ROAD MAKING A JOB FOR EXPERTS

It has been quite common for farmers themselves to work on the roads of their locality—­“working out” their road taxes.  But roads so made are seldom very good, unless the work is supervised by someone trained in the business.  Whether a farmer works on the roads himself or merely pays for having it done, it is to his advantage to know something about road making.  The Department of Agriculture and the state agricultural colleges now give extension courses in road making for the benefit of the farmers.  It is reported that in one county of Oklahoma the pupils of forty different school districts have built more than forty miles of good roads, of course working under supervision.

VALUE OF COUNTRY ROADS TO CITIES

Good country roads are of the greatest importance, not only to the farmers and rural communities, but also to the people of cities.  The road improvement in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, was of as much benefit to the people and the business of Fredericksburg as to the farmers.  An excellent illustration of the recognition of the common interest of city and country in the public roads, and of effective cooperation in improving them, was given in Chapter iii, page 32, in the case of Christian County, Kentucky.  The wide use of the automobile has done a great deal to awaken the people of cities to their interest in country roads, and associations and journals devoted to the interests of automobilists have been active in advocating the improvement of the public highways.

GOOD ROADS NOT MERELY OF LOCAL CONCERN

In Spotsylvania County we saw, also, that the improvement of roads in two districts was a direct advantage to the farmers of the other two districts.  Carrying this idea further, we shall see that the roads of one county may be of the greatest importance to other counties in the state; and those of one state of importance to other states.  The crossties produced from the timber of Spotsylvania County may be wanted for railroad building in a distant state.  The cotton from the plantations of Tennessee or Texas is needed at the mills in New England.  The wheat of the great farms of the northwest supplies the whole nation.  Most of the freight carried on the railroads and steamships has at some time and in some form been hauled in wagons and trucks over country roads.  It is clear, then, that the character of the highways in any locality is a matter of national interest, and even of world-wide interest.

EARLY NATIONAL INTEREST IN ROAD BUILDING