104 EXPERIMENT STATION EECORD. 



terns, reservoirs, lakes, and rivers; but the training and experience 

 necessary to utilize such sources for the benefit of the one class 'differ 

 in many essentials from those of the other. The civil engineer may 

 succeed in building a distributing reservoir for a city and 3^et fail in 

 his effort to build a cistern for a farmer. His computations for a 

 high Avater tower may be correct and tho^^e for a windmill wholly 

 wrong in principle. It is true both belong to hydraulic engineering; 

 but so long as engineers are trained to solve the problems of the city 

 and to neglect thobc of the country, we need not expect a high class 

 of engineering on the farm. 



Farm sanitation is of even greater importance, for on it depends 

 in no small degree the health of the farmer and his family, and to a 

 less extent that of the dweller in cities. The milk can washed in pol- 

 luted water from the farm Avell may carry disease to thousands. 



The farm water supplies in one State have recently been investi- 

 gated by Kellerman and Wliittaker, of this Department, in coopera- 

 tion with the board of health of the State in question. Out of 79 

 carefully selected and typical rural water supplies, 20 were found 

 to be good and 59 were polluted, the chief cause of the pollution being- 

 carelessness or ignorant management. Twenty-three of the farms 

 examined showed a record of typhoid fever. The conclusion is 

 reached that both farm and city are suffering from the careless man- 

 agement of rural sanitation. The improvement of these conditions 

 is a comparatively simple matter, when the sources and danger of 

 infection are realized and the means of avoiding them are intelli- 

 gently nnderstood. 



According to statistics gathered by the Office of Public Roads of 

 this Department, there are in this country about 2,151,570 miles of 

 roads. Of this mileage only 176,129 miles are improved, or 8.2 per 

 cent of the total. The improved portions are classified as those sur- 

 faced with gravel, with stone, or Avith special material. 



The most striking feature of these statistics is the enormous extent 

 of unimproved roads in the United States. An expenditure of some- 

 thing like $3,000,000,000 Avould be required to convert the common 

 earth roads of the country into even good gravel roads. That this is 

 desirable few will gainsay, and that it is becoming necessary under 

 modern conditions and the relations noAV existing between producer 

 and consumer is also quite generally admitted. The increased cost 

 of hauling over unimproved roads is an immense tax upon the farmer 

 and those who purchase his products, and is a restriction on the crops 

 which can be raised and moved in certain localities. 



The Interstate Commerce Commission finds that 265,000,000 tons of 

 agricultural, forest, and miscellaneous products of the land are 

 hauled to depots for shipment in the course of a year. Figured on 



