customary outlet for all spare labor, the opening of 
 new farms on the public domain, has been closed by 
 the almost complete occupation of the arable lands; 
 the capital dislodged from railroad construction, min- 
 ing, etc., which would in ordinary times have snatched 
 the opportunity to avail itself of cheap labor in other 
 enterprises, has remained locked up. 
 
 The effects of all this are seen in lower wages for 
 common labor than have been known for a generation, 
 and lower rates of interest for money on call than have 
 ever prevailed for any length of time in this country. 
 
 Sixty and seventy-five cents per day for labor, and 
 one per cent per annum for money, are rates Ave could 
 not have dreamed of in America a few years ago. 
 
 But this situation, deplorable as it may be, is not 
 without its especial opportunities. The conditions , 
 offer unusual inducements for the inception of perma- 
 nent works of a public character, and through this 
 means the general deadlock may measurably be broken. 
 
 Quite apart from the philanthropic motive of furnish- 
 ing relief to the destitute, it is clear that the time to 
 push public works with profit is when private enterprise 
 drops out of competition with them. 
 
 If it be true that he who invents a new want is a 
 benefactor of mankind, through the employment given 
 
ROAD-BUILDING AND UEVIVAL OF BUSINESS. 129 
 
 iii supplying that want, he certainly is one who finds 
 the way to fill an existing want, and one so long felt 
 and so universal that the country has despaired of its 
 being filled, and who at the same time provides a new 
 field of employment for men and money, and gives to a 
 whole people the first lift out of the slough of despond. 
 
 The opportunity to do this offers itself to legislators 
 in every State of the Union to-day. The natural 
 sequence to railway-building is the building of feeders 
 to railways. A system of good common roads is essen- 
 tial to the complete usefulness of the railways, and 
 necessary in every way to the public welfare ; the con- 
 struction of such a system only waits on legislative 
 action, and when fairly begun it will furnish as much 
 if not more employment than did railway-building in 
 its most active days. 
 
 Many believe it the duty of the State to promote 
 employment, and the wisdom of giving work rather 
 than alms to the able-bodied poor is undisputed; but in 
 this matter we need not invoke any doubtful powers 
 nor pretend to any benevolence, but look only to the 
 narrowest and most sordid consideration, namely, that 
 the State can drive a good bargain with its citizens in 
 their time of need. 
 
 Some believe that the National Legislature should 
 act in this behalf, but there are so many opinions on the 
 subject, and so many questions, constitutional, politi- 
 cal, and practical, involved in national action, that it 
 would be folly to wait on their discussion and settle- 
 ment, when the way is clear for the States to proceed 
 
130 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 at once. Not only is the way clear, but enough has 
 been done by one State, at least, to point out a method 
 of procedure that is easily practicable and already 
 proven to be successful. 
 
 Many of the States have only got so far in their 
 efforts at road-making as to find out "how not to do 
 it " ; but New Jersey, as we have seen, has found how 
 to do it, and is rapidly putting that knowledge into 
 effect, the secret of the method being in a neighborhood 
 initiative and contributive, with voluntary State aid 
 and compulsory county aid. 
 
 The justice and policy of State aid to road-building 
 have been disputed, but the practical good accomplished 
 by it in New Jersey is fast reconciling her people to it 
 and inclining those of neighboring States to its adop- 
 tion. New York and Pennsylvania are both moving in 
 that direction. It is the only method through which 
 the cities and corporations, which pay the bulk of our 
 State taxes, can give the help which most of them are 
 willing and anxious to give, towards the building of 
 country roads. Should the other States adopt this 
 method, they will find it easy to carry out. If they 
 should need to borrow money for their portion of the 
 expense, they are generally in excellent credit and can 
 borrow at low rates. The counties can do the same; 
 and if the local property-owners cannot pay their share 
 at once, the counties can give them time to pay it out 
 of the benefits realized, as cities do in the analogous 
 case of street improvement. 
 
 The national government could do one thing to 
 
ROAD-BUILDING AND REVIVAL OF BUSINESS. 131 
 
 stimulate and aid tins work, and that without straining 
 its powers or incurring any responsibilities. The need 
 of new securities for bank circulation, in place of the 
 rapidly maturing government bonds, is pressing upon 
 Congress, and a variety of expedients have been sug- 
 gested to meet this emergency. Among these are the 
 acceptance, for this purpose, of county road bonds, 
 limited in amount and guaranteed by the State. Such 
 bonds would have the peculiar merit of multiplying their 
 own security, since experience shows that every new 
 road built adds many times its cost to the taxable 
 values of the district in which it lies. 
 
 The State, having the taxing power, could always 
 protect its own indorsement and save itself from loss. 
 
 With a proper limit to the issue of bonds, and a State 
 supervision of the road-building, to insure an honest 
 expenditure of the money, the State would run no risk, 
 the government would get the best of securities, and 
 the counties, by means of the State indorsement and the 
 assured market for their bonds, would be able to borrow 
 at so low a rate and on such time that the interest and 
 sinking fund charges would be but a light burden. 
 Probably the average rate of interest would not exceed 
 three per cent per annum, and one-half of one per cent 
 per annum in a sinking fund would pay off the princi- 
 pal in seventy-five years. 
 
 But to judge of the feasibility of this method of road 
 improvement we must consider the combined weight of 
 the State, county 4 and local taxation imposed by such 
 improvement, as compared with the present taxation 
 
132 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 for road maintenance only. Taking the State of New 
 York, for example : the total road mileage in that State 
 is estimated by some at 100,000 miles, or 1 mile to each 
 300 acres of land; the present maintenance tax is 
 $3,000,000 annually, or an average of $50,000 to each 
 county, and of $30 for each mile of road, though of this 
 amount probably five-sixths is applied to one-half of the 
 roads, the other half being only neighborhood or by- 
 roads. Properly to improve the important half, which 
 is all that need be considered, would require an average 
 expenditure of about $1500 per mile. This estimate 
 may seem low, but it is two-thirds more than the cost 
 of the stone roads of Canandaigua, N.Y. At this rate, 
 the total for the State would amount to $75,000,000. 
 Supposing the State and county each to pay two-fifths 
 of the expense, and the respective neighborhoods one- 
 fifth, the sixty counties would have to borrow $30,000,- 
 000, or an average of a half million dollars each, for 
 their own share, and a quarter million more temporarily, 
 to carry the property-owners' portion until it could be 
 paid. 
 
 The interest and sinking fund charge on the half 
 million would be $17,500 per annum; but it is not too 
 much to say that when the travelled roads of a county 
 were Avell built, the saving in maintenance would be 
 fully one-third of the present cost, which would practi- 
 cally meet this charge without increase of taxation, 
 while the interest and principal of the quarter of a 
 million would be paid by the local property-owners who 
 borrow it. 
 
ROAD-BUILDING AND REVIVAL OF BUSINESS. 133 
 
 The property-owners would pay one-fifth of $1500 
 per mile, or $300, which equals 50 cents per acre on 
 the 600 acres of land which would on the average be 
 benefited. This, if spread over ten years, would be 5 
 cents per acre, or, including interest, something less 
 than 6 cents per acre annually. 
 
 If the State should borrow its $30,000,000 on the 
 same terms, its annual share for interest and principal 
 would be $1,050,000. 
 
 Since only seven per cent of the State taxes are paid 
 by the farm property of the State, this charge would 
 amount to less than a quarter of a cent per acre annually, 
 and may be dismissed from consideration as bearing 
 upon the farmer. The cities, corporations, inheritors, 
 and others, who pay the remainder, will not feel it a 
 serious burden in view of the vast compensations it 
 will bring. The total is only about one-half of the 
 proceeds of a comparatively new source of revenue in 
 that State, the inheritance tax alone. 
 
 It appears, therefore, to be possible for the State of 
 New York to abolish forever its " bad roads tax, " which 
 the State Highway Manual estimates at $1 per acre, or 
 $30,000,000 annually, by the mere appropriation of one- 
 half the inheritance tax, and by the voluntary action of 
 the farmers in adding a little more than one-half to 
 their present road taxes for the space of ten years. 
 
 What can be done in New York can be done else- 
 where; and with the assurance that it is practicable, 
 and will be profitable too, to build good roads generally 
 and promptly throughout the country, it remains to be 
 
134 NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 considered how tliis will effect an immediate revival of 
 business. 
 
 For those who have watched the wave of agricultural 
 prosperity which attends the mere grading of a railroad, 
 through a difficult country, no explanation on this point 
 is needed. For that work every farmer turns out a 
 "scratch team" and receives more ready money from 
 the earnings of "the boy and the colts" than he has 
 done from his farm products for many years, while 
 everything he raises finds a home market for a year or 
 two at good prices. 
 
 The expenditure of $50,000 of outside cash in an 
 average township, for road improvement, not only means 
 good times while it is going on, but will make impor- 
 tant additions to the permanent business capital of the 
 township. 
 
 It means, moreover, the payment of debts, the revival 
 of local trade, and, when it becomes general, the 
 increase of the purchasing power of the entire agricul- 
 tural class, a class which, being largely freed from 
 expense for food, can devote a much greater share of 
 its cash income to the purchase of manufactures than 
 can those whose food supply is a daily fixed charge 
 upon their earnings. 
 
 Increased purchases by the farmers mean increased 
 employment for the artisan class, thereby adding to 
 their power to purchase farm products, and when it is 
 once begun, this action and reaction brings prosperity 
 to producer and consumer, including full employment 
 to all who are engaged in the exchange and transporter- 
 
ROAD-BUILDING AND REVIVAL OF BUSINESS. 135 
 
 tion of products. It is only necessary to set the ball 
 rolling, and the place of all places to start it is with 
 the farmers ; money expended among them will quickly 
 find its way through all the channels of trade and pro- 
 duction. It would be worth while, at this crisis, even 
 to make some sacrifices for this purpose. How much 
 more is it worth while to bring it about by inaugurating 
 a work of the highest beneficence, or, as the National 
 League puts it, "to lift the country out of its present 
 difficulties by means which are certain to promote its 
 permanent prosperity." 
 
 The extent of roads in the United States is estimated 
 at about one arid one-half millions of miles. The cost 
 of improvement will average higher elsewhere than in 
 New York, which has good materials well distributed; 
 it may be taken generally at about $ 1800 per mile. To 
 improve one-half of the roads in the country at that rate 
 would cost $1,350,000,000. This is a vast amount, but 
 it would be less difficult to raise it for roads than for 
 railroads, and it would be easier to expend it within a 
 given time, the area of operation being wider and con- 
 struction so much more simple. If this sum were 
 expended for that purpose before 1900, it would not 
 quite equal the expenditure for railroads in the same 
 length of time prior to 1890, but it would be better 
 distributed and ought to go far toward restoring gen- 
 eral prosperity; certainly, with that amount of money 
 put into circulation, and good roads everywhere, we 
 might make shift to travel comfortably if not gaily into 
 the new century. 
 
136 NEW EOADS AND ROAD LAWS. 
 
 In view of all the conditions, the friends of road 
 improvement should now be able to enlist the great 
 financial and commercial interests of the country in 
 their cause. They will find opposition in some locali- 
 ties to the incurring of debt for road-making, but they 
 can cite the experience of many counties and townships 
 in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michi- 
 gan, Indiana, and Kentucky, where such "borroAving" 
 has brought, not "sorrowing," but relief and rejoicing, 
 and they can say with truth that no instance to the 
 contrary has come to the knowledge of the National 
 League or been developed by the government inquiry. 
 If any man doubts the practical value of road improve- 
 ment, let them persuade him to visit the counties of 
 Camden and Burlington in New Jersey, and he will 
 find farming communities actually getting rich in these 
 hard times, solely by reason of their good roads. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
ABSTRACTS OF NEW ROAD LAWS IN 
 SIXTEEN STATES. 
 
 CALIFORNIA. 
 LAW OF 1893. 
 
 1. Board of supervisors divide the county into road Road districts, 
 districts, and each supervisor is road commissioner in 
 
 his district. 
 
 2. Board of supervisors have control of all roads, 
 and as road commissioners, they take charge of all 
 repairs. They receive 20 cents per mile, one way, for 
 travelling on this duty, but not to exceed $ 300 per 
 annum. 
 
 Board of su- 
 pervisors : 
 duties ; com- 
 pensation. 
 
 INDIANA. 
 FREE GRAVEL ROAD, LAW OF 1893. 
 
 1. County commissioners, upon petition of fifty free- 
 holders of any township or contiguous townships con- 
 taining an incorporated town or city of less than 30,000 
 inhabitants, for the improving of any road by grading, 
 paving, mecadamizing, or gravelling, shall submit the 
 question to the voters of the township, towns, and 
 cities on the line of the road, and if the majority of 
 those voting are in favor of such improving, the com- 
 missioners shall proceed to build such road at once. 
 
 2. The petitioners to pay all costs of election. 
 
 3. Construction to be let to the lowest responsible 
 
 bidder. 
 
 139 
 
 Question of 
 road improve- 
 ment to be 
 submitted to 
 voters. 
 
 Costs. 
 Construction. 
 
140 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Bonds. 
 
 Special tax. 
 
 Free gravel 
 roads 
 
 4. County bonds running from one to five years to 
 be issued for construction of the roads. 
 
 5. These bonds and interest to be paid by special 
 tax upon the property of the townships, towns, and 
 cities on the line in proportion to the cost of the road 
 in each. 
 
 6. Free gravel or stone roads may be built on county 
 lines and their cost assessed upon the lands within 2 
 miles on each side. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS. 
 HIGHWAY COMMISSION AND STATE KOAD LAW OF 1893. 
 
 Highway com- 
 missioners ; 
 duties, sal- 
 aries. 
 
 State high- 
 ways. 
 
 Connecting 
 roads. 
 
 1. Governor and council appoint three commis- 
 sioners, at a salary of $2000 each and travelling 
 expenses. Commission to compile statistics, make 
 investigations, advise regarding construction, altera- 
 tion, and maintenance of roads, prepare maps showing 
 location of road materials, and hold a public meeting 
 in each county for the discussion of road matters at 
 least once a year. 
 
 2. Upon petition of county commissioner the com- 
 mission may adopt any road as a State highway, and 
 construct the same if the legislature makes appropria- 
 tion therefor, except that the grading and bridging 
 shall be done by the county. Such highway to be 
 maintained by the State under supervision of the 
 commission. 
 
 3. Upon petition of two or more cities or towns a 
 connecting road, new or existing, may be made a State 
 highway, and constructed in the same manner. 
 
 Electors vote 
 road system. 
 
 MICHIGAN. 
 COUNTY OPTION LAW, 1893. 
 
 1. The board of supervisors of any county may, by 
 a two-thirds vote of all the members of said board, 
 submit the question of adopting the county road sys- 
 tem to a vote of the electors of such county. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 141 
 
 2. In any county where the county road system shall 
 be adopted, a board of county road commissioners, 
 not exceeding five in number, shall be elected by the 
 people of such county. 
 
 3. Said board of county road commissioners may 
 lay out such new roads within the county as they deem 
 necessary. 
 
 4. Any road heretofore laid out, or any part thereof, 
 shall become a county road if the board of county road 
 commissioners shall at any time so determine. 
 
 5. Said board of county road commissioners shall 
 determine the amount of tax to be raised. Such tax 
 shall not exceed $2 on each $1000 of the assessed 
 valuation. 
 
 6. Whenever the board of supervisors of the county 
 shall, by a two-thirds vote of all the members, resolve 
 to contract indebtedness or issue bonds to raise money 
 for the construction and maintenance of county roads, 
 the question shall be submitted to a vote of the electors 
 of the county at a general or a special election to be 
 called for that purpose. . . . No bond or evidence of 
 indebtedness shall be negotiated at less than par and 
 the accrued interest. 
 
 NOTE. The constitution of Michigan was amended 
 in 1892 to permit this legislation. 
 
 County road 
 commission- 
 
 ers. 
 
 Duties. 
 
 County roads. 
 
 Tax > 
 
 Bonds, issue 
 of; question 
 to be sub- 
 mitted to vote 
 of electors. 
 
 MISSOURI. 
 LOCAL OPTION LAW OF 1893. 
 
 1. A majority of the legal voters voting may adopt 
 the county system ; whereupon, 
 
 2. County courts appoint supervisors of roads. 
 
 3. County courts provide for working, repairing, and 
 improving all public roads in the counties by contract. 
 
 4. Supervisors shall inspect the work and repairs 
 contracted for and make quarterly reports to the 
 county court, showing the condition of roads in the 
 several districts. 
 
 County sys- 
 tem. 
 
 Supervisors. 
 
 Improving 
 roads. 
 
 Quarterly re- 
 ports. 
 
142 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Tollgates 
 
 County court 
 may sub scribe. 
 
 Poll-tax. 
 
 5. County courts may establish tollgates upon any 
 roads that may be gravelled, macadamized, or planked 
 in a substantial manner. 
 
 6. Whenever any citizen subscribes fifty (50) dollars 
 or more for the purpose of improving any road, the 
 county court may subscribe a like amount. 
 
 7. Poll-tax of $2 and property tax of 10 to 20 cents 
 per $ 100, payable in money for county road fund. 
 
 Highway dis- 
 tricts. 
 
 Funds, rais- 
 ing. 
 
 Highway 
 agents. 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 ROAD LAW, 1893. 
 
 1. Each town shall constitute one highway district; 
 all subdivisions are abolished. 
 
 2. Each town shall raise twenty-five (25) cents per 
 $100, and as much more as may be deemed necessary 
 for road purposes, but not more than fifty (50) dollars 
 per mile of road. 
 
 3. Each town elects highway agents, who have 
 charge of the construction and repairs of highway 
 and purchases. 
 
 Township 
 committee. 
 
 County bonds. 
 
 State aid. 
 
 Chosen free- 
 holders may 
 improve roads. 
 
 NEW JERSEY. 
 ROAD LAWS, 1888 TO 1892. 
 
 1. The roads of a township are placed under the 
 management of the township committee, and money 
 may be raised by township bonds for grading, macad- 
 amizing, and improving the same ; bonds to be author- 
 ized by vote of the annual town meeting. 
 
 2. The board of chosen freeholders of any county 
 may designate certain roads as county roads and 
 improve the same by the issue of county bonds. 
 
 3. The State shall pay one-third of all cost of road 
 improvement so authorized by the chosen freeholders, 
 within the limit, at present, of $75,000 per annum. 
 
 4. Whenever the owners of two-thirds of the lands 
 fronting on any public road will undertake to pay 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 143 
 
 one-tenth of the cost of improving such road, it shall 
 be the duty of the board of chosen freeholders to 
 cause such improvements to be made. 
 
 5. The office of overseer of highways is abolished. Abolished. 
 
 6. All road taxes are to be paid in money. Eoad taxes. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 COUNTY ROAD LAW, 1893. 
 
 1. The board of supervisors may adopt the county 
 road system and designate county roads. 
 
 2. A county engineer to be appointed in every such 
 county by the board of supervisors. 
 
 3. County roads to be maintained at the county 
 charge. 
 
 4. County engineer to have full supervision of con- 
 struction and maintenance of county roads. 
 
 5. Board may borrow money for construction, 
 maintenance, and repair. 
 
 6. May issue bonds for twenty years bearing 5 per 
 cent interest, but not to be sold below par. 
 
 7. All road taxes in such counties to be paid in 
 money. 
 
 Additional laws provide for an experiment in the 
 use of convict labor on highways near Clinton prison, 
 and for the publication of a manual containing the 
 highway laws of the State and giving instruction in 
 road-making. Copies to be furnished to each commis- 
 sioner and overseer of highways at the town charge. 
 
 County road 
 system. 
 
 County engi- 
 neer. 
 
 County 
 charge. 
 
 Construction 
 of roads. 
 
 May borrow 
 money. 
 
 Bonds. 
 
 Road taxes 
 paid in money. 
 
 NORTH DAKOTA. 
 COUNTY ROAD FUND LAW, 1893. 
 In addition to all other taxes for highway purposes Special tax for 
 
 . roadimprove- 
 
 a special tax on all property in the county, except in ment. 
 incorporated towns and cities, may be collected and 
 kept as a county fund for the improvement of the 
 principal thoroughfares in the county under direction 
 of the county commissioners. 1 
 
144 
 
 APPENDIX, 
 
 County court 
 may improve 
 
 roads. 
 
 Koad viewers. 
 
 County fund 
 to pay one- 
 half. 
 
 Free. 
 Special tax. 
 
 Day's work. 
 
 OREGON. 
 COUNTY ROAD LAW, 1893. 
 
 1. The county court of any county is empowered, 
 upon petition of a majority of the resident landholders 
 within 3 miles of the proposed improvement, to im- 
 prove, change, grade, drain, gravel, or macadamize any 
 county road or public highway. 
 
 2. Viewers are appointed by the court to apportion 
 the estimated cost upon all the side lands within 3 
 miles, according to the benefits derived therefrom. 
 
 3. If the county court be satisfied that the proposed 
 improvement will justify an expenditure from the 
 county fund, it may order that a portion of said cost, 
 not exceeding 50 per cent, shall be so paid. 
 
 4. All roads built under provisions of this act are 
 free of toll. 
 
 5. The county court may levy a special tax of 50 
 cents per $ 100, and a poll tax of $ 2 per head, as a 
 fund for building and maintaining county roads and 
 bridges. 
 
 6. Petitioners for county road must each do one 
 day's work on the road or pay $ 2 to the supervisor. 
 
 TENNESSEE. 
 
 lioad districts. 
 
 Duties of com- 
 missioners. 
 
 Overseers and 
 tools. 
 
 Convicts may 
 be employed. 
 
 ROAD LAWS OF 1894. 
 
 1. County courts divide their counties into road 
 districts and choose commissioners for each district. 
 
 2. Such commissioners control highways and pur- 
 chases in their district, and direct the manner of work- 
 ing roads. 
 
 3. Commissioners appoint overseers and purchase 
 necessary tools and materials. 
 
 4. All persons confined in county jails or work- 
 houses are available to the commissioners for the 
 purpose of working on the public highways. 
 
APPENDIX. 145 
 
 5. The county court may assess the number of days' Tax. 
 poll-tax from four to eight, and a highway tax from 5 
 to 25 cents on $100. 
 
 VERMONT. 
 ROAD LAW OF 1892. 
 
 1. Creates the office of road commissioner for each Road commis- 
 
 sioner, 
 town. 
 
 2. Lays a town tax of 20 cents on the dollar of the state an( l towE 
 grand list, 1 and a State tax of 5 cents on the dollar for 
 
 support of the highways; the State tax to be appor- 
 tioned and repaid to the towns according to road 
 mileage. 
 
 The law of 1893 creates a State highway commis- Highway com- 
 sion to investigate the matter of road-building in the 
 State. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 ROAD LAWS, 1890 TO 1893. 
 
 1. Commissioners of any countv may cause to be Commission- 
 
 .,,.,, . , ,. , i.i ers may im- 
 
 estabhsned or improved any public road or highway; prove roads. 
 
 2. They may submit to the voters of such county Election, 
 the question of issuing bonds ; 
 
 3. Such bonds to run not more than twenty years, Bonds, 
 and not to exceed 6 per centum interest; and 
 
 4. Not to make the accrued indebtedness exceed 1J indebtedness. 
 per cent of the value of the taxable property in the 
 
 county. 
 
 5. Bonds to be sold at not less than par. Par value - 
 
 6. A State road through the Cascade Mountains to State road, 
 be built under authority of a special commission. 
 
 WISCONSIN. 
 ROAD LAWS OF 1893. 
 
 1. The town board of each town shall have full Town board, 
 supervision, management, and control of roads in said duties< 
 
 1 The " grand list " is 1 per cent of the valuation of property. 
 
146 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Purchase of 
 material, etc.; 
 l>ay. 
 
 Pay taxes in 
 money. 
 
 town, and may make and repair the same by contract, 
 and appoint a competent superintendent of roads. 
 
 2. The town board may procure machinery and 
 material, and hire laborers and teams ; may purchase 
 gravel pits, stone quarries ; may make temporary loans 
 on the credit of the town, to be paid from the road 
 taxes. 
 
 3. All road taxes to be paid in money, except in 
 townships which specifically vote to retain the labor 
 system. 
 
 KENTUCKY. 
 
 The Fiscal Court of each county to have full charge 
 of roads. To levy a tax not exceeding 25 cents per 
 $ 100 on property, and a poll-tax not mote than one 
 dollar, and a labor tax not more than six days. To 
 appoint a county and district supervisors. 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA. 
 
 County commissioners and justices of the peace may 
 provide a county fund for roads by a tax not exceeding 
 15 cents per $ 100, and four days' poll-tax. All jail 
 prisoners and State prisoners for a term of less than 
 five years, and all vagrants, are available for highway 
 work, and courts may sentence convicts to hard labor 
 on the public roads not exceeding ten years. 
 
 County commissioners have full control of expendi- 
 ture for the county road fund. 
 
APPENDIX. 147 
 
 PROPOSED LAW FOR STATE AID IN 
 NEW YORK. 1 
 
 Nos. 1164, 1405. 
 
 IX ASSEMBLY, 
 
 MARCH 9, 1894. 
 
 Introduced by Mr. KERR read once and referred to the committee on 
 agriculture reported from said committee with amendments ordered 
 reprinted as amended and placed on the order of second reading. 
 
 AN ACT 
 
 To PROVIDE FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF ROADS BY LOCAL 
 ASSESSMENT, COUNTY AND STATE AID. 
 
 The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and 
 Assembly, do enact as follows: 
 
 SECTION 1. Petition of bordering land-owners for survey and 
 estimate of cost of local road ; subsequent petition of residents of 
 benefit district. On presentation to the board of supervisors of 
 any county of a petition signed by the owners of not less than one- 
 third of the lands bordering on any section of road already estab- 
 lished or proposed to be established in such county, asking for a 
 survey and estimate of the cost of building or rebuilding such road 
 in a substantial and permanent manner either of stone or gravel 
 as prescribed in such petition, such board of supervisors shall cause 
 such survey and estimate to be made for the information of such 
 petitioners, and shall forward a copy thereof to the State engineer. 
 Whenever, thereafter, the petitioners shall present to such board of 
 supervisors a map or description of the lands which, in their 
 opinion, will be directly benefited by the construction or improve- 
 ment of such road, together with a written request of the owners 
 of three-fifths of such lands, that all the lands so benefited and the 
 personal property in such district be assessed, in proportion to 
 the benefits conferred for such construction or improvement, to 
 the amount of one-third of the total cost thereof, such board of 
 supervisors shall cause such road to be constructed or improved. 
 
 i This bill passed in the Assembly by a vote of 84 to 23. . 
 
148 APPENDIX. 
 
 Such lands so mapped or described shall be known as the benefit 
 district of the said section of road. But whenever the original 
 petition in any case shall set forth that the area to be benefited by 
 the road is peculiarly restricted by the proximity of other roads or 
 by other circumstances, an examination and report shall be made 
 by the supervisor of the town and the surveyor of the road, and if 
 it appears thereby that such area is less than two square miles for 
 each mile of the road to be built, then the proportion of cost re- 
 quired to be paid by the benefit district shall be diminished at the 
 rate of three and one-third per cent of the whole cost for the first 
 one hundred acres of such deficiency, and three per cent for each 
 additional one hundred acres of said deficiency, but shall in no 
 case be less than one-tenth of the whole, and the balance of the 
 cost of such construction shall be equally borne by the county and 
 State. 
 
 SEC. 2. Applications. Copies of all maps and descriptions and 
 requests of property owners residing within the benefit district 
 accompanied by an application for State aid shall be transmitted 
 to the State engineer, who shall file the same in his office and record 
 the date of the receipt thereof. State aid shall be accorded to the 
 various benefit districts in the order of the date of the receipt of 
 their applications, and when such applications shall be sufficient to 
 exhaust the appropriation made for such purposes, the State engi- 
 neer shall notify the applicants and the county board of supervisors 
 and all liability for State aid shall thereupon cease. Whenever 
 any subsequent appropriation is made it shall be first-available for 
 the applications already on file in the order of their receipt. Xo 
 State aid shall be allowed to any section of road unless the State 
 engineer shall certify that such road is or will be a main travelled 
 road and a proper subject to receive State aid. 
 
 SEC. 3. Construction of road. Such road shall be constructed 
 or improved according to plans and specifications furnished by the 
 State engineer and shall conform to the survey and estimate of cost 
 provided by the board of supervisors. The contract for such con- 
 struction or improvement shall be let by the board of supervisors 
 to the lowest bidder upon the publication of a notice once in each 
 of four successive weeks in two newspapers published in such 
 county stating where a copy of the plans and specifications of the 
 proposed construction or improvement may be obtained, and the 
 
APPENDIX. 149 
 
 time and place where the board of supervisors or a committee 
 thereof will meet to receive bids. The cost of the publication of 
 such notice shall be a county charge. Each of such bids shall be 
 accompanied by a bond, with satisfactory security in a sum to be 
 determined by the board of supervisors, conditioned that if the con- 
 tract shall be awarded to such bidder he will execute an agreement, 
 in writing, to perform the work according to the plans and specifi- 
 cations and terms of the contract. Such contract shall be executed 
 in duplicate by the chairman of the board of supervisors under the 
 direction of the board, one of which shall be retained by the con- 
 tractor and the other filed with the clerk of the board. A copy of 
 each contract shall be forwarded to the State engineer to be filed 
 in his office. Before beginning the construction of the woik 
 under any contract the State engineer shall appoint a competent 
 person as superintendent of such work, who shall receive as com- 
 pensation a sum not to exceed four dollars per day, to be paid in 
 the same manner as other employes in the State engineer's depart- 
 ment, out of the moneys appropriated for that purpose. Such 
 superintendent shall supervise all work done under the contract 
 and require the provisions thereof to be strictly adhered to by the 
 contractor. The contract may provide that partial payment shall 
 be made to the contractor during the progress of the work, in 
 which case such superintendent shall, as each payment becomes 
 due, make a certificate to the chairman of the board of supervisors, 
 stating the amount of work done and that such work has been 
 done according to the provisions of the contract, and thereupon 
 such chairman shall direct payment to be made by the county 
 treasurer to an amount not exceeding eighty per cent of the value 
 of the work performed. When the work under the contract shall 
 be fully completed the superintendent shall make a detailed and 
 itemized statement, in duplicate, of the cost of the construction or 
 improvement, one copy of which shall be filed with the secretary 
 of the board of supervisors and one with the State engineer. 
 When such roads are completed they shall become county roads 
 and thereafter be maintained at county expense. 
 
 SEC. 4. County engineer. A county engineer may be employed 
 by the board of supervisors whenever required under the provisions- ^ 
 of this act. Such engineer shall have general supervisioi ; 6ir7;he3?t "5T" 
 construction of all roads built under this act, and, shall have 
 
 ' ^ "' ^ 
 
 
150 APPENDIX. 
 
 power to suspend any superintendent of construction appointed by 
 the State engineer, for neglect of duty or incapacity, subject to the 
 final action of the State engineer ; during such suspension he may 
 appoint a substitute, who shall be entitled to the pay of such 
 superintendent. 
 
 SEC. 5. Payment of cost of construction. Except in cases 
 where the benefits are " peculiarly restricted," one-third of the total 
 cost of the construction or improvement of such road shall be paid 
 by the owners of the land and property in the benefit districts, 
 which amount shall be assessed upon such owners according to the 
 benefits derived by them ; one-third shall be a county charge, and 
 the remaining one-third of the total cost shall be paid from the 
 State treasurer to the county treasurer, upon the warrant of the 
 comptroller and the certificate of the State engineer that the road 
 has been properly constructed according to plans and specifications 
 furnished by him. 
 
 SEC. 6. Assessment of cost upon property benefited. The 
 assessors of each town, through which the road so constructed or 
 improved extends, shall one year after the completion of such road 
 assess the amount to be paid by the property owners of the benefit 
 district upon the parcels of land and personal property therein, in 
 proportion to the benefits conferred by such construction or im- 
 provement. They shall describe in the annual assessment-roll, in 
 a place separate from other assessments, the several parcels of land 
 so assessed, and set down the name of the owner of such parcel, 
 when known, with the amount in dollars and cents assessed on 
 each parcel. Such assessment shall be a part of the annual assess- 
 ment-roll, and shall be subject to review and correction in the same 
 manner as the annual assessment-roll, and the sums assessed on 
 the several parcels of land shall be liens thereon respectively until 
 paid, and shall be collected in the same manner as other town 
 taxes, except that each assessment may be paid in ten equal annual 
 instalments, with interest annually at the rate of five per cent on 
 the amount unpaid, or in one instalment, at the option of the 
 owner of the. property assessed ; but the owner may, at any time, 
 pay the entire amount unpaid with interest to the date of pay- 
 ment. The amount remaining unpaid upon each assessment shall 
 each year be added in like manner to the assessment-roll. All 
 moneys collected upon such assessment shall be paid to the county 
 
APPENDIX. 151 
 
 treasurer and held by him as a separate fund for the payment of all 
 claims arising from the construction or improvement of such road. 
 
 SEC. 7. Issue of bonds. The board of supervisors of any 
 county may borrow money, from time to time, for the construction 
 and maintenance of roads built under this act, and may issue bonds 
 or other evidences of indebtedness of the county therefor, which 
 shall be under the official seart of the county treasurer, and signed 
 by the chairman of the board of supervisors. Such bonds or other 
 evidences of indebtedness shall bear a rate of interest not exceed- 
 ing five per cent per annum, shall not be for a longer period than 
 fifty years, nor be sold for less than par. But the amount of such 
 bonds or evidences of indebtedness issued by any county for the 
 purposes of this act shall not exceed three per cent of the assessed 
 valuation of the real and personal estate subject to taxation in such 
 county. 
 
 SEC. 7. This act shall take effect immediately. 
 
 PROPOSED STATE AID IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 ONE MILLION DOLLARS ANNUALLY. 
 
 [Extract from the report of a commission composed of three senators, five 
 members of the house, and five citizens, appointed by the governor 
 1891.] 
 
 Your commission desire to say that in formulating a bill they 
 have not attempted to give you one that will place the manage- 
 ment, construction, and repairs of the roads, highways, and bridges 
 of the Commonwealth on the highest and most scientific plan, but 
 that they have endeavored to give you one that they believe will 
 be, if enacted into a law, a long stride in advance of the present 
 system. 
 
 They believe, at the same time, that it will not be so far in ad- 
 vance that the people will not adopt it. 
 
 Your commission has constantly kept in view the fact that in all 
 reforms it is absolutely necessary to move in a conservative way, 
 and thus create sentiments that will in the end produce the best 
 results. 
 
 In the bill your commission herewith present to you, they have 
 preserved the township as a unit, believing that the people will 
 
152 APPENDIX. 
 
 never surrender the township government, as it is the basis of our 
 State organization. 
 
 The bill provides < for three supervisors to be elected in each 
 township for the term of three years, one of whom shall be elected 
 each year, and they, like our school directors, to serve without 
 compensation. 
 
 These supervisors are to have charge of the making and repair- 
 ing of the roads, highways, and bridges, the appointing of road- 
 masters, and the fixing of their compensation, and also the com- 
 pensation of the laborers under them. 
 
 Your commission believed that this method would, in a large 
 degree, take the management of our roads out of politics, and 
 thereby secure the very best men as supervisors, and enable the 
 road master to carry on his work in a business-like way. 
 
 The bill provides for a money tax, which it was believed would 
 alone result in a reduction of at least one-half in the road tax of 
 every township and at the same time give better roads. 
 
 In adopting a money tax no citizen of the township who honestly 
 desires to work out his road tax is excluded from so doing, for pro- 
 vision has been made whereby preference is to be given to citizens 
 of the township, between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five, and 
 that no person who is not a naturalized citizen can be employed 
 upon the roads of any township in the Commonwealth. 
 
 The bill further provides that the board of supervisors of a town- 
 ship may, if it is so desired, sell the repairing of the roads of the 
 township to the lowest bidder or bidders, requiring the purchaser 
 to give bonds in double the amount of the purchase, to carry out 
 his contract under the specifications laid down by the board of 
 supervisors. 
 
 Your commission were led to insert this provision in the bill to 
 enable those townships that have such a system to continue the 
 same, and to authorize other townships to adopt it if they so 
 desire. 
 
 A large number of the members of your commission believed 
 that by the selling of the roads for repairs there would be a great 
 improvement in our roads, and, at the same time, a large saving in 
 the cost thereof. Your commission at the same time believed that 
 it was wise to allow each township to choose either plan, as in the 
 judgment of the citizens thereof seemed best. Your commission 
 
APPENDIX. 153 
 
 fully realized the depressed condition of agriculture at the present 
 time, and the over-heavy burdens the farmers of the Commonwealth 
 are now bearing, owing to the unequal taxation under our present 
 revenue laws. Your commission were therefore a unit in believing 
 that if there were to be substantial and permanent improvements 
 in our highways, there must be State aid, which they recommend. 
 By permanent improvement is meant the use of stone, brick, 
 slag, iron, gravel, wood, or other lasting material conveniently to 
 be had. 
 
 Whilst an appropriation clause could not be inserted in the road 
 bill, your commission have prepared another bill providing for one 
 million dollars annually, to be distributed to the townships on the 
 basis of the amount of road tax collected in each township the pre- 
 ceding year, and only on condition that the township shall lay 
 aside twenty-five per cent of its road tax annually for permanent 
 improvements, and that the twenty-five per cent shall, together 
 with the State appropriation, be used only in stone or other per- 
 manent improvements of certain roads, which shall be designated 
 highways. 
 
 Your commission have also provided for the election by each 
 county of a suitable person, to be styled a comity engineer, who 
 shall have supervision of all roads on which State money is ex- 
 pended, and, in addition to that authority, shall be one of the 
 jurymen in laying out of new roads, and the changing and vacat- 
 ing of old ones, but not to have any control over the other town- 
 ship roads; neither has he the power to expend the money on such 
 roads. 
 
 The board of supervisors has the power to make the contracts 
 for building these highways, and can alone expend the moneys 
 received from the State, and the twenty-five per cent of the 
 township tax added thereto, all of which must be paid into the 
 township treasury, and over which the county engineer has no 
 control whatever. 
 
 In providing for a county engineer, we believed it to be abso- 
 lutely necessary that the State should be protected in its part of the 
 work, and know how its money was being expended, as sacredly 
 as the township. 
 
 Whilst the provision for a county engineer will entail the cost of 
 another salaried officer, they were led to believe that it would be a 
 
154 APPENDIX. 
 
 great saving to the township, and thus save the counties many 
 thousands of dollars, and at the same time give much more uni- 
 formity to our roads, and the making of the same. 
 
 Your commission believed that the engineer could from time to 
 time hold supervisors' institutes from place to place in his county, 
 and instruct supervisors and roadmasters in reference to the best 
 methods of making roads, and also inform them of the progress 
 being made in other parts of the county, and thus the people 
 would become interested and stimulated to make more improve- 
 ments. 
 
 To protect the interests of the people, we have introduced a 
 section making it a penal offence for any supervisor or county 
 engineer to be interested, directly or indirectly, in the making or 
 repairing of roads, highways or bridges, or in the sale of materials 
 used. 
 
 STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION. 
 
 LAW OF MASSACHUSETTS, 1893. 
 
 [CHAPTER 476.] 
 
 AN ACT to provide for the appointment of a highway commission to 
 improve the public roads and to define its powers and duties. 
 
 Be it enacted, etc., as follows: 
 
 Hghway com- SECTION 1. The governor, with the advice and con- 
 duties, com- sent of the council, shall, within thirty days after the 
 office, etc.' passage of this act, appoint three competent persons 
 to serve as the Massachusetts Highway Commission. 
 Their terms of office shall be so arranged and desig- 
 nated at the time of their appointment that the term 
 of one member shall expire in three years, one in two 
 years, and one in one year. The full term of office 
 thereafter shall be for three years, and all vacancies 
 occurring shall be filled by the governor, with the 
 advice and consent of the council. The members of 
 said board may be removed by the governor, with the 
 advice and consent of the council, for such cause as 
 he shall deem sufficient and shall express in the order 
 
APPENDIX. 155 
 
 of removal. They shall each receive in full compen- 
 sation for their services an annual salary of two thou- 
 sand dollars, payable in equal monthly instalments, 
 and also their travelling expenses. They may expend 
 annually for clerk hire, engineers, and for defraying 
 expenses incidental to and necessary for the perform- 
 ance of their duties, exclusive of office rent, the sum 
 of two thousand dollars. They shall be provided with 
 an office in the State-house or some other suitable 
 place in the city of Boston, in which the records of 
 their office shall be kept. They may establish rules 
 and regulations for the conduct of business and for 
 carrying out the provisions of this act. 
 
 SEC. 2. They shall from time to time compile sta- statistics. 
 tistics relating to the public roads of cities, towns, 
 and counties, and make such investigations relating 
 thereto as they shall deem expedient. They may be 
 consulted at all reasonable times, without charge, by 
 officers of counties, cities, or towns, having the care of 
 and authority over public roads, and shall without 
 charge advise them relative to the construction, repair, 
 alteration, or maintenance of the same ; but advice 
 given by them to any such officers shall not impair 
 the legal duties and obligations of any county, city, 
 or town. They shall prepare a map or maps of the Map. 
 Commonwealth, on which shall be shown county, 
 city, and town boundaries and also the public roads, 
 particularly the State highways, giving, when prac- 
 ticable, the names of the same. They shall collect 
 and collate information, concerning the geological 
 formation of this Commonwealth, so far as it relates 
 to the material suitable and proper for road-building, 
 and shall, so far as practicable, designate on said map 
 or maps the location of such material. Such map or 
 maps shall at all reasonable times be open for the 
 inspection of officers of counties, cities, and towns 
 having the care of and authority over public roads. 
 They shall each year hold at least one public meeting 
 in each county for the open discussion of questions 
 
156 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Information. 
 
 relating to the public roads, due notice of which shall 
 be given in the press or otherwise. 
 
 Annual report. SEC. 3. They shall make an annual report to the 
 legislature of their doings and the expenditures of 
 their office, together with such statements, facts, and 
 explanations bearing upon the construction and main- 
 tenance of public roads, and such suggestions and 
 recommendations as to the general policy of the Com- 
 monwealth in respect to the same, as may seem to 
 them appropriate. Their report shall be transmitted 
 to the secretary of the Commonwealth on or before 
 the first AVednesday in January of each year, to be 
 laid before the legislature. All maps, plans, and sta- 
 tistics collected and compiled under their direction 
 shall be preserved in their office. 
 
 SEC. 4. County commissioners and city and town 
 officers having the care and authority over public 
 roads and bridges throughout the Commonwealth 
 shall, on request, furnish the commissioners any in- 
 formation required by them concerning the roads and 
 bridges within their jurisdiction. 
 
 SEC. 5. For the purpose of carrying out the provi- 
 sions of this act said commission may expend such 
 sums for necessary assistants, the procuring of neces- 
 sary supplies, instruments, material, machinery, and 
 other property, and for the construction and mainte- 
 nance of State highways, as shall from time to time 
 be appropriated by the legislature ; and they shall in 
 their annual report state what sums they deem neces- 
 sary for the year commencing with the first day of 
 March following. 
 
 SEC. 6. Whenever the county commissioners of a 
 county adjudge that the common necessity and con- 
 venience require that the Commonwealth acquire as 
 a State highway a new or an existing road in that 
 county, they may apply by petition in writing to the 
 Massachusetts Highway Commission, stating the road 
 they recommend, and setting forth a detailed descrip- 
 tion of said road by metes and bounds, together with 
 
 Expenses. 
 
 Acquisition of 
 new State 
 highways. 
 
APPENDIX. 157 
 
 a plan and profile of the same. Said commission 
 shall consider such petition, and if they adjudge that 
 it ought to be allowed, they shall in writing so notify 
 said county commissioners. It shall then become the 
 duty of said county commissioners to cause said road 
 to be surveyed and laid out in the manner provided 
 for the laying out and alteration of highways, the 
 entire expense thereof to be borne and paid by said 
 county. Said county commissioners shall preserve a 
 copy of such petition, plans, and profiles with their 
 record for public inspection. When said commission 
 shall be satisfied that said county commissioners have 
 properly surveyed and laid out said road, and set in 
 place suitable monuments, and have furnished said 
 commission with plans and profiles, on which shall be 
 shown such monuments and established grades, in 
 accordance with the rules and regulations of said 
 commission, said commission may approve the same, 
 and so notify in writing said county commissioners. 
 Said commission shall then present a certified copy of 
 said petition, on which their approval shall be indi- 
 cated, together with their estimates for constructing 
 said road and the estimated annual cost for maintain- 
 ing the same, to the secretary of the Commonwealth, 
 who shall at once lay the same before the legislature, 
 if it is in session, otherwise on the second Wednesday 
 of January following. If the legislature makes appro- 
 priation for constructing said road, said commission 
 shall cause said road to be constructed in accordance 
 with this act, and when completed and approved by 
 them said road shall become a State highway, and 
 thereafter be maintained by the Commonwealth under 
 the supervision of said commission. 
 
 SEC. 7. Two or more cities or towns may petition Proceedings in 
 the said commission representing that," in their opin- gtatehighway. 
 ion, the common necessity and convenience require 
 that the Commonwealth should acquire as a State 
 highway a new or an existing road leading from one 
 city or town to another, which petition shall be accom- 
 
158 APPENDIX. 
 
 panied by a detailed description of such road bv metes 
 and bounds, and also a plan and profile of the same. 
 If said commission adjudge that the common neces- 
 sity and convenience require such road to be laid out 
 and acquired as a State highway, they shall cause a 
 copy of said petition, on which shall be their finding, 
 to be given to the county commissioners of the county 
 in which said road or any portion of it lies. It shall 
 then become the duty of the county commissioners, at 
 the expense of the county, to cause said road to be 
 surveyed and laid out, and to set in place suitable 
 monuments, and to cause a detailed description by 
 metes and bounds, plans and profiles, to be made, on 
 which shall be shown said monuments and established 
 grades, and to give the same to said commission ; but 
 said county commissioners shall have the right to 
 change the line of said road, provided the termini are 
 substantially the same. Said county commissioners 
 shall preserve said petition and a copy of the plans 
 and profiles, with their records, for public inspection. 
 When said commission shall be satisfied that the 
 county commissioners have properly surveyed and laid 
 out said road and set in place suitable monuments, 
 and have furnished them with plans and profiles on 
 which shall be shown said monuments and established 
 grades, in accordance with the rules and regulations 
 of said commission, they shall then proceed in the 
 same manner as provided in section six of this act ; 
 and when said road is completed and approved by said 
 commission it shall become a State highway, and there- 
 after be maintained by the Commonwealth under the 
 supervision of said commission. 
 
 Cost of con- SEC. 8. In all cases where a highway is to be con- 
 
 paid? 10n> V structed at the expense of the Commonwealth as a 
 State highway, all the grading necessary to make said 
 highway of the established grade, and the construc- 
 tion of culverts and bridges, shall be paid for by the 
 county or counties, respectively, in which said high- 
 way or any portion of it lies, and the work must be 
 
APPENDIX. 159 
 
 done to the satisfaction of said commission. No action 
 by a person claiming damage for the taking of land 
 or change of grade, under the provisions of this act, 
 shall be commenced against a county until said com- 
 mission has taken possession for the purpose of con- 
 structing such State highway. 
 
 SEC. 9. When appropriation has been made by the Commission 
 legislature for the construction of a State highway, 
 said commission shall at once cause plans and specifi- 
 cations to be made, and estimate the cost of the con- 
 struction of such State highway, and give to each city 
 and town in which said road lies, a certified copy of 
 said plans and specifications, with a notice that said 
 commission is ready for the construction of said road. 
 Such city or town shall have the right, without adver- 
 tisement, to contract with said commission for the 
 construction of so much of suck highway as lies within 
 its limits, in accordance with the plans and specifica- 
 tions of the commission and under its supervision and 
 subject to its approval, at a price agreed upon between 
 said commission and said city or town ; but such price 
 agreed upon shall not exceed eighty-five per cent of 
 the original estimate of said commission. If such city 
 or town shall within thirty days not elect to so con- 
 tract, said commission may advertise in one or more 
 papers published in the county where the road or a por- 
 tion of it is situated, and in one or more papers pub- 
 lished in Boston, for bids for the construction of said 
 highway in accordance with the plans and specifica- 
 tions furnished by said commission, and under their 
 supervision and subject to their approval. Said com- 
 mission shall have the right to reject any and all bids, 
 and they shall require of the contractor a bond for at 
 least ten thousand dollars for each mile of road, to 
 indemnify such city or town in which such highway 
 lies against damage while such road is being con- 
 structed, and the Commonwealth shall not be liable 
 for any damage occasioned thereby. Said commission 
 shall make and sign all contracts in the name of the 
 Massachusetts Highway Commission. 
 
160 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Approved. 
 
 Removal of 
 buildings. 
 
 Repairs. SEC. 10. For the maintenance of State highways, 
 
 said commission shall contract with the city or town 
 in which such State highway lies, or a person, firm, 
 or corporation, for the keeping in repair and main- 
 taining of such highway, in accordance with the rules 
 and regulations of said commission and subject to 
 their supervision and approval, and such contracts 
 may be made without previous advertisement. 
 
 SEC. 11. All contracts made by or with the Massa- 
 chusetts Highway Commission under the provisions 
 of this act shall be subject to the approval of the gov- 
 ernor and council. 
 
 SEC. 12. Xo length of possession or occupancy of 
 land within the limit of any State highway, by an 
 owner or occupier of adjoining land, shall create a 
 right to such land in any adjoining owner or occupant 
 or a person claiming under him, and any fences, build- 
 ings, sheds, or other obstructions encroaching upon 
 such State highway shall, upon written notice by said 
 commission, at once be removed by the owner or occu- 
 pier of adjoining land, and if not so removed said 
 commission may cause the same to be done and may 
 remove the same upon the adjoining land of such 
 owner or occupier. 
 
 Injuries. SEC. 13. The Commonwealth shall be liable for in- 
 
 juries to persons or property occurring through a de- 
 fect or want of repair or of sufficient railing in or upon 
 a State highway. 
 
 Jurisdiction. SEC. 14. Cities and towns shall have police juris- 
 diction over all State highways, and they shall at once 
 notify in writing the State commission or its employes 
 of any defect or want of repair in such highways. Xo 
 State highway shall be dug up for laying or placing 
 pipes, sewers, posts, wires, railways, or other purposes, 
 and no tree shall be planted or removed or obstruction 
 placed thereon, except by the written consent of the 
 superintendent of streets or road commissioners of a 
 city or town, approved by the highway com mission, 
 and then only in accordance with the rules and regu- 
 
APPENDIX. 161 
 
 lations of said commission ; and in all cases the work 
 shall be executed under the supervision and to the sat- 
 isfaction of said commission, and the entire expense 
 of replacing the highway in as good condition as be- 
 fore shall be paid by the parties to whom the consent 
 was given or by whom the work was done ; but a city 
 or town shall have the right to dig up such State high- 
 way without such approval of the highway commis- 
 sion where immediate necessity demands it, but in all 
 such cases such highway shall be at once replaced in 
 as good condition as before, and at the expense of the 
 city or town. Said commission shall give suitable 
 names to the State highways, and they shall have the 
 right to change the name of any road that shall have 
 become a part of a State highway. They shall cause 
 to be erected, at convenient points along State high- 
 ways, suitable guide posts. 
 
 S*;c. 15. The word " road," as used in this act, in- Koad defined, 
 eludes every thoroughfare which the public has a right 
 to use. 
 
 SEC. 16. This act shall take effect upon its passage, in effect. 
 
 Approved June 10, 1893. 
 
 STATE ENGINEER DEPARTMENT. 
 LAW PROPOSED BY THE MARYLAND ROAD LEAGUE. 
 
 SECTION 1. There shall be appointed by the governor of this 
 State, with the consent and approval of the senate, on March 1, 
 1894, and every fourth year thereafter, an expert engineer, to be 
 the State road and highway engineer, who shall hold his office for 
 the term of four years or until his successor is appointed. 
 
 SEC. 2. He shall receive a salary of $5000 per annum, shall 
 give bond for the faithful discharge of his duties in the amount 
 of $5000, and shall pay over all moneys, papers, etc., at the expi- 
 ration of his term or when ordered by the governor. 
 
 SEC. 3. It shall be the duty of the attorney-general, at the 
 request of the governor, to give his counsel and opinion to such 
 officer. 
 
162 APPENDIX. 
 
 SEC. 4. He shall be provided with suitable offices and working 
 equipment, and is hereby empowered to employ such engineers, 
 clerks, and other assistants, at such salaries as the board of public 
 works may, upon his application, approve. 
 
 SEC. 5. He shall submit to the governor on or before January 1, 
 1896, and every two years thereafter, a report upon the state of 
 the roads and bridges in the State and the best methods of con- 
 structing and maintaining the same, with estimates of cost, ex- 
 penses, etc., and shall suggest some general plan of administration 
 thereof, either by the State or counties, or jointly, or such changes 
 in the present methods as may recommend themselves to him. 
 
 SEC. 6. He shall further, upon the application of any of the 
 county boards of highways and bridges herein provided for, give 
 them the benefit of his advice, counsel, and assistance, either in 
 person or by deputy. 
 
 SEC. 7. He shall further, upon the application of any such 
 board, detail an assistant engineer to assist it in its work for such 
 time as may be proper, provided all the expenses incurred by 
 such assistant in such work over and above his personal expenses 
 and salary shall be paid for by such board. 
 
 SEC. 8. He is further empowered, with the approval of the 
 board of public works, to purchase stone-breaking machines, to 
 set them up at convenient points, and to supply stone to the 
 county boards at cost price. 
 
 SEC. 9. He shall render to the governor, legislature, and board 
 of public works such other services as they may require. 
 
 SEC. 10. He shall keep a record of all his proceedings and an 
 account of all money received and spent and for what purpose, 
 which record and account he shall furnish to the governor on the 
 1st day of July each and every year ; such records and accounts, 
 however, to be always open to the inspection of the governor or 
 any committee of the legislature. 
 
 SEC. 11. All moneys paid out on account of this department 
 shall be paid out by the State treasurer upon the order of the 
 State engineer, indorsed by the comptroller. 
 
 SEC. 12. The sum of $25,000 per annum, or so much thereof as 
 may be needed, is hereby appropriated out of any funds in the 
 treasury for the use of this department. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 168 
 
 FREE ROAD MATERIALS BY CONVICT 
 LABOR. 
 
 (1) LAWS OF DELAWARE, CHAPTER 670, 1893. 
 
 Within two years from and after the passage of 
 this act the Levy Court of New Castle county are 
 authorized and directed to secure, by purchase or con- 
 demnation, as hereinafter provided, a stone quarry 
 along the route or within convenient reach of a rail- 
 road in New Castle county, the stone in said quarry 
 to be of a character suitable for being broken into 
 macadam. That the said Levy Court, within the 
 time specified, shall advertise for bids and proposals 
 and grant to the lowest and best bidder the contract 
 for the building of a suitable structure for confining 
 prisoners, the same not to exceed in cost the sum of 
 twenty thousand dollars. 
 
 SECTION 2. It shall be and may be lawful for any 
 court in New Castle county, having competent juris- 
 diction in the matters of obtaining money under false 
 pretences, pointing a deadly weapon, carrying con- 
 cealed a deadly weapon, gambling, lottery, policy 
 writing, assault and battery, assaults, drunkenness, dis- 
 orderly conduct, and vagrancy, and of such other crimes 
 the punishment for which, in the discretion of the 
 court passing sentence, should be hard labor, to sen- 
 tence any male person or persons convicted as afore- 
 said to imprisonment in the workhouse of New Castle 
 county at hard labor in the quarry aforesaid, in addi- 
 tion to the penalties prescribed by law ; provided nev- 
 ertheless that such imprisonment at hard labor, for 
 drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and vagrancy shall 
 not exceed sixty days. 
 
 SECTION 3. It shall be the duty of the superintend- 
 ent of the workhouse hereinafter provided for to 
 receive all persons who may be sentenced under the 
 
 Levy Court of 
 New Castle 
 county author- 
 ized to secure 
 a stone quarry. 
 
 Location of. 
 
 Shall contract 
 for a building 
 to confine 
 prisoners. 
 
 Cost of. 
 
 Courts in New 
 Castle county 
 may commit 
 certain offend- 
 ers to work- 
 house at hard 
 labor in stone 
 quarry. 
 
 Imprisonment 
 for drunken 
 
 ness, etc., not 
 to exceed 
 sixty days. 
 
 Duty of super- 
 intendent of 
 workhouse. 
 
164 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Who to be 
 deemed va- 
 grants under 
 this act. 
 
 Eight hours a 
 day's work. 
 
 Working 
 hours. 
 
 No exemption 
 from labor 
 except for 
 physical in- 
 ability. 
 Management 
 of refractory 
 prisoners. 
 
 Action of 
 superintend- 
 ent to be re- 
 ported to jail 
 commission 
 
 Duty of jail 
 commission- 
 ers respecting 
 government of 
 workhouse. 
 
 Condemnation 
 of quarry ; 
 
 provisions of Section 2 of this act and keep them at 
 hard labor as herein provided. 
 
 SECTION 4. That all beggars and vagabonds who 
 roam about from place to place, without any lawful 
 business or occupation, sleeping in outhouses, barns, 
 market places, sheds, and in the open air, and not 
 giving a good account of themselves, shall be deemed 
 vagrants and liable to the penalties of this act. 
 
 SECTION 5. Eight hours shall constitute a day's 
 work at hard labor, and such hard labor shall be per- 
 formed between the hours of eight o'clock in the 
 morning and five o'clock in the evening. No person 
 sentenced under this act shall be exempt from said 
 labor except through physical inability properly cer- 
 tified to the superintendent of the workhouse by the 
 jail physician. Should any prisoners prove refractory 
 and stubborn, and refuse to work or perform his or 
 their work in a proper manner, the superintendent of 
 the workhouse shall have power to place such pris- 
 oner or prisoners in solitary confinement, there to be 
 kept on bread and water until he or they shall submit 
 to perform his or their tasks and to obey his orders. 
 Every action of the superintendent under this section 
 shall be reported immediately to the jail commission- 
 ers, who shall have power to revise the same. 
 
 SECTION 12. The commissioners of the jail and 
 workhouse shall have power to make rules for the 
 government of the workhouse and all persons con- 
 nected therewith, for the cleanliness and health of the 
 prisoners, and for the employment of convicts ; they 
 shall have power to order fuel and bedding, to furnish 
 working tools, materials, and fixtures for the work- 
 house, and, when directed by the levy court, they may 
 purchase such stone-breaking machinery as the said 
 levy court may deem proper and expedient, and to 
 erect such buildings and walls as may be ordered by 
 the levy court. 
 
 SECTION 13. Should the levy court fail to secure 
 the quarry aforesaid by purchase, then they shall pro- 
 
APPENDIX. 165 
 
 ceed to secure some suitable quarry by applying to the 
 Court of General Sessions of the Peace and Jail Deliv- 
 ery of the State of Delaware in and for New Castle 
 county for the appointment of five suitable persons, 
 who shall go upon and view the premises selected by 
 the levy court aforesaid and proceed to condemn the 
 same under the law and in the manner provided for 
 the condemnation of land for road or county purposes 
 in Chapter 60, Revised Code of the State of Delaware. 
 
 SECTION 14. The stone shall be broken so that it s to , ne > how 
 
 broken. 
 
 can be used for road macadam. The stone so broken 
 shall be divided among the several hundreds of New 
 Castle county making demand therefor and upon pay- 
 ment by such hundreds of the costs of transportation. 
 
 The division shall be made in the following manner, How divided 
 that is to say : should the supply exceed the demands hSreds? 
 of the several hundreds, the said hundreds shall be 
 entitled to receive any quantity that may be ordered 
 by the road commissioners thereof, or the street and 
 sewer department of the City of Wilmington, and the 
 transportation paid therefor, and if in the judgment 
 of the commissioners of the jail and workhouse the 
 supply of stone is much in excess of the demand, they General pro- 
 
 r J J visions in rela- 
 
 may, after sufficient advertisement, sell the same or a tion to distri- 
 part thereof at public sale, and turn over the proceeds broken stone. 
 therefrom to the receiver of taxes and county treasurer 
 of New Castle county. Should the demand for stone 
 from the several hundreds be greater than the supply, 
 the stone shall then be equally divided between the 
 several hundreds, car load at a time, until the orders 
 of the several hundreds are filled and the [supply] of 
 stone exhausted. The superintendent of the work- 
 house shall superintend and manage the breaking of 
 stone, the loading of cars, and the filling of orders of 
 the several hundreds, or purchasers at public sale ; 
 and he shall receive all payment therefor, and settle 
 with the county treasurer on the first Monday of 
 every month; such settlements shall be audited by 
 the comptroller of accounts of New Castle county. 
 
166 APPENDIX. 
 
 How stone SECTION 15. The road commissioners of any hun- 
 
 pHed to streets dred m -^ ew Castle county, or street and sewer depart- 
 men * f the City of Wilmington, making demands for 
 
 mington and stone and receiving the same, shall select one certain 
 sioners of the road in their hundred to improve, and they shall com- 
 dred^ 1111111 plete the improvements thereon before stone is put 
 upon any other road. The road shall be graded, 
 macadamized, piked, or otherwise improved by means 
 of stone, for a width of at least twelve feet, whenever 
 such improvement may be required to keep the same 
 constantly in good condition. The improvement of 
 the roads by means of stone, as aforesaid, shall be, as 
 far as practicable, continuous along the entire length 
 of the road. 
 
 (2) PROPOSED LAW IN IOWA. 
 
 (From The Clinton Age.) 
 
 Senator Green has a new plan for bettering the roads of the State 
 which is proposed in a bill introduced by him. He proposes 
 that rock for macadamizing the roads and streets of the State 
 shall be furnished from the State quarry at Anamosa. The stone 
 is to be quarried by the convicts, broken into proper size and 
 loaded on cars by them and furnished free of charge to cities 
 and townships whose council or trustees will pay the freight. 
 This, according to the senator's idea, will not only furnish material 
 for the construction of magnificent roads, but will also give ample 
 employment for the State's convict labor. 
 
 Not the least important feature of the senator's bill is the taking 
 of convict labor out of competition with paid labor. The Age has 
 often declared it were better that prisoners should be employed 
 to do a kind of work one day and undo it the next, rather than 
 to engage in any business which came in competition w T ith paid 
 labor. We believe that Senator Green's plan would w r ork admi- 
 rably, and that the railroads would haul the material at or below 
 cost. The railroads of Iowa have already shown a disposition 
 to co-operate with the people in carrying out any practical plan of 
 permanent road-building. We hope the Green bill will become 
 a law. We do not know how the prisoners are employed, but 
 we do know that every labor organization in the State ought 
 to immediately pass resolutions favoring the Green bill. 
 
LIST OF BOOKS 
 
 ON 
 
 ROADS AND ROAD-MAKING 
 
 FOR SALE BY 
 
 D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY. 
 
 BURKE (M. 1).). Brick for Street Pavements. 8vo, paper, 
 
 illustrated. 1892 $ 50 
 
 BYRNE (Austin T.). A Treatise on Highway Construction. 
 Designed as a Text-book and a Work of Reference for all 
 who may be engaged in the Location, Construction, or 
 Maintenance of Roads, Streets, and Pavements. 8vo, cloth. 
 Second revised and enlarged edition. 1893 5 00 
 
 CHASE (C. P.). Brick Pavement. The Inauguration and 
 
 Execution of the Work. 12mo, paper, illustrated. 1891 . 1 00 
 
 CODRINGTON (Thos.). The Maintenance of Macadamized 
 Roads. 2d edition, revised and enlarged. 8vo, cloth. 
 1892 . ., 3 00 
 
 GILLESPIE (W. M.). Manual of the Principles and Practice 
 of Road-Making. 10th edition, with large addenda. Ed- 
 ited by Cady Staloy. 12mo, cloth. 1871 250 
 
 1 
 
BOOKS ON ROADS AND ROAD-MAKING. 
 
 GILLMORE (Genl. Q. A.). Practical Treatise on Roads, 
 Streets, and Pavements. 70 illustrations. 12mo, cloth. 
 Eighth edition. 1892 $2 00 
 
 HAUPT (Prof. L. M.). A Move for Better Roads. Essays 
 on Road-Making and Maintenance, and Road Laws. 8vo, 
 cloth. 1891 2 00 
 
 HERSCHEL (C.) and NORTH (E. P.). The Science of Road- 
 Making, by C. Herschel. Construction and Maintenance of 
 Roads, by E. P. North. 8vo, cloth. 1890 50 
 
 JENKS (J. W.). Road Legislation for the American State. 
 
 8vo. paper. 1889 75 
 
 LAW (Henry) and CLARK (D. K.). The Construction of 
 Roads and Streets. Part I. The Art of Constructing Com- 
 mon Roads. Part II. Recent Practice in the Construction 
 of Roads and Streets, including Pavements of Stone, Wood, 
 and Asphalt. Illustrated. 1887 1 80 
 
 LOVE (E. S.). Pavements and Roads. Their Construction 
 
 and Maintenance. 8vo, cloth. 1890 5 00 
 
 MATTHEWSON (L. W.). City Streets. How to build Them 
 
 and Why. 12mo, paper. 1890 25 
 
 ROAD CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE. Prize Es- 
 says reprinted from "The Engineering Record." 12mo, 
 cloth, illustrated. 1892 1 00 
 
 SINSABAUGH (L. W.). Digest of United States Patents for 
 Paving and Roofing Compositions to January 1, 1875, and 
 English Paving Compositions to January 1, 1874. 8vo, 
 half bound. 1875 10 00 
 
 WILKINS (Genl. H. St. Clair). A Treatise on Mountain 
 Roads, Live Roads, and Bridges, with numerous plates. 
 
 8 vo, cloth. 1880 550 
 
 2 
 
RETURN TO the circulation desk of any 
 University of California Library 
 or to the 
 
 NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station 
 University of California 
 Richmond, CA 94804-4698 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 2-month loans may be renewed by calling 
 
 (415)642-6233 
 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books 
 
 to NRLF 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days 
 
 prior to due date 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 FEB 2 7 1990 
 
YB 10938