48 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



We gave all aid possible to the road overseers' schools of in- 

 struction, and I am convinced that the law requiring that all over- 

 seers of a county be called together for instructions at the county 

 seat by the county engineer, at least once a year, is one of the best 

 features of our new road laws. 



The machinery for testing road materials was purchased last 

 spring, but has only recently been installed in the engineering 

 building of the State University. We are now prepared to test 

 any kind of road or bridge material which may be sent in by the 

 county officials, at no expense to them save for the shipment of 

 the materials to Columbia. 



The road exhibit put on by the highway department at the 

 State Fair last October was creditable, and consisted of road tools 

 and machinery and models and structures in concrete and steel. 



In my report last year I advocated the use of some of the 

 State convicts upon the public roads, which advocacy I wish to 

 renew. I do not advocate scattering the convicts out along a road, 

 but would keep them confined strictly to quarrying and crushing, 

 leaving the hauling and other work necessary to the completion 

 of the road to be performed by the community for which the road 

 is being made. With a systematic order of distribution and ap- 

 plication for such work, much assistance can be given in the form 

 of State aid to road work. Road material of average quality is 

 accessible in almost every county of the State, and in a number 

 of counties it can be found within reasonable hauling distance of 

 any road. I would have the State own portable outfits for quarry- 

 ing and crushing, with an average output of about 100 c. y. per 

 outfit per day, to be manned by State convicts. A steel cage 

 mounted on wheels with bunks, which could be lowered and raised 

 on the plan of Pullman coach, could be purchased to accommodate 

 16 or 18 men. With crusher, cook and guard outfits on separate 

 trucks, the whole could be transported to the railroad, shipped to 

 the next place where wanted, and again hauled out to the road or 

 quarry. This quarrying and crushing should be in some form of 

 State aid, the county or road district having done the grading 

 necessary to prepare the road-bed for receiving the rock and also 

 having made arrangements to put on the rock after it is crushed 

 for them. 



I beg to call attention to Greene county, Missouri, where the 

 road officials have this year succeeded in putting out a convict 

 rock crushing outfit with county prisoners exactly like the plan 

 I have outlined. The county convict outfit consists of a traction 



