26 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



make a road like that unless you take the water away from the ditches. 

 What are you going to do with a man like that? Men ought to be willing 

 to believe I know something of what I am saying. Let me argue with 

 you a little about that. 



You men who live on level land, isn't it a fact that there are times 

 on your own land, when you drive down through a road, and the bottom 

 of the wheel is lower than the water is outside. Isn't it a fact you 

 drive over these places a good many times when you can see the water 

 shaking? You are driving at the bottom of a wash basin. Where does 

 capillary attraction come in? By your own experience, is it not a fact 

 that capillary attraction don't come to the top of a wash pan? 



Let me read you some other men's experience. I have three different 

 statements here: 



(Here Mr. King read several clippings from newspapers, as well as 

 extracts from letters to illustrate the different positions taken by these 

 writers, and in several instances a second expression from the same 

 writers confessing the correctness of Mr. King's position.) 



Now, there are two points I have been trying to cover; one is, you 

 needn't be afraid of capillary attraction; the other is, you needn't wait 

 for the grader, even if the road is in bad shape. If your road is grown 

 over with sod, it hasn't been traveled much. If your road has cut ridges 

 through the sod, what is the use of taking a big grader in there? Is 

 there anything meaner on the top of God's green earth than trying to 

 manage sod with a big grader? Doesn't it always bunch up on you? Go 

 in there some time when the sod is real wet and cut it all to pieces with 

 the disc. All you have got to do is to cut a couple of feet on each side 

 of the track. It isn't so expensive as the big grader, and more than all, 

 you haven't waited for a year to get the big grader to fix it. I expect 

 some men in this house are waiting for the big grader to come and fix 

 their road, so that they can use a drag on it. Don't wait. 



One other point; the state of Iowa is convinced that the split log 

 drag is a good thing; we have been convinced by the individual effort of 

 public spirited men all over the state. There has been no money behind 

 this thing to push it. There has been no chance for profit for men who 

 expected to push it; there has been nothing but public spirited, enter- 

 prising men, trying since last April to prove to the state of Iowa that the 

 split log drag is the thing. Now it is time to make another step. I 

 want to tell you what the next step is. I believe the next step is for the 

 township and county authorities to employ men by contract to drag the 

 road. Listen to me first. I believe that no one drag should be allowed 

 to operate on more than one mile of road. Whenever you drag a road 

 for three or four years, you find out that this has come to pass, that if 

 you have got more than a mile, you leave home when the road is in 

 nice condition to drag. You get back to the other end when it is too hard. 

 Isn't it a fact that the worst thing that can happen to the road, when it is 



