No. 6. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 431 



sary is hereby appropriated to carry out the provisions of this 

 act, for the two fiscal years, beginning the first day of June, A. D., 

 1911. This amount was reduced by the Governor to one-half mil- 

 lion dolUirs, because of insufficient State revenue. This Act, to 

 my mind, is misleading, for the reason that it would require a 

 much larger appropriation than one million dollars to pay the fifty 

 per centum. In my estimation, a sum equal to the amount annually 

 appropriated to the public schools would be more nearly the amount 

 required. Judging from my home school district the State appro- 

 priation to schools never reaches fifty per centum of the taxes raised 

 by the school district, and the road tax rate is never less than the 

 school rate. No township shall receive in any one year more than 

 twenty dollars for each mile of township road in said township. 

 From this we infer that |G0.00 per mile is the average maximum 

 amount to be applied or expended annually on roads. How far 

 would sixt}^ dollars go in permanently improving one mile of road? 

 An average expenditure of sixty dollars per mile on all of the pub- 

 lic roads in the State in the aggregate would amount to almost 

 six million dollars annually and in ten years to sixty millions and 

 no roads worthy of the name. 



The good roads problem is surely a perplexing proposition. You 

 cannot solve it without the expenditure of large sums of money; and 

 possibly the recommendation of Governor Pennypacker that the 

 natural resources of the State, coal and oil, be taxed to raise a fund 

 for road making has the true ring, for we have numerous instances 

 where persons have amassed great wealth from the development of 

 these natural agencies and are donating of their means, large sums 

 of money to objects wliolly without the limits of the State. Had 

 a portion of this money been expended in constructing good roads, 

 it would have proved a lasting blessing and benefit to many of the 

 citizens of the Commonwealth. 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FRUIT AND FRUIT CUL- 

 TURE 



By J. P. YOUNG, Chairman 



As Chairman of your Committee on Fruit and Fruit Culture, I 

 beg leave to report as follows: 



The growing of fruit in our State has been successful as well as 

 profitable in the past and should continue, as commercial men have 

 found that intelligently grown Penns^'lvauia fruit always receives 

 the preference of the buyers. 



This is the era of the boom in fruit culture. Our State is passing 

 through such a boom in fruit culture as never has been experienced, 

 probably anywhere in any branch of agriculture. In this boom con- 

 di1i(m of the ai)ple industry, there is the usual exaggeration and 

 misrepresentation. 



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