256 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



or they can raise money and put it into the hands of such men as 

 they see fit, to be worked out in any manner they prescribe ; and 

 that is quite suificient for our present purposes. Let us first 

 make use of these privileges, and when the people are educated 

 up to that point, if we need legislation to go on in further im- 

 provements, let us obtain it. 



My method would be to have the selectmen place the money in 

 the hands of some two or three competent individuals, and let 

 those men employ their own help and repair the roads, using the 

 money to the best advantage ; not in proportion to the taxes in 

 the several sections, but in proportion to the needs of the various 

 sections of the town. The town itself should own all the ma- 

 chinery to do it with. They should own the team ; they should 

 own the necessary tools of all descriptions. Those two or three 

 men should take the money in their hands and go into the various 

 sections of the town, and work the whole season, and' keep the 

 roads in repair. I believe that this plan would work wonders in 

 the improvement of our roads. 



Mr. Waumell. I know nothing about building roads, but I do 

 know something in reference to raising money and expending it on 

 the roads, and taking it out in labor in the diflFereut districts. In 

 the town where I reside, after a contest between the farmei's and 

 the villagers, whether we should raise money and expend it, or 

 whether the taxes should be paid in work, we finally, after the fiir- 

 mers had got two or three thousand dollars of over-work charged, 

 agreed to raise money enough to pay them for their overwork, and 

 take the amount of money the selectmen said was necessary and 

 repair the roads. They agreed to raise the money, and two years 

 ago they did raise it. Another condition was, that every man in 

 the district might go on the road and work, and should bo paid in 

 money, according to the work he did. Tlicy wont to work with 

 the money that was raised, and after a short time it was difficult 

 to get farmers to take their teams and come out on the road and 

 work for ready pay; they could earn more on their farms they 

 said, and so laborers had to be obtained from the village. Last 

 year money was raised, also, and every man who rides through the 

 town kiu)ws that the roads have never been so good before as they 

 are to-day. Tlic roads are such that you can trot a horse almost 

 the whole way. It Avas done with money. 



We have liad on our board of selectmen a man who knows how 

 to build roads, and he has had the entire charge of it. He has got 



