194 STATE BOARD OF AGKICULTUIiE. 



"The cost of a 15-ton steam road roller would be about §5,000, delivered. 

 Cost of operating same, labor, fuel and repairs, $5 per day ; widtli rolled, G feet ; 

 average speed, two miles per hour. At this rate it is safe to estimate they will 

 roll 2 miles per day, over a surface 20 feet wide. 



"Roads made with these rollers will require repairs like all others, but they 

 will not be expensive, consisting of filling up ruts and holes with good mater- 

 ials and rolling." 



Suppose it costs §300 per mile to build such a road, and that the expense was 

 borne by the property owners on each side of the road for a width of one mile; 

 this would make a tax of only 23^ cents per acre, or §18.75 for each 80-acre 

 farm. 



General W. S. Rosecrans has shown that the value of lauds depend on their 

 distance from market and the expense of hauling 100 lbs. of produce over one 

 mile of road. We would be glad to present his reasoning and some facts which 

 he has pointed out, but time will not permit. Assuming the annual average 

 products of an acre at 1,200 lbs. of crop, with an average value of §1.35 per 

 hundred, and costing 75 cts. per hundred to produce ready for market, interest 

 being G per cent., it can be shown that a difference of one cent in the cost of 

 hauling 100 lbs. a mile, at a mile from the market makes a difference of §2.00 

 per acre in the value of land, and that a difference of 1-10 of a cent in the cost 

 of hauling 100 lbs. one mile, at one mile from the market, makes a difference 

 of the 23^ cents per acre which the improvement in roads suggested Avould cost. 

 Thus you see a single mud hole in the road over which you haul your produce, 

 may lessen the value of a farm several times what a good road costs. How long 

 the farmers of Eaton county can atford to haul their produce over poor roads 

 we leave you to decide. 



As wooden bridges are fast being replaced by iron structures, it becomes a 

 matter of some importance, financially as well as for safety, that only first-class 

 bridges are built. Too often, on country roads and in the smaller towns, this is 

 not the case, and taxpayers will find to their sorrow before many years have 

 elapsed, that they have been most shamefully swindled. The specifications of 

 one prominent bridge building company, for country bridges, are as follows: 

 The bridge shall be capable of sustaining a load of about Go lbs. per square 

 foot of floor surface, over the whole or any part of the bridge, or shall pass a 

 log cart carrying 15,C00 lbs. on two wheels, in addition to the weight of the 

 bridge, without straining any piece to exceed 10,000 lbs. per square inch, or one- 

 fifth of its ultimate strength, and when fully loaded the bridge shall not de- 

 flect more than 1-1200 of its length, and when the load is removed shall return 

 to its original camber. 



Were this test applied to the iron bridges of Eaton and adjoining counties, 

 many of them would fail entirely. They will stand for a few years, until some 

 extra load conies upon them, or a crowd gather to witness a boat race, a bap- 

 tism or something of the kind, and Dixon and Ashtabula will be repeated with 

 all their horrors. 



Do you ask who is to blame for tliis? I reply the highway commissioner. 

 He is the person appointed by the people to look after their interests, and they 

 have a right to expect that he will know that their money is judiciously ex- 

 pended. Unless he is a practical engineer he is no more competent to decide 

 upon the merits of the plans presented at a bridge letting than he is to design 

 a steam engine or construct a railroad. If the towns were involved in a law- 

 suit he would not attempt to manage the case himself, but would consult some 



