MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



THE BEST CONCRETE MIXER 



For Street, Road, Sidewalk and Bridge Work 



Some of Its Advantages 



High wheels, easy to move. 

 One handling of materials lands 

 the concrete into wheelbarrows 

 and many times into your forms. 

 Measures cement, sand and 

 crushed stone. Can adjust ca- 

 pacity from 3 cubic yards to 

 8 cubic yards per hour. Engine 

 is mounted on the stationery 

 end of the machine ; therefore, 

 the weight is on the high 

 wheels and the machinery is 

 always in perfect alignment. 



We will ship our Mixers to 

 responsible parties on approval, 

 settlement to be made after 

 satisfactory trial. Please men- 

 tion THIS PAPER when writing 

 for printed matter or informa- 

 tion. 



THE ADVANCE CONCRETE MIXER CO 



118 E. Washington Street, Jackson, Mich. 



pass a law along the lines of the one in force 

 in Colorado, and give to the counties operat- 

 ing under the county road system, the right 

 to use the labor of convicts to improve their 

 roads, the counties so using them to care for 

 the prisoners while employed therein. 



Thirty-four counties are now under the coun- 

 ty road system: some of these have not a 

 valuation which permits them to build go< d 

 roads, so millions of acres of land wait tr 

 hands because there is no way to reach it <>r 

 to get the product which might be grown 

 thereon to market. The development i thc>c 

 counties would increase their valuation to the 

 benefit of every taxpayer in Michigan, and 

 there is surely nothing to hinder the convict- 

 building the roads to open up these tracts 

 of land. . 



Some say the convicts would run away. 

 These are people who have given the matter 

 no particular study. The warden of the Col- 

 orado prison says he sends no armed guards 

 out with the prisoners, and that they 1 Be 

 less than one-half of one per cent a year. 

 Their law gives ten days extra time( or time 

 off his sentence) to every convict who works 

 on the road a month without a bad mark, and 

 they find that on an average these men work 

 just as faithfully as free laborers. 



Men confined in prisons and working mi 

 piece work, usually manage to earn some cver- 

 of time; the money to be given to them if 

 they have no family dependent on them f r 

 support, and where they have such dependent 

 ones, the money to be sent to these. I wt.uld 

 be more than willing to pay my porticn of 

 such a tax. 



In favor of good roads? Of course 1 am. 

 I can see how it benefits every person in 

 Michigan to have good roads; the farmer 

 perhaps most of all, but he shculd not be re- 

 quired to pay the whole cost, for there is a 

 tremendous increase in the use of the roads 

 by residents of the cities and villages in their 

 automobiles and horse-drawn vehicles, and all 



are anxious for good r ads more of them t ; me money. This is one of the great aids to 



lots of them, and soon. discipline and reform, and to deprive them of 



I close by wi>hing your association the best this would be, I believe, a hardship which 



would accomplish no good purpose, so I would 

 favor going somewhat further than the Col- 

 orado law does and providng for the payment 

 of one or two dollars a week to each man 

 who had worked faithfully for that length 

 favor the building of good roads and the use 

 of every legitimate means for getting them 

 while this generation lives. And I also wish 

 to acknowledge the great pioneer work that 

 has been done in Michigan for good roads 

 by Hon. Hcratio S. Earle. He is one of those 

 rare enthusiasts who are not only saturated 

 with their pet reform, but have merit, earnest- 

 ness and practicability well balanced. 



Godspeed you and him and the great cause 

 of good roads. 



Horatio S. Earle cf Detroit was called upon 

 at the conclusion of the reading of Mr. Os- 

 borne's letter. He made a strong plea for 

 larger state appropriations for good roads. He 

 said that the last legislature had acted in a 

 niggardly manner in regards to gocd roads, 

 after making premises of larger appropria- 

 tions. He figured that the appropriations by 

 the legislature were only 5 cents per capita, 

 while they should have been five times as 

 large. He said: 



"Any man who aspires to go to the next 

 legislature intending to appropriate less than 

 twenty-five cents a head, which amounts to 

 seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, 

 ought to be defeated for the legislature and 

 elected to live in a mud roads district and be 

 obliged to be harnessed up every day along- 

 side of a mule and draw his share of a lead 

 to market every day as long as he lives." 



THOMAS M. SATTLER, 



Secretary-Treasurer Michigan State Good Roads 

 Association. 



of success, and by hoping that this conven- 

 tion may stir the state from Little Montreal 

 on the northwest to Erie township on the 

 southeast, and make all between these points 



N. P. Hull, -cf Diamondale, master of the 

 State Grange, dwelt upon the importance of 

 interesting the farmers. The sentiment among 



