ROAD MAKING. Of.^ 



to work on a road in some back district ; their taxes are assumed 

 to be all worked out, but they do not perform effectual labor, and 

 there are no roads. There are many towns in the county of Piscata- 

 quis and in the State of Maine which are suffering from that cause 

 to a greater or less extent. 



Then, again, about road making. In addition to casting my vote 

 for the largest sum of money, I have always felt a very great in- 

 terest in the improvement of the roads in the village. I have 

 within a few years laid out six or eight hundred dollars in the im- 

 provement of the road and an adjacent bog in view by the little 

 stream that runs near my house. There was a little narrow bridge 

 there, the sides filled with rubbish, and a dangerous place to pass. 

 I have contributed every year something besides my taxes to have 

 these permanent improvements made. 



I want to say a single word on the subject of permanent im- 

 provements. The best way to secure good roads is to pick out the 

 very worst places and make them the best. Take a bridge, for 

 instance, put a good granite wall on the side, fill it up, and make 

 a permanent improvement that will stand for all time, — so much is 

 made ; so much is done, and even men who do not take much pride 

 in such matters will be really pleased and say that a good thing, a 

 lasting work has been done ; and when that has been done you will 

 take hold of other places, which require less labor, with new vigor, 

 and when you get through with them, make another permanent im- 

 provement, that your children and children's children will see, and 

 that nothing but the general destruction of all things will remove. 



I wish to encourage the very able gentleman who addressed us 

 to pursue the subject, and "keep it," as the politicians say, "before 

 the people." 



Mr. Lelaxd of Sangerville. I have taken some interest in the 

 lecture, although the suggestions of the speaker range somewhat 

 higher than we are at present prepared to go. We are not ready 

 yet to build macadamized roads, nor other costly roads. The 

 trouble, as I understand it, lies here. We raise a sufficient sum of 

 money, if it could be expended on our roads during summer, to 

 put them in good condition ; but the trouble is, that in the winter 

 we have drifting snows, that fill the roads, especially cross roads, 

 and these must be opened, and it requires so great an amount of 

 work through the winter to keep the roads passable, that when 

 June comes, which is the time when the work is usually done on 

 the roads, there is very little money left. In some districts, the 



