156 MISCELLANEOUS FARM SUBJECTS 



highway departments the counties are engaging the services of 

 skilled engineers to supervise their road work. This step marks one 

 of the greatest strides yet made toward the abandonment of old and 

 inferior methods of highway administration, construction, and 

 maintenance. All of these reforms, as well as other reforms in 

 methods of construction and maintenance and a gradual improve- 

 ment of road conditions, are being rapidly brought about, and largely 

 through the agitation and work of the United States Office of Public 

 Roads, the State highway departments, and the various highway 

 associations throughout the country. The outlook for road legisla- 

 tion is exceedingly bright. Already members of the legislatures of 

 various States and of various organizations, having for their purpose 

 the improvement of highway conditions throughout the country, 

 are formulating highway bills with the hope of having them enacted 

 into law. In every State the sentiment is strongly in favor of effect- 

 ive highway legislation, and in most of the States not having already 

 adopted it new legislation, either enacted or pressed for enactment, 

 will embrace in some form or other the principle of State aid or 

 State supervision. (Ag. Dept. Y. B. 1910.) 



It is largely due to the system of localized control and payment 

 of tax in labor rather than in cash that so comparatively little in 

 the way of good results has been accomplished in the past, for the 

 reason that it fails to insure skilled supervision, provides an inade- 

 quate revenue, depends upon a purely unskilled and unreliable class 

 of labor, and practically precludes any construction of a permanent 

 character. (Ag. Y. B. 1910.) 



The laborers bring such tools as they happen to have regard- 

 less of their adaptability to road work. The teams are usually too 

 small and are not trained for such work. The rule is to work the 

 roads once a year after the crops are laid by ; but our heavy spring 

 rains damage roads more or less, and such damage should be re- 

 paired promptly. This labor-tax plan leaves the roads at the end 

 of the year about in the same condition they were in at the begin- 

 ning, and, if continued, at the expiration of twenty or more years 

 we will still have just such roaols as we now have. This plan has 

 been tried so long and so extensively that even the wayfaring man 

 need not err in what to expect from it. (Miss. A. E. S. B. 60.) 



The following facts picked out from arguments used in a suc- 

 cessful campaign for State aid in Minnesota, illustrate the advan- 

 tages in having the road burden of the country districts partially 

 met by the State at large. Permanent road building is not accom- 

 plished by ordinary highway work, but by constructing roads that 

 will take care of themselves for a reasonable time. Permanency 

 should be considered with reference to locality, travel, and other 

 kindred conditions, and should not be made too expensive. Extrava- 

 gance is a danger to be avoided as one that will imperil the whole 

 enterprise. We should regulate our progress in this respect by prac- 

 tical economy. 



With the modest State fund provided for in the amendment the 

 State can encourage counties by helping them build some sensible 



