No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 237 



you have solved the great question of trausportation iu relation to 

 your oacals, in relation to your steamships, in relation to your great 

 railways, you solve the equally important branch of the transporta- 

 tion problem which embraces the common highways of the country. 

 Of what importance is it if the great arteries of commerce be perfect, 

 if the little veins leading to them be not also perfect? What matter 

 it if you cheapen the raU; from the railway station to Liverpool, if 

 it costs as much to get grain from the farm to the station as to take 

 it from the station to the great markets of the world? There is the 

 problem of road making in a nut shell. [Ai)p!ause.] 



But beyond these material a«d economic considerations there are 

 many phases of this question affecting the social as well as the ma- 

 terial well-being of the people. The most sagacious men of the pres- 

 ent day, the thinkers, the acute observers, see many dangerous ten- 

 dencies in this age of marvelous progress. One of the dangers is 

 that the boys and girls are leaving the farm and going into the towos 

 and cities. What is to become of the world when many of our great 

 cities are ten times as great as they are now? It is true that the 

 trolley is to some extent dispersing population, but only in a subur- 

 ban way. I believe that in this question of road improvement lies 

 the solution to a great extent of this difficult problem. In those 

 old lands, to which I referred, the love of rural life is far more highly 

 developed than it is in this country. In England, in Scotland, in 

 France, and in Germany, when men become wealthy they are anxious 

 to get out on the farm rather than i«to the cities. One reason for 

 that is found in the beauty of the landscape, the beauty of the road- 

 ways and the roadsides. It is very different here. An English poet 

 anticipated what we see in this country to-day when he said: 



111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 

 Where wealth accumulates, and men decay. 



Wealth is accumulating in this country with marvelous rapidity, 

 but men are deserting the farm. You ought to turn them back. 

 But if you want to keep the intelligent, brainy boys and girls of the 

 country upon the farm instead of bringing them into the towns and 

 cities amid the glare of the gaslights and the dangers of city life, 

 3'ou will assist us in this great movement, which means not only 

 the making of highways, but the beautification of the roadsides and 

 the rural homes of this great country of yours. [Applause.] 



And now% having endeavored to show or to suggest the import- 

 ance of the good roads problem, the enormous economy of good 

 roads, the incalculable loss through bad ones, to suggest the many 

 sides and phases of this vast problem of transportation — affecting, 

 as they do, the social as well as the economic well-being of the peo- 



