Road Demonstrations. 329 



tempted with machinery other than the road roller. The rain helped 

 the rolling of about 1,000 linear feet of newly made rock road. The 

 citizens of Republic and vicinity are awake to the meaning of good roads, 

 and aside from well-shaped earth roads, have built three miles of good 

 crushed rock road within the past two years and are building and plan- 

 ning a continuation of the work. A similar sentiment was found at Ash 

 Grove where they have one and one-half miles of rock road. We worked 

 one day at Ash Grove, putting 500 feet of rough undrained street into 

 good shape. The county highway engineer and road overseers here had 

 affairs well in hand and we received the readiest, best organized and 

 most efficient assistance at Ash Grove of any place on the trip. Sixty- 

 five attended the lecture in the evening. The Republic and Ash Grove 

 communities do not need road demonstrations and lectures to incite an 

 interest — the interest is already there. They need state aid to help and 

 encourage the work, and they will make the good roads. 



The only piece of all-earth road work was met with at Lamar where 

 in one day (by 4 p. m.) we had graded, drained, shaped up and rolled 

 complete one-half mile of an old unworked earth road. A fairly good in- 

 terest was manifest, the attendance being about 100, although the piece of 

 road was well located for inspection. The lecture and road meeting were 

 dispensed with at Lamar. 



With the work completed by four, the machinery could have all 

 been loaded by 5 p. m., but for the only mishap of any kind on the 

 entire trip, which, considering the push and hurry, the loading and un- 

 loading and shipping from place to place, is not a bad record. Here 

 all was loaded but the 10-ton steam roller, which was the last piece of 

 machinery to go on board. As it mounted the temporary loading plat- 

 form everybody stood aside, with a breatli of relief that the end had 

 come, when, with the front trucks on the car, the ereosoted railroad ties 

 slipped from under the hind trucks and the roller was loft standing on 

 end, resting on the fire box with the front roller on the edge of the car. 

 It took till well into the night to get her righted, a new platform erected 

 and the big machine in her place on the car. The remarks made when 

 she went down wouldn 't look very well in print. The next morning the 

 baggage car was dismantled, the exhibits boxed, the party disbanded and 

 all shipped in various directions for home and new fields. 



Some people wondered why all this trip, the borrowed machinery, 

 the free transportation and the object of the whole trip. The undertaking 

 was a serious matter, hard work ani no play. The loaned machinery 

 and promised transportation was n;:oessary simply because the great 

 State of Missouri, so badly in need ot: better roads, has never supported 

 its highway department with sufficient funds to enable it to undertake 



