118 MISSOURI ACUICULTURAL REPORT. 



S. M. Prathcr, of Tarkio, Missouri, recently in St. Joseph, and as we shook 

 hands he said : "I did not take much stock in your dragging idea at first, 

 but I'll tell you, you cannot talk long enough or hard enough to a man to 

 make him believe what it will do. The only way for him to comprehend 

 it is to build a drag and use it." 



Mr. Qias. Hill, who lives about eight miles from Mexico, Mo., writes : 

 "I have tried Mr. King's method of dragging roads and have found it a 

 great success. I have dragged about three miles of road past my place 

 this season. I have seen the time when other roads were cut up into two 

 or three different pairs of ruts, and a man would be forced to travel in 

 one of them. These ruts would come right up to each end of the dragged 

 road which would be perfectly smooth." 



In conversation with me, Mr. Hill remarked : "Why, I could send a 

 stranger over the road today, muddy as it is, and he would know within 

 three feet of the place where I began to drag." 



I have often told my friends that one could see a wide difference 

 with the eye, but that they must ride over the two roads in a buggy before 

 they could appreciate the dragged road. Now, however, I go further 

 and insist that one must drive a loaded wagon repeatedly over the two 

 before he can correctly estimate the benefit of dragging. I reached the 

 latter conclusion while hauling wheat this fall One can note at a distance 

 the change in the "chuckle" of a loaded wagon when it rolls onto the 

 dragged road from out of the ruts, but he must ride and drive if he would 

 get the full effect of the lurching of the wagon and the whipping of the 

 tongue. 



Weeds. — Until within eighteen months I did not fully comprehend 

 the importance of low weeds as a factor in destroying roads. I mean low 

 weeds and grass along the wheel tracks. They arc an unol^trusive but 

 powerful agent of destruction. There has been an active campaign 

 against the tall weeds and we are compelled to mow tliem, but the little 

 fellow has been getting in his work unnoticed. It is this way : In the 

 spring the big machine smooths the road from ditch to ditch, then we all 

 drive down the center. After the first shower the weeds spring up and 

 in a few days are ready for business. Their business is a four-in-one 

 combination, i. e., to prevent the rain water from running to the side 

 ditches, thus holding it in the wheel tracks, even when no ruts exist ; in 

 dry weather to catch and hold the dust, in wet weather to catch the mud 

 that hoofs and wheels splash; and at all times to keep the surface moist 

 and loose and therefore soft. Is it not clear that if one inch of dusr and 

 mud is removed from the center and caught by the weeds on the side, 

 that their relative levels have been changed two inches? When we mow 

 these weeds we aggravate the difficulty by adding their tops to the ac- 



