No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. t8$ 



cost, a realization of the roart users dream; a large percentage of 

 the more important roads of the State, equitably apportioned— typi- 

 fied by the present system of inter-connty State Highways — which 

 shall be of easy grade, safely guarded at dangerous places, dry and 

 smooth at all seasons of the year, hard enough to withstand the at- 

 tacks of the fastest, and sufficiently well based to endure without 

 flinching the impact of the heaviest traffic to which it may be sub- 

 mitted. A large i)roposition ? Yes! But if there is any state in 

 the Union that has the science, skill, money and material to solve it, 

 Pennsylvania is that state. And the Department of Highways is our 

 agency for the application of these splendid facilities to the solu- 

 tion of the problem. While it may not be the best possible agency 

 for the purpose it is the only one we have or are likely to have. 

 It is here, it has been here long enough to be settled in its bearings, 

 and it is here to stay. 



Now let us make the best possible use of it. If, in years gone 

 by — whether with or without reason does not matter now — it lost 

 our confidence to such a degree that we refused to give it the fifty 

 millions it asked for with which to do a part of this big job, and 

 is now making honest and energetic efforts to regain that confidence, 

 let us meet it half way, and a little more; and when it has shown, 

 like the Missouri mule, that it can and will be real good, we will 

 authorize the bond issue and buy the bonds ourselves. We can do 

 it as easy as turn our hands. Something less than a century ago, 

 when we were comparatively young and poor, we wanted better trans- 

 portation facilities quite as much as we do now, and in that day 

 canals were the best things we knew, so we undertook a system of 

 water ways — ^low ways, if your please — and we authorized a bond 

 issue of forty millions and built them through a commission. They 

 served their purpose, were superceded by the railways, went into a 

 condition of "innocuous desuetude," and the bonds were all paid 

 off long ago, no one being the worse for it. We can do far more than 

 that now and not half try. It is up to the Department to show 

 us that it will discreetly and honestly spend, on this inter-county 

 highway, eight or nine thousand miles long, with a fair share to the 

 township road, and it can have the money, and we will all have the 

 roads. 



But what of this eighty or ninety thousand miles of township 

 road, dirt road, just road, and sometimes hardly that? The road 

 that we farmers used to get out to and connect up with the (some- 

 times twenty-two-thousand-dollars-per-mile) intercounty highway? 

 That's the road which this body, representing the farmers of every 

 county of the State, is most concerned with. The road that takes 

 our produce to the railway station and the market ; and ourselves and 

 our families to school and to church and to the polls ; the road the R. 

 F. D. man uses to bring us our mail; the road that we use and that 

 is used for us three hundred and sixty-five days every year ; and over 

 which, when in days unnumbered we are carried to the bit of green 

 sward "by the little brown church in the vale." 



The road system of state, or nation, for that matter, may well be 

 compared to the arterial system of our bodies; The main arteries 

 carrying the traffic of blood to the several main sections of the body 

 are first to be considered of course, in order to establish the system, 



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