THE STATE REVIEW 



41 



Next Annual Meeting Of The Good Roads Association At Jackson, January 9 and 10, 1907 



Officers: President, W. W. Todd. Jackson, Vice-President, H. W. Davis, Lapeer, Secretary, R. J. Davison, Flint, Treasurer, D. F. 

 Ross, Ypsilanti. Executive and Legislative Committee: B. Griffin, Saginaw, H. W. Grix, Wayne, R. H. Fletcher, Bay, G. W. 

 Gaudy, Washtenshaw, E. D. Black, Genesee 



Good Roads News and Comment 



Road building has been progressing fairly 

 well in Michigan during the past month, but 

 there is plenty of room for improvement, 

 plenty of opportunity for an energetic state 

 good roads association to make its presence 

 felt. One road nearing completion in which 

 the whole state should be interested is the 

 stretch of stone highway between Lansing 

 and the Michigan Agricultural College. This 

 road, traversed by nearly every prominent 

 visitor to the state capital, has been only 

 less a source of shame than the disreputable 

 approach to the capitol grounds. As the lat- 

 ter also is to be improved in the near future 

 by the erection of decent buildings, we may 

 begin to cease apologizing. 



In Jackson county two pieces of improved 

 road have been asked for. In Delta county 

 the Bay Shore road between Escanaba and 

 Gladstone is nearly ready for travel. It will 

 be made passable temporarily with clay and 

 earth. Next year it will be covered with 

 crushed rock. The Brotherton company, 

 which has charge of this work, is also build- 

 ing two miles of macadam road in other 

 parts of the county. 



At Lowell a Good Roads festival is to be 

 held on August 15. 



Work In the South 



North Carolina is conceded to be the most 

 progressive road building state in the south, 

 writes J. C. McAuliffe of Harlem, Ga.., in 

 the New York Tribune Farmer, and it has 

 some very creditable displays of this char- 

 acter. The mountainous nature of the coun- 

 try makes it a harder task to accomplish a 

 universal road building plan than if it was 

 of ordinary surface type, but this has not 

 deterred the people from pushing the good 

 work along. 



Some of the best road building in the 

 South, and some of that is the oldest in the 

 country, is that in Richmond county, Ga., 

 which has three hundred miles of the finest 

 roads to be found anywere. People of the 

 county give a lot of the credit of its $100 

 an acre land to the fact that it has such 

 good roads. The enthusiastic business men 

 say that the city of Augusta owes much of 

 prosperity to the good public roads leading 

 to it. 



Thousands of bales of cotton are brought 

 to the market on wagons from far distances 

 over the good roads. Sometimes it is 

 hauled 75 miles, and often it is hauled a 

 distance of 50 miles. The city council of 

 Augusta is an enthusiastic supporter of good 

 roads, and on more than one occasion it has 

 contributed liberally to help adjoining 

 counties build improved steel bridges across 

 the streams that might deter the people 

 from coming to the city in a time of high 

 water. All this has had a great influence in 

 making the city more prosperous, and it 

 draws a lot of trade. The example set by 



the county has extended to neighboring 

 counties, and now nearly all of them have 

 a fair mileage in good roads. The commis- 

 sioner of roads and revenue for Richmond 

 county has been in service now thirty years 

 and has recently had the indorsement of the 

 people given him in a public way again. 

 That ought to show how the people who 

 know the value of good roads appreciate 

 them. 



But it remains for the little county of 

 DeKalb, up in the mountains of North 

 Georgia, to break all records in the way of 

 road building at one time. The people there 

 have decided to issue an even quarter of a 

 million dollars in bonds and to expend it in 

 building roads. That will put the county in 

 the front rank in the way of good roads, 

 and already land prices have advanced in 

 the county to almost pay off the debt, and 

 this before the actual work has been begun. 

 Farmers and land owners in the county can 

 pay off every dollar of the debt in five years 

 and still have a big profit left from the 

 transaction. The people of DeKalb have 

 caught the fever of progress and they are 

 acting on the matter right along. They 

 have stopped the old way of going in any 

 sort of style and they have stopped so hard 

 they will never start again. 



The county is one of the small ones of 

 the state, but if all the counties in the state 

 were to do as well Georgia would take rank 

 at once as one of the greatest of the states 

 in the Union. It would mean the expend- 

 iture of tens of millions of dollars, but it 

 would bring tenfold profits. It is necessary 

 to have faith in the land to do this, and no 

 doubt is now entertained as to what the 

 final outcome of it all will be when it comes 

 to the counties that are building up their 

 roads. It will be seen in the advancement of 

 property and in the influx of people from 

 other sections. 



Clarke county has been at work on its 

 roads for a little while now, and it is ex- 

 pending $100,000 on its roads, and already 

 the influence is being felt. People are in- 

 quiring about Clarke county land and it is 

 advancing in price right along. The pros- 

 perity of the county accounts in a large 

 measure for this advancement, but it is good 

 to note that the money is being expended in 

 improvements of the most stable character. 

 As long as this is done there can be no 

 retrogression . 



National co-operation in the way of road 

 building would be a great help to the county 

 but it seems as if the farmers are coming 

 in for a very little share of the national bud- 

 get nowadays. The rural free delivery is 

 even having a tough time standing the test, 

 and many of the routes are going down. 



A movement worthy of the strongest sup- 

 port has been inaugurated in Ontonagon 

 county by Horatio S. Earle, state highway 



From The U. P. 



commissioner, for the purpose of securing 

 state aid in the building of new roads in 

 counties in which farming rand remains to 

 be opened up and developed. Prominent men 

 in that district have taken hold of it and it 

 will be vigorously pushed. The next legis- 

 lature win be asked to enact a law to give 

 each county in the state the state's share of 

 the sale of tax land to be used on some 

 equitable basis for roads, probably requiring 

 each township to appropriate as much as 

 given by the state. 



The Upper Peninsula counties would profit 

 largely by such a law. In Ontonagon county, 

 for instance, there are four hundred thou- 

 sand acres of fine farming land waiting to be 

 plowed, harrowed, seeded and cultivated 

 ready to respond with a harvest; land, in 

 the words of Mr. Earle, who is much im- 

 pressed with its agricultural possibilities, 

 that produces clover and oats six feet high 

 and that will produce as good potatoes, 

 strawberries, apples, hay or any other quick- 

 to-grow crop as can be found on the globe. 

 But, until roads are built all this cannot be 

 brought about. Money for roads is not avail- 

 able and it is argued the state should step 

 in and give the county a square deal by 

 assisting it to develop its natural agricul- 

 tural resources. What is true of Ontonagon 

 county is also true of Houghton and other 

 counties in the peninsula. The state would 

 be richer in the end for advancing such aid 

 as suggested as the assessed valuation would 

 be greatly increased. It is said one hundred 

 thousand dollars expended in Ontonagon 

 county would build four hundred miles of 

 common earth road, which would open up 

 for settlement four hundred and eighty thou- 

 sand acres of garden-of-Eden like soil, and 

 in ton years this land would be worth twelve 

 million dollars instead of one million as it 

 is today. 



The national government is reclaiming 

 thousands of acres of land in the west by 

 irrigation and settlers are flocking in that 

 direction. Upper Peninsula undeveloped 

 lands require no irrigation and could be 

 opened up at a much less expenditure in pro- 

 portion. Why isn't a movement like this, 

 one that would greatly enrich the state, 

 worthy of every support? Houghton Mining 

 Gazette. 



Rutty Roads Of Kent 



Betterment of the rutty roads leading to 

 Grand Rapids is one of the most commend- 

 able projects taken up by the board of trade 

 public improvement committee for the year 

 190G. The good roads section of the general 

 committee to which the subject has been 

 assigned, has the opportunity to do a work 



Continued on page 45 



