372 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



away with the Saturday night session enlliely in my county but 1 

 have succeeded in relieving them in that way in my county so that 

 there is no complaints at all. 



DEPUTY SECKETAKY MARTIN: Just for a moment. I have 

 learned that a gentleman very largely interested in good roads is 

 present and can only be here for a few moment, Dr. ^IcOaskey. The 

 audience will listen to him for the few moments in reference to some 

 things he has to say on this subject. You know we just passed a reso- 

 lution this forenoon and unanimously referred it to the Legislature re- 

 garding good roads; and Dr. McCaskey can only be present for a few 

 moments and we will suspend this discussion for that length of time 

 in order that we may be favored with the remarks of Dr. McCaskey. 



DR. McCASKEY: Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of this Institute: 

 This road question seems to me to be almost as important as the 

 various ways Ave try to figure out raising cattle and avoiding disease 

 in our crops, because if you don't have a good way to get your stntT 

 to where you can sell it, why the expense of transporting our products 

 is going to eat up a good bit of the extra profit you make by knowing 

 how to grow and improve our stock. When I was asked to come here 

 to-day I felt that I did not have any particular message to give, be- 

 cause you men know as well as I what we are up against on this road 

 I^roposition. The thing is, how are we going to better it? That is the 

 point we have to decide. Now there are several ways and the first and 

 most important way is for each one of us in our own sphere to ask 

 ourselves what we can do where we live, in our own circle, our own 

 Senate. That is what I did. I am a country physician. I am not a 

 road maker by scientific study. I simply am a practical road super- 

 visor, because I asked myself that question: "What can I do in my 

 own county, on my roads in my township, under the antagonism of 

 my section? And here is how I got into it. There is a road called 

 the Witmer Road one and one half miles long, made of earth, just or- 

 dinary glue when the frost is coming out of the ground. My jiractice 

 called me over that road five or six times a day. I drove it both by 

 horses and auto. All efforts to get that road improved were of no 

 avail. The road was like this: Hollow in the middle, high on the 

 sides, full of deep sink holes. Sometimes you would sink half ways 

 down to the axle. There were rough rocks sticking in the road and no 

 eff'orts made to drain it. After every storm the water lay there for a 

 week or ten days. T asked my supervisors nicely and as politely as I 

 could to fix it. T said: "Gentlemen, I am up against this proposition. 

 T want you to do something. Won't you please?" Well all I got: 

 "We will do something later on; we have no money now." All right. 

 1 waited and waited and got back at them again. Nothing doing. So 

 I got tired. I said, "Well, will you give me permission to repair this 

 road, if you cannot?" I got the permission of two of the supervisors 

 out of the three composing the board of supervisors. Well. I got a 

 drag from the Lancaster Automobile Club, by the way, they furnished 

 drags for nothing to anybody that would use them. I got a drag and 

 started to drag this road to improve it. I did not know much about the 

 principles of dragging and the first time that T dragged it, it was soft 

 and that night it froze and made it a little rough for a day or two, but 



