LTVF. STOCK BREEDERS. 123 



roads because they honestly believe that they are not able to better them- 

 selves. The conviction that progress is possible must first exist before 

 any attempt at progress will be made. It certainly is unfortunate that the 

 mistaken idea that macadamized roads are impossible prevails in so many 

 communities. Some folks seem to have a notion that unless the fields are 

 covered with stone, rock is too scarce for road building. I will be dog- 

 matic for a moment and assert, as a general proposition that a macadam- 

 ized pike is a possibility wherever land is worth $30 per acre and rock 

 can be obtained within two and one-half miles of the proposed road. 

 Not all the roads, of course, nor perhaps even half the mileage, but the 

 main thoroughfares. 



Permit me a few moments in support of my position. While visit- 

 ing in Alabama last summer I saw rock roads building at a cost of $2,200 

 per mile where the best land was priced at only $25 to $30 per acre. 

 Moreover, in my opinion, the road they were building was far heavier 

 and wider than the travel demanded, and therefore much more expense 

 than necessary. But the people there have been educated to see the ad- 

 vantages of the stone road. Please do not think I am speaking of a 

 radically progressive community. The old darkey still doffs his tattered 

 hat and steps off the sidewalk as you pass. Chain harness is the rule. 

 The old style bull-tongue plow is in tl^e majority and these fine roads 

 are traveled by ox teams. Not of the ''New South" am I speaking, but 

 of the genuine old fashioned, hospitable old South of the ante-bellum 

 days. And now another statement : Although rock is superabundant 

 thereabout, still the contractor found it profitable to haul the crushed rock 

 two and one-half miles before moving the crushing machinery. I submit, 

 gentlemen, that these two facts prove that with rock less than two and 

 one-half miles distant and land at thirty dollars per acre, macadamized 

 roads are a possibility. And it would seem a natural sequence that where 

 land is more valuable, the stone can be hauled farther. 



And now let us consider an instance where a community might have 

 rock roads if they just thought so. I have in mind two towns here in 

 Missouri, lying about six miles apart. What is land worth ? Well, land 

 between these two towns has sold recently for $80 per acre. Probably not 

 an acre could be bought for less than $50; therefore, , the land value is 

 there. As for rock, if we start from one town to go to the other, we find 

 rock within a hundred steps of the highway before we travel a mile. At 

 two and a half miles, rock is less than one-half mile distant. At three and 

 a half miles, only three-fourth miles away. At four and one-fourth 

 miles from town but one-fourth mile to rock, while at five and one-half 

 miles it is only one-half mile from the road to a quarry that is kept open 

 constantly. Here is rock, quantities of it. Here is land worth much 



