HORTICULTURISTS AND GOOD ROADS. 327 
build no wagon roads whatever, but that it should aid in their con- 
struction by contributing to the completed road acertain proportion 
of the cost, somewhat as it aids in the support of country schools, 
the balance to be paid by the locality where the road is located. 
This intermediate ground, which seems to be the golden mean 
between two extremes, is one which has been adopted in New Jersey 
and is proposed for Minnesota. 
By this system of state aid, the roads, to the cost of which the 
state contributes, must be built according to plans provided by the 
state and must be approved in a complete condition betore the state 
puts any money intothem. The roads are built under the immediate 
supervision of the local authorities and chiefly at their expense, the 
state usually paying about one-third. By this means the extrava- 
gance frequently attending state construction is avoided by local 
supervision at local expense, while the inefficient and wasteful 
supervision usually accompanying the building of roads by purely 
local authorities is avoided by the general supervision of the state. 
RECAPITULATION. 
First,—Requiring the rural population to improve the roads at 
their sole expense is unjust and impracticable anda violation of 
the principle that taxation should be equal and uniform. 
Second,—State aid is not a new and untried theory, but has been 
successfully and satisfactorily tried, not only in our public schools, 
but was recognized in the early history of our government and has 
recently been successfully tested in an improved form in actual road 
building, especially in New Jersey. 
Third,—State aid does not result in extravagance and corruption, 
so frequently associated with internal improvements by the state, 
because the work is done by local authorities mostly at local expense, 
thus creating a local interest which checks incompetence and cor- 
ruption. 
Fourth,—State aid secures a better class of work than is usually 
done by purely local effort, because plans forthe work are furnished 
by the state and the finished work must be approved by the state 
authorities before the state money is invested, thus furnishing a 
check upon any tendency to local neglect or incompetence. 
Fifth,—The best test of any method of road building is the ques- 
tion, will it provide good roads economically and justly and equita- 
bly divide the expense among the parties interested? Tested by 
this question there has never been any plan proposed which was 
more just and more practicable than that of state aid. 
LATE CABBAGE AFTER STRAWBERRIES.—After the second year’s 
picking, the commercial strawberry patch is plowed--sometimes 
after the first crop—and set to late cabbage, provided cabbage had 
not previously been grown on the piece for some years. Such land 
is usually free from cabbage maggot, the soil isin good heart, the 
strawberry vines and weeds plowed under supply humus that re- 
tains moisture, and the cabbage usually do well. 
