PROCEEDINGS OF THE WINTER MEETING. 45 



cost of grading and graveling is not far from $1,800 per mile, donations 

 included, of course. 



How well-grounded is the sentiment in favor of good roads, may be 

 judged by the fact that it cost Monterey township fully .§1,000 each to 

 grade two hills. If you think this is not good proof of satisfaction with 

 the work done, consider a moment how hard it is in the average township 

 to get any appropriation at all for such improvement, and then measure 

 by it this expenditure for a few rods of roadway, repeated the next year. 



There are not many towns in southern Michigan where such improve- 

 ments are so costly. So, when you try next spring to start the work in 

 yotir town-meeting, you need not frighten your neighbors by quoting 

 these figures as the approximate cost everywhere. ■ Allegan is built in the 

 river valley and surrounded by hills in every direction, and this Monterey 

 road runs over a region where the earth was piled in fantastic shapes in 

 the glacial times, and road-building over it is a far more difficult and 

 expensive work than in most townships of this part of the state. 



I only wish the doubting and unprogressive men here, those staying at 

 home from lack of intelligent interest in their own welfare, could see 

 what we have done. There would be less need of changing the laws, and 

 less difficulty in getting liberal appropriations at the town-meetings this 

 spring. 



THE BOND DISTRICT SYSTEM. 



Mr. MoKRiLL: Our laws are such that only a small amount of money 

 can be raised by bonded indebtedness, so a change of the constitution is 

 necessary before very extended improvements of roads are possible. The 

 people of New Jersey and Ohio are in advance of others in the matter of 

 road building. The Telford system of road making is a base of rocks, 

 then crashed rock, them more of the same material but finer, until the 

 whole is eighteen inches thick. Such roads, or those of the McAdam 

 style, could be built here at a cost of $4,000 per mile. The plan of raising 

 money should be the bond-district system, the district for taxation being 

 one mile wide on either side of the road, all the work being done under 

 direction of the county commissioner. A majority of the freeholders is 

 necessary to a petition for the bonding. The plan of distribution of the 

 tax burden is this: sixty per cent, of the bonds are payable by the district, 

 forty per cent., by the county at large. The bonds run twenty years at 

 six per cent, only interest being paid for ten years and then one tenth 

 of the principal each year. The interest amounts to twelve or thirteen 

 cents per acre, in the district, and twenty-two to twenty-three cents per 

 acre when payment of the principal begins. The people along the road 

 get the benefit of wages for the labor in building which lightens the cost 

 somewhat. 



Mr. Brown emphasized the position of Mr. Bailey, that the villages 

 and cities should help build the roads. 



