TWELFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X 435 



8. A pasture should be adjacent to the buildings. 



9. Buildings should occupy poorest ground. 



10. Buildings should be located in reference to water supply. 



11. Buildings should be on a slight elevation whenever possible. 



12. A south or east slope is desired. 



13. Soil for buildings should be dry and well drained. 



14. A timber windbreak should be secured. 



15. A garden plot should be near house. 



16. Buildings should not be located on high hills because inaccessible 

 from field or roads. 



17. Buildings should not be placed in low valleys on account of lack 

 of air and drainage and danger of frost. 



18. Buildings should be located on the side of the farm nearest the 

 school, church and town. 



19. Lots should be on the farther side of barn from house and screened 

 from the house by trees. 



20. All buildings should serve as windbreaks. 



21. A farm scale is useful and should be placed in a convenient place. 



22. The shop and machine shed should be convenient to house, bam 

 and fields. 



GOOD ROADS A FARM ASSET. 



J. F. MEKEY, MANCHESTES, IOWA. 



Before the Delaware County Farmers' Institute. 



Municipal incorporations have the authority to pave streets and tax 

 up the expense to abutting property owners. No one, however, is auth- 

 orized to construct permanent public, highways and tax the expense of 

 same to the abutting farm owners. Under our system in this county a 

 tax .of one mill is levied for the maintenance of old and two mills for 

 the construction of new roads. This tax for 1912 amounts in round num- 

 bers to $17,500.00. We have within the county about one thousand miles 

 of country roads. The above tax gives us an average of $17.50 per mile 

 for new roads and the maintenance of old ones. More than sixty years 

 ago the law makers of Iowa provided that the public roads of the state 

 should be sixty-six feet and not less than forty feet wide. Later theTaw 

 was so amended as by common consent they may now be but thirty feet. 

 This legislation simply gave us legal space for public highways sixty-six, 

 forty or thirty feet wide. We still have the space, but what about the 

 roads? Is it not a fact that they are little more than lanes between barbed 

 wire fences and we are climbing the same sand hills and driving through 



