No. 6. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 41 



GOOD ROADS. 



The absence of good public roads in Pennsylvania is the greatest 

 obstacle now existing in the way of rural improvement. Ease of 

 accessibility has become a necessity. Population will not even con- 

 sider the. question of locating in a district that cannot be readily 

 reached from the cities and towns, and those living in a district 

 which is shut out of communication with the world, will leave it as 

 soon as opportunity oifers. On the other hand, the fact that a com- 

 munity is furnished with rapid and reliable means of communica- 

 tion, invites the best and most progressive people to purchase homes 

 there, and thus there is not only checked the flow of population to 

 the cities, which has set in to an alarming degree, but it will in- 

 crease country population, and do this by selecting the choicest citi- 

 zens from the cities and towns of the State, so that the country 

 will again become the abode of the culture and refinement of the 

 land. 



The difficulty in the way of securing these conditions is 

 not that the country people do not appreciate good roads, or that 

 they fail to see the great advantage which they will be to agricul- 

 ture and rural life, but they have feared that the great expense which 

 the construction and maintenance of good roads entail, will fall 

 wholly upon them. If, however, the State will assume at least part 

 of this burden, and ensure that no increase of tax shall be imposed 

 upon farming people, there will not only be no opposition to the im- 

 provement of our roads, but such improvement v.ill be gladly wel- 

 comed. 



CITIES AND TOWNS BENEFITTED. 



The delay in making an appropriation for this purpose by the 

 State, has been largely due to a misconception of the purpose for 

 which public roads are laid out. Many have felt that these roads 

 were exclusively for the benefit of the residents who live along them, 

 and that, therefore, their construction and maintenance should fall 

 upon these residents whollj', and all other citizens of the State 

 be exempt from tax for their support. This view would have some 

 degree of applicability if the same conditions existed now, as existed 

 in the year 1800, when only a little over ten per cent, of the people 

 of the State lived in the cities and incorporated towns, and nin'^ty 

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