31G STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



improved 20 loaded teams per day pass over the road, carrying per team a load 

 of 33 bushels of ^vhcat or its equivalent, at a speed of 2^ miles per hour. Tiie 

 traffic over the road would amount to GOO bushels per day, and its costof transpor- 

 tation would amount to 81.98 per mile (see table) per day. To have carried the 

 same amount over our ordinary country roads would have cost $4.22 per mile 

 per day. 8o that the improved road gives a saving of $2.24 per mile for each 

 day. Jf we suppose that this traffic is maintained for 300 days in the year, the 

 saving will be §072 per year ])er mile, and tliis will ]irobably not be too higli an 

 estimate, for when the common roads are much affected by bad weather in 

 Spring and Fall, the traffic over the improved road will probably be increased 

 to an extent sufficient to make up deficiencies in tlie traffic that may occur in the 

 winter-season, at which time the cost of transportation is about the same over 

 common and improved roads. If the average cost of gravel roads be taken as 

 §250 to §400 per year for each mile, the saving witli tlie small traffic specified, 

 viz.: Two teams each hour, is enough to pay the cost and a good interest 

 (50 to 160%) on the investment. Such considerations as these tend to show 

 that time spent in improving the roads, is not entirely thrown away. These 

 figures would also seem to indicate, that we are paying in extra cost of 

 transportation over poor roads, a tax which would do much toward building 

 good ones. A poor road is a toll collector that needs no gates to exact its dues. 

 All who pass over it must pay in diminished loads and extra time a tax 

 proportional to its wretchedness. If the general public could be made to feel 

 that waste of time and waste of money are equivalents, and that extra time 

 spent in traveling over tlie roads could profitably be employed at home, some 

 steps would be taken that would lead to an actual improvement in the condition 

 of our common roads. 



llie Railroads. 



Most great inventions gradually creej) into the Avorld, and are received with- 

 out excitement and almost unconsciously appropriated. It was not so with the 

 locomotive and its sequence, the railroad, though both the locomotive and the 

 railroad were gradually brought to a state of perfection, the world was in almost 

 entire ignorance of their very existence until they were perfected and their 

 power vindicated at the llainhill trial, October, 1829. "This improvement 

 burst upon and surprised the world rather than crept into it." 



It was a surprise in the beginning, and though it was at once adopted by the 

 whole civilized world, its nature was not understood, and its history during the- 

 50 years of its existence has been that of one continual series of surprises. The 

 builders of the first railroads were surprised at the enormous traffic they could 

 accommodate, and at the enormous traffic they received. They were surprised 

 at the dividends on their investments. They were surprised in latter times 

 when they had come to expect dividends, because they did not pay, as they 

 formerly had been surprised because they did pay. In England they passed 

 laws regarding them, and then were surprised to find that the laws did not 

 affect or improve the railroads. The law-making i)ower said the railroads 

 should not consolidate, but in spite of that it was but a short time before the 

 roads were, with few exceptions, under one management. It was supposed that 

 low rates were maintained only by competition, yet the people were surprised 

 to find that consolidation lowered rather than raised rates. From beginning 

 to end the railroads have proved a surprise, and in view of past experience, 

 there is no man who has studied the question, who dares to predict what 



