' farmers" state congeess. 397 



and establishes a better feeliug and arouses a greater interest in the 

 •work which you have undertaken to do. 



Wishing your organization every possible success, I again bid you 

 welcome, and here tender the keys of the city to your President, for your 

 use during your stay with us. feeling confident that the privileges thus 

 tendered will not be misused. 



THE UTILIZATION OF CONVICT LABOR IN MAKING ROAD 



MATERIAL. 



W. S. BLATCHLEY, INDIAXAPOLIS. 



The question of good roads is at present one of the most vital with 

 which the farming community of Indiana has to deal. Many of the bet- 

 ter counties of the State long ago realized the importance of this question, 

 and where good road material was conveniently located constructed 

 gravel or macadam roads radiating in all directions from their country 

 towns. In other counties, possessing a plentiful supply of road mate- 

 rial, the importance of the question has not yet been realized, and for six 

 months of the year the farmers are practically isolated from market, or, 

 if they manage to reach it once a week, can only haul thereto a fraction 

 of a load. Such counties are readily recognized as far below the average 

 in wealth, prosperity and the public spirit of their citizens. 



Professor Latta, of Purdue University, a few years ago made a care- 

 ful study of the good roads question in the State. He received reports 

 from hundreds of farmers, some of whom live on good I'oads once bad, 

 and others on roads still bad. From these reports he computed statistics 

 showing that the difference between good and bad roads amounts to 78 

 cents an acre annually on the farms. Applying this amount to the whole 

 State — 36,350 square miles, or 23,264,000 acres — we have the sum of ?18,- 

 145,920. Of this amount, fully two-thirds is w^asted every year in the 

 State in the loss of time and in the loss of opportunity in securing the 

 best market for the produce of the farm. 



This question of good and bad roads came to me very forcibly in 

 the past week while writing a paper on the petroleum Industry in Indiana. 

 In preparing a map for that paper I found that many farms in the very 

 center of productive territory had not been drilled because they were on 

 mud roads and distant from railway stations. The iron drive pipe, casing 

 and tubing and the derrick timbers necessary for drilling in and pumping 

 a productive well are very heavy, and it is almost impossible to haul 

 them over many of the roads in the oil field between the first of Novem- 

 ber and the first of April. The operator, therefore, develops first those 

 Ipases on pike roads or close to railway stations, leaving those on mud 



