No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. (557 



OUR NEW ROAD LAW, 



By Hon. Joseph \V. Hunter. State Hiohway Conunismonvr, Harrishurf/, Pa. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen of tlie Pennsylvania Board of Agri- 

 culture: 



I have attended with much pleasure and jn^ofit some of the 

 sessions of your meeting. I have listened to the instructive ad- 

 dresses with a great deal of interest. I am a much better listener 

 than talker. I lay no claim to being a public speaker, but I am 

 deeply interested in good roads, and I appreciate the honor that 

 you have conferred upon me by asking me to address this meeting 

 of representative farmers of Pennsylvania. Some say agricultur- 

 ists, but I prefer the word farmer; it is shorter; and an agriculturist 

 may be a mere theorist, but a practical farmer is not a mere theorist. 

 He gets down to hard pan every time. He wants to know what 

 benefit is to be derived by a change from an old to a new method. 

 He may be slow at times in making up his mind to accept pro- 

 posed changes or innovations in his usual course of life, or in his 

 way of doing things, but once his mind is made up to accept a 

 proposition or change, such a cause has no stronger or more earnest 

 supporter. 



The farmers are the mainstay of the nation. They support and 

 maintain us, and in no state or nation are they more progressive 

 than in this great Commonwealth. We excel all other nations, ex- 

 cept in the matter of good roads and easy methods of transporta- 

 tion, and in this particular I believe that in a few years we will 

 be abreast of the foremost state, if we do not lead the procession, 

 in the onward march of progress. Ninety-five per cent, of every 

 load by railroad, steamship or express must be carted in a wagon 

 or truck over a highway. It costs the farmers of the United States 

 75 per cent, more than those of Europe to market an equal tonnage 

 of farm products over primary roads. 



The question of Good Roads has been before the people of this 

 Commonwealth for upwards of a quarter of a century, various at- 

 tempts having been made to secure legislation in the direction of 

 road improvement; and while we have been discussing the question 

 pro and con, neighboring commonwealths have had the courage 

 of their convictions and for ten years past have been constructing 



42—6—1903 



