WEST MICHIGAN FRUIT GROWERS' ASSOCIATION 213 



roads? Have we a more important question before us today? It involves 

 the home and all of its surroundings, it enters into the competition of 

 price for the products of the farm. Labor-saving machinery has found a 

 place within the ranks of labor. He who today conducts his business as 

 his lather did before him is regarded as a laggard, and will find himself 

 out-classed in the race for favor. Change is seen everywhere, excej)t in 

 the maintenance of the highways of the country. 



I believe that the desire for good roads is widespread. The question is, 

 how are we to improve them? Times are hard, and the farm is not paying 

 as well as it used to do. We are taxed now to the utmost of our ability to 

 pay. These are the objections we meet from those who are in accord 

 with us in sentiment. 



Let me assure you that it is not the intention of those pushing the good 

 roads question to add to your burdens of taxation, but to unify the system 

 of road work, and to classify the same. 



There are many w-ays that this may be done. One is by changing the 

 work so that much of the real improvement will be done in the winter 

 season. There are many of our people who have horses idle in the winter, 

 and if there was an opportunity to work the roads in the time when there 

 was but little to do with the team, we Avould be able to get added to the 

 assessed work a great amount of hauling done by volunteers. Especially 

 is this so where the trouble is with sand and covering is required to make 

 the road passable. 



It seems to the writer that the first thing looking to good roads is to 

 correct the alignment of the road, then to secure a profile of the road, 

 giving a regular grade-and-fill line for a road that will give to the greatest 

 number the greatest good. Make some road a sort of a trunk line through 

 the township, as a starter. Complete that road upon fixed lines, making 

 a profile giving the cuts and fills necessary for all time. 



When one road is done, take another, and so on. In time the work will 

 be completed and the town will be covered with good roads, and without 

 additional cost to the taxpayer. 



You will say this is all right, but how are we going to do it? I answer, 

 by making these changes spoken of. In order to do so we must discuss the 

 question and do it without passion or prejudice. 



The other questions of good roads — what is to be done with the snow 

 in winter? Does tree-planting along the highways improve or injure 

 the roads by adding to the drifting of snow? If it does, what should be 

 done? Also, what about the fencing, and how should it be constructed? 

 are questions that come to us in this discussion. 



Good roads are as necessary in one time of the year as in another — 

 winter and summer alike. We are convinced that the sand must be 

 covered; that the clay must be drained, and that the building of wooden 

 bridges and culverts is no longer to be thought of. 



I believe that the roads of the country can be greatly improved by a 

 systematic effort, and an earnest and judicious expenditure of the money 

 or time now provided for the highways. 



Believing as I do that the gravest question that confronts us at the 

 start is the one of change from the labor tax to a money tax, I ask to be 

 heard upon that question for a short time. 



We have, as before stated, in the state of Michigan something like 

 twelve hundred millions of dollars of property that is not paying a cent 



