COUNTRY ROADS. 223 



notes, nor, indeed, much in any form, unless it bo upon edu- 

 cational matters, during the last year and a lialf. 



COUNTRY ROADS : 



Their Construction, Maintenance and Value. 



There is no community, however happy in all other things, that 

 does not find its fortunes bettered by cheap locomotion ; while, 

 for many communities, the difference between good roads and poor 

 roads is the difference between growth and decay — between life 

 and death. In this State sundry causes have lead to "the wide 

 abandonment of lands which were once successfully tilled ; but 

 poor roads must be counted among the most influential of these 

 causes. It is safe to assert that, with good roads, hundreds of 

 now deserted homesteads would be occupied, and greater thrift 

 manifest itself everywhere. Not fifteen miles from the city of 

 Lewiston, one may find excellent lands, heavily wooded, that can 

 be bought to-day for twenty-five dollars an acre. Were the roads, 

 however, such as they should be, such as they could readily be 

 made, reducing the present cost of transportation one-half, the 

 stumpage alone would be worth sixty dollars an acre; and, after 

 removal of the wood, the soil could be brought under profitable 

 cultivation. This is but a single instance of what may be ob- 

 served in many parts of the State. Verily, cheap locomotion is 

 wealth. 



But it is not an affair of wealth alone. Cheap, pleasant, quick 

 locomotion is vastly more than this, for it contributes to vastly 

 more than the physical wants of man. It is social intercourse ; it 

 is intellectual activity; it is religious development; in a word, it 

 is civilization. All this it becomes by enlarging, virtually, the 

 neighborhood, by widening the school district, by expanding the 

 territorial limits of the parish. It wars against provincialism and 

 bigotry by giving greater breadth to the field of individual obser- 

 vation and experience. Says Macaulay, and without undue 

 emphasis : 



" Of all inventions, the alphabet and printing press alone ex- 

 cepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done most 

 for the civilization of our species. * * * Every improvement 

 of the means of locomotion benefits mankind morally and intellect- 

 ually, as well as materially." 



Such are the words of the great historian. 



