Character of Roads 63 



of high productive power is usually cheaper 

 than land of low productive power. A good 

 farm may be cheaper at $50 per acre than a 

 poor one as a gift. 



Last, but not least, is the road to the 

 farm. Every free-born American demands a 

 public highway in front of his house ; if 

 farms are small there must then be a highway 

 about every mile, or, at most, every two miles. 

 This leads to cutting up the country into en- 

 larged checkerboards, to a multiplication of 

 highways so great that none of them can be 

 kept passably good without overtaxing the land 

 which adjoins them. On account of the con- 

 tour of the land over which they pass, some 

 roads are extremely difficult and are well de- 

 scribed by the man who, when asked how far 

 it was from a certain town to another one, 

 answered : " Thirty miles, and it's up hill both 

 ways." As I write this I look out upon a 

 washed clay road which stretches up and on 

 towards the horizon for six weary miles, so steep 

 that the team must maintain a w^alk for the 

 whole distance in ascending or descending. What 

 is land worth at the other end of this road, as 

 compared with that which lies six miles away 

 in the other direction, along a smooth, level 

 pike ! Every grown farm boy should have a 

 good horse and a good road upon which to 



