138 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



solely by the farmers or by those owning land, and that the cost should 

 be laid upon the abutting- property. The towns, the cities, the people in 

 general, have just as much interest in every way in good substantial 

 roads as the farmer, and it is an unnecessary burden, a wrongful burden 

 upon the land and upon the farmer, to require that he shall be made to 

 stand all the expense of the construction of the roads. Now we all recog- 

 nize that for many years to come, a large percentage of the roads will be 

 the common earth roads and we cannot hope in a day to surface these roads 

 but I want to say to you gentlemen that you will never have a good sub- 

 stantial road, such a road as your interest demands, until you surface that 

 road with some hard, resisting material. Now you must come to that 

 proposition. You may improve the earth roads, and you may get good, 

 satisfactory results from them ; you may improve your natural conditions 

 a great deal, and that is to be commended ; but what you want to do is to 

 put your heads together and evolve a system that means for you and your 

 county and your district, good highways that are surfaced either with 

 substantial rock or gravel or mining slag, or something that makes a good 

 durable road. This is not an impossibility, it is not a burden when its cost 

 is properly equalized. In the States of New York, Massachusetts and 

 New Jersey, they are building splendid roads — probably more expensive 

 than it would be necessary in these Western States. Those States are 

 rich and the people have gone into it and they are building expensive 

 roads. You need not follow all of the details of their laws, but those 

 principles should be adopted, and they will be and must be before you have 

 a satisfactory system of road improvement. 



Now, Col. Waters said this morning that your present laws upon the 

 statute books were all sufficient for your purposes. I have read over the 

 statute laws of the State touching upon the question of roads, highways, 

 bridges, etc., and in a general way I can endorse what Col. Waters says. 

 My impression from reading them, however, was that upon the subject 

 of highway improvement you have overlooked a very important principle 

 in the enactment of these laws. Col. Waters said this morning that the 

 laws were perfect but we did not have good roads and the law would not 

 build roads. That is very true. Now, in order to have roads and to con- 

 struct roads, you must have your laws practical and applicable to con- 

 ditions, and some force must be behind them to put them into operation. 

 Now, if I am not mistaken, the law in regard to the construction of hard 

 roads in this State provides that a petition must be signed by the adjoin- 

 ing land owners along where the road is made, and that the tax levy must 

 be restricted to the district wherein the road is to be built. Now, with 

 that principle it will be the exception if you ever build many hard roads, 

 because a man is not going to sign a petition to build an expensive road 



