140 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



interest in behalf of road improvement. The department alone can only 

 be directed in inquirin^: into the conditions, experimenting, educating, 

 spreading bulletins on these matters of information, going into the several 

 states (as it is my pleasure to come here) and talk to the people upon the 

 subject of improving the roads, but in the Postal Department there is an 

 improvement today that is having wonderful influence upon the road 

 condition and must increase its influence from time to time. I now refer 

 to the extension of the Rural Free Delivery. It has been and is a con- 

 dition precedent to the establishment and maintenance of the Rural Free 

 Delivery Routes, that the roads shall be in a good passable con- 

 dition, and the Department assured our Division that ihey shall 



be more responsive from time to time on that subject. Mr. 



has been with us at several of these conventions. He was with us at St. 

 Paul. He is a very practical man and one who is very much interested in 

 the subject of improving the roads and blotting out that which interferes 

 with and destroys the efficiency of the service in the extension of the 

 Rural Free delivery, and that Department is very anxious and is doing a 

 great work upon this subject. The Rural Free Delivery is extending 

 rapidly. It is a marvelous thing to contemplate what is being done in the 

 United States in this direction. I understand now at the close of this 

 fiscal year, that more than 12,500 routes will be established, that six or 

 seven million people living in rural districts will receive mail at their door. 

 These mail agents or carriers are really walking post offices and more 

 convenient than for men living in small villages where they have not 

 free delivery, because he comes to your door. He has envelopes, he regis- 

 ters letters, he takes letters and mails them, he does everything for you, 

 he gives you the news of the day, he is really a travelling bureau of in- 

 formation. You do not have to go beyond your own door. And, be- 

 sides, I understand that the Department of Agriculture will now add 

 another feature which will be important to the rural districts. The 

 Weather Bureau has endeavored largely to aid the farmer so that he may 

 know something of the weather for the benefit of the crops. Heretofore 

 they posted these signals in the towns, where the farmer would probably 

 not hear of them until his crops were destroyed. Now the idea is to have 

 these mail carriers who travel these postal routes to have these little sig- 

 nals upon their wagons or to carry them upon the peak of their cap, so 

 that when they come to the door you may know as near as the weather 

 fellows do what kind of weather you may expect. That is another very 

 important feature and it makes practical the Weather Bureau, and that 

 to some extent is what the Government is doing in the way of promot- 

 ing this subject of road improvement. 



The division is divided into four sections : southern, eastern, central, 

 and the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast. There is one special agent ap- 



