No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 387 



call and 'worked out the tax," with no standard to guide and no 

 authority to jud.ce, otlior tlian tliat of the autocratic sujjcrvisor. 

 Down to 1887, no lax ])ayable in money could be levied nor collected 

 except by order of the county court to pay an obligation already in- 

 curred for some special purpose. In that year it was written — see 

 pamphlet Laws, 1887, Act No. 140 — that the supervisors "may, and 

 they are hereby autliorized to collect, annually, in cash, not exceed- 

 ing twenty-five per centum of the rates for the purchase of imple- 

 ments and materials as may be found necessary;" and your speaker 

 had the valued honor of aiding in tlio enactment of that law, and 

 personally amending it by the introduction of the word "materials," 

 that a supervisor miglit, in time of dire need, purchase and pay for 

 a plank or bit of timber with which to patch a broken down bridge 

 across a little run, or buy a pick handle of a store-keeper who did 

 not happen to be a tax payer in the same road district. 



This is a brief summary of the legal machinery, power and re- 

 sources for making and maintaining the one hundred thousand 

 miles — I am using round numbers^of Pennsylvania's country roads 

 until within the period of a single generation. 



The highest types of road known were the McAdam and the Telford, 

 which was simply a solid base for the McAdam where needed, and 

 in a general way they were well guarded by toll gates. That a con- 

 siderable number of these moss-grown relics of pioneer days remain 

 is a serious reflection upon the practical, common sense business 

 qualifications of the people of Pennsylvania. 



Now, the buggy, carriage or coach, of light weight and horse-speed, 

 is largely superceded by the self-driven, heavy automobile going at 

 twelve toforty miles an hour. The old, lofty Conestoga wagon, with 

 its broad tires contributing to the permanence of the road upon 

 which it traveled at two to three miles per hour, has given way to 

 the ten to twenty ton truck at fifteen to twenty miles per hour. 



These changes have reduced the McAdam and Telford types of road 

 to second and third class, and made the archaic medley of old time 

 road laws "mere scraps of paper." The road supervisor has been 

 shorn of his autocracy, and becomes an adjunct of a State Depart- 

 ment of Highways; and the old country road beginning at the bor- 

 ough line and extending to the suburban turnpike. Here let us halt. 



Its efficient and available substitute, the new highway that will 

 sustain and repel the attacks of the new, exacting and aggressive 

 traffic, has not yet been discovered, and it is not the function of this 

 Board, nor of its Committee to discover it. This is one of the first 

 and most important duties of the Department of Highways. It is 

 clothed with abundant power to secure, and equipped with funds 

 ad libitum to pay for, the services of engineers and scientists whose 

 high attainments are doubtless equal to the task. That a road which 

 will successfully withstand the assaults of this wonderful engine of 

 destruction can be made goes without saying; but to this time it has 

 not been made excepting at such large costs as to make it unavailable 

 under present conditions. 



The one plain fact is that the whole public road theme, (indeed 

 the whole subject of transportation in its largest dimensions) from 

 the mud road to the Lincoln Highway, from the township supervisor 

 to the State Highway Commissioner, from the two-mill tax to the 



