56 THE TIM BUNKER PAPEES. 



NO. 19. TIM BUNKER ON FARM ROADS. 



ME. EDITOE: I couldn t help thinking, when I was off 

 on my journey, riding on the rails, what an awful waste 

 of horse and ox power there was on our farms. On a 

 railway they get rid of all the obstacles, make the path 

 solid, and have the running gear as perfect as possible. 

 The power has very little friction to overcome, and is all 

 spent in drawing the load. On a plank road, they do a 

 good deal to remove obstacles and make a solid road-bed, 

 but plank-roads and railroads on our farms are out of the 

 question for doing ordinary farm work. The next best 

 thing is the common highway, in which there is some 

 attention paid to the removal of rocks, to drainage, and 

 to the making of a smooth firm road-bed. This kind of 

 road is within the reach of all our farmers, and I think 

 will pay a great deal better than the miserable cart paths 

 that most of us are contented with. A farmer is just as 

 well able to build what roads he needs to haul his wood, 

 muck, manure, and crops, as a town is to build what roads 

 it wants for the mill, the market, the meeting, and the 

 common convenience. Roads leading to the fields and 

 to the wood lot, that are a good deal used, ought to be 

 worked every year as much as a common highway. 



Only to think of the waste of time, of ox flesh, and of 

 cart-tire, in hauling loads over such a road as Uncle 

 Jotham Sparrowgrass has upon his place ! It leads down 

 to what he calls his Lower Place, about a half mile from 

 his house. Though it has been used for fifty years or 

 more, he has never spent a day s work in mending it. 

 There are rocks in the rut a foot high or more, and holes 

 where the wheel goes in up to the hub, in all wet weather. 

 I suppose his team has been driven over this road two 

 hundred times in a year, at least, with an average load of 



