398 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



roads to the very last. The farmers living in the oil belt, who are receiv- 

 ing or might be receiving large sums in royiilty for their oil, should see 

 to it that their farms are available at all times. A successful oil operator 

 is usually a busy man, who does not wish to lose five-twelfths of his time 

 on account of bad roads; hence he leaves the ternitory with mud roads 

 and, operates that which he can reach 365 days in the year. 



During the past decade our vehicles for rapid country travel have 

 become more numerous and of an entirely different style from what they 

 were twenty years ago. Almost every farmer now owns his own buggy 

 and carriage. The bicycle, by countless thousands, has come to stay, and 

 the automobile will soon be more common on the improved roads of the 

 State than the two-horse surrey was a dozen years ago. The owners of 

 all these forms of vehicles are demanding, and they will continue to de- 

 mand, better roads, and the legislator must soon learn that the question 

 is one of the most important which he has to face. 



Another phase of the good roads question came into existence with 

 the twentieth century. Five years ago the rural mail carrier was an al- 

 most unknown factor in our State. Now he travels in every county, car- 

 rying his messages of joy or sorrow to the farmer's door each day. The 

 daily paper, with its market reports and news of the day, is, or can be, 

 put regularly into the farmer's hands Avithin a dozen hours of its issue, 

 even though he lives a score of miles from a railway. Time is the most 

 valuable possession given to man on earth, provided he has the ability, 

 and some necessity which the rural carrier can bring, is the most im- 

 portant advantage of the rural free delivery system. But this system will 

 not, can not and should not be made a permanent factor in the country 

 unless the farmers see to it that the roads are kept in such a condition 

 that the route can be covered in the time allotted. The United States 

 Government, through its Postoffice Department, demands that farmers do 

 this much, and the demand is just. 



Those farmers of the State who have had the foresight and good judg- 

 ment to improve the roads in their vicinity are, for the most part, con- 

 tented and prosperous. Their products are easily gotten to market when 

 the price is at its best, and the wolf never rests on his haunches before 

 their doors. On the other hand, those living in the bad roads district 

 endure for more than a third of their time an enforced idleness which 

 makes them poorer and causes them to cry out against their lot in life, 

 rather than against their own short-sightedness on the road question. In- 

 diana is rich in clay and suitable for vitrified brick, rich in gravel, rich 

 in .stone for macadam roads. There is no reason, therefore, why every 

 public road of any importance in the State should not be improved so that 

 it can be traveled with ease any day in the year. 



Let us now take up a second phase of the question. In the peniten- 

 tiary at Michigan City and in the reformatory at Jeffersonville are 1,800 

 men, most of whom are able-bodied. Only n few years ago half of these 



