FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 35 



THE CONNECTICUT KOAD SYSTEM. 



BY JAMES H. MACDONALD^ STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSIONER, HARTFORD^ CONN. 



The farmers of the United States have at last awakened from a Rip 

 Van Winkle sleep of not only twenty years, but centuries, and fully 

 appreciate the fact that no matter how fertile their fields, how com- 

 fortable their homes may be, how large and well-built their barns,, or 

 how well-fenced are their poss'essions, nor how great a yield of crops has 

 resulted from their labors, except they have pleasant, safe, and easy 

 access to market, for that which they raise, for three hundred and sixty- 

 five days in the year, they are poor indeed. We had a slight awakening, 

 a rubbing of the drowsiness from the eyes, of the people of Connecticut, 

 in 1895, that resulted in the passage of a good roads law, which con- 

 tained not only the establishment of a recognized head over the high- 

 ways of the state, but, in addition, after enumerating his duties and 

 privileges, made an appropriation of |75,000 a year; inasmuch as our 

 sessions of the legislature only occur every two years this appropriation 

 was $150,000. The law provided that every town in the state should have 

 access to this appropriation, no discrimination being made; but 

 the amount paid in any one year by the state was limited to 

 |3,000. The law, however, laid an obligation upon the town 

 to provide an equal amount and the county was required to 

 contribute the same amount as was expended by the state and 

 the town. The state was to contribute one-third of the ex- 

 pense of the construction in any one town up to the amount allowed by 

 law, or apportioned by the commissioner. A mathematical calculation 

 arranged ou the basis of 168 towns, that being the number of towns 

 we have in our state* provided they all came in to accept state aid, 

 multiplied by |3,000, the maximum amount, would at once show 

 from the result that if the entire state came in it would be im- 

 possible to give them all |3,000 as the entire appropriation in any one 

 year, state, town and county, would only be $225,000. But the law was 

 so arranged that if the number of towns exceeded the appropriation, the 

 pro rata share for each town, would be determined by the number of 

 towns applying. It was found, however, that towns being unacquainted 

 with the attitude of the state refrained from accepting state aid suffi- 

 cient to make the appropriation fully adequate to satisfy all applications. 

 No town was restricted in the amount it might apply for if it did not 

 exceed the maximum limit. 



Towns were allowed to apply for any amount from a dollar up to 

 13.000. The result was that eighty-seven towns took advantage of state 

 aid. These towns were principally towns whose financial condition 

 allowed them to take advantage of the law, while the poorer towns of 

 the state by a large majority remained outside. We found that it 

 was not altogether the question of the financial assistance furnished the 

 towns of the state which brought about an objection, but it was in other 

 provisions in the law; the chief objections came from a town in a county 



