No, 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 387 



bicycle, and still later, of the motor car, that our attention has been 

 called to the miserable condition of onr roads and the inadequate 

 laws governing them. The National Good Roads Association has en- 

 listed the services and assistance of several important railways in a 

 campaign of education in some of the Southern states. 



A special train carries the machinery for sample road-building 

 here and there, so the people accustomed to bad roads can see for 

 themselves what a good road is, and what it means. They want 

 good roads. The railways are interested in good roads because the 

 latter act as feeders of railways. They develop the territory 

 through which they are built and increase the productive capacity 

 by greatly diminishing the cost of marketing crops. 



It is, in the main, an economical question pertaining principally 

 to the waste of effort in hauling over bad roads, the saving in money, 

 time and energy in hauling over good ones, the initial cost of main- 

 taining good and bad ones. Much as one may differ as to the method 

 of road-building, we are undoubtedly of one mind, that the dirt 

 road has seen its day, and that all money spent on repairing earth 

 roads becomes each year a total loss without materially improving 

 their condition. They are' the most expensive roads that can be 

 used. 



The introduction of improved road-building machinery has enabled 

 the authorities of some states to build improved stone and gravel 

 roads quite cheaply. In a recent publication it is given that first- 

 class single track stone roads, nine feet wide, have been built near 

 Canandaigua, N, Y,, for about one thousand dollars per mile. Many 

 excellent gravel roads have been built in Kew Jersey for one thou- 

 sand to thirteen hundred dollars per mile. The materials out of 

 which they were constructed were placed in two layers, each being 

 raked and thoroughly rolled, and the whole was consolidated to a 

 thickness of eight inches. In some states macadam has been built for 

 two to five thousand dollars per m.ile. varying in width from nine to 

 twenty feet and in thickness of material from four to twelve inches, 



Telford roads, fourteen feet wide and ten to twelve inches thick, 

 have been built in New Jersey for four to six thousand dollars per 

 mile. In a section of country where the topography is somewhat 

 rougher than in New Jersey, necessitating the reduction of many 

 steep grades and the building of expensive retaining walls and 

 bridges, and also partly to the difference in method of construction 

 and the difference in price of material and labor, the cost of such 

 roads will be proportionately greater. 



New Jersey has the reputation of building more good roads for 

 less money per mile than any other state in the Union, Their roads 

 cost frona twenty to seventy cents per square yard — where the 

 Telford construction is used, they sometimes cost as much as seven- 

 ty-three cents per square yard. 



We would refer those especially interested in road-building to the 

 pamphlet on Koads and Road Laws of 1895 and 1903, compiled by 

 State Highway Commissioner, Joseph W. Hunter, in which he gives 

 many good points that are necessary to be observed in the construc- 

 tion and maintenance of good roads. A copy of this excellent pub- 

 lication should be in the hands of every supervisor of this Common- 

 wealth, 



