42 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



PAPER BY S. S. BAILEY OF GEAND EAPID8. 



Our need of good roads is so self-evident and so universally acknowledged 

 that any lengthy argument to show the fact seems almost a waste of time. 

 Still, something must be said, that those who make our laws may know 

 what are the wishes of the people. While rapid progress has been made 

 in all other directions, for means of travel and the hauling of the products 

 of the country to market, only very slow progress has been made for the 

 same purpose in improving the common roads of the country, and in reality 

 no progress in bettering the condition of our roads for use during fall and 

 spring. In many places the roads in fall and spring are worse than in their 

 primitive condition. For over fifty years there has been a lack of system 

 for the improvement of the highways. Our present laws give us in reality 

 no system. The state as such has taken no interest in highway improve- 

 ment. It has provided for the taking of land, for electing commissioners 

 and appointing overseers, and for a labor tax, and for local taxation for 

 improvements and repairs, but has not defined how a road should be built, 

 nor has it made provision for any first-class roads, leaving it entirely with 

 the highway commissioner and the overseer of highways to make such roads 

 as their fancy may choose. The result has been, there is no uniformity in 

 the highways of the state, and no first-class roads for any great number of 

 miles. The state defines how a " toll road," owned by a corporation, shall 

 be built, but on its own roads, for all roads are really state property, it lays 

 down no rule for the guidance of the thousand officials who supervise the 

 work; nor does it provide for the building of any first-class roads for any 

 given number of miles, no matter how great the necessity may be for such 

 roads. In the state are nearly 1,500 highway town commissioners, and over 

 25,000 overseers of highways, each one of whom makes that part of the 

 road in his district according to his own notion or whim, and without any 

 regard whatever as to how the road in the next district is improved. The 

 state exercises no authority over its roads dedicated to the public, by defin- 

 ing how and of what material the same shall be made, nor does it provide 

 for establishing grades nor for the employment of competent overseers or 

 engineers. 



In order to secure good roads we need further legislation, such as the 

 light of experience in this and the older nations would suggest. No people 

 and no nation has secured permanent, first-class roads for any great portion 

 of the country by depending on local taxation. In all foreign countries, 

 in their early history, the same idea prevailed that has been the governing 

 one in this country: that is, that the farming community must build the 

 common roads of the country for the benefit of the public at large, the 

 larger share of the wealth of the country being excused from giving aid. 

 The farmers, unorganized, have submitted and built such roads as their 

 means would allow, and no good, permanent roads have been built in any 

 country until the l3itter wail of the people in behalf of better highways 

 has been heard by the state and nation, and such aid given as would, with 

 the help of the farming community, secure the object desired. In our own 

 state, the laws for the last fifty years have been such that two thirds of the 

 wealth of the state has been exempt from any taxation for the improvement 

 of the public highways. At the present time the assessed valuation of the 

 state, including railroad and other corporate property paying specific taxes, 

 is about eighteen hundred millions. Of this amount only about six hun- 

 dred millions pays any tax for the benefit of the public highways. The 



