FARM MANAGEMENT 157 



roads adapted to prevailing conditions. It will also encourage the 

 best men found in road work to become experts in road making. It 

 will have an influence in checking the use of money and labor in 

 ways which result only in poor roads and disgusted taxpayers. 

 While the bill provides State funds for country roads, townspeople 

 generally favor it. Under this law graded dirt roads and bridges 

 will doubtless be the first concern, graveled surfaces will come next, 

 and, in a few of the richer counties, stone surfaces and other expen- 

 sive roads may be made as samples. The bill will not injure nor 

 antagonize anyone, but will greatly help the entire State. 



The proposed plan for State aid is thought to be practical and 

 a marked improvement over the existing method of using State 

 aid in highway improvements. The use annually, under the direc- 

 tion of a State highway commission, of a permanent road and bridge 

 fund in every county in the State which appropriates a double 

 amount for the same purpose will operate to complete some particu- 

 lar road every year, and in a few years the improvement should be 

 very noticeable throughout the State. (Public Roads Cir. 32.) 



Co-operative Work on Public Roads. Some road reformers 

 think, as thought many of the founders of the Republic, that the 

 General Government should aid in the building of the principal 

 roads. This idea, however, has met with little encouragement; but 

 out of the agitation has grown a law, passed by Congress in 1893, 

 providing for an office in the Department of Agriculture to collect 

 and disseminate information on the road subject, to conduct inves- 

 tigations, inquiries, and experiments regarding road materials and 

 road construction, and to encourage, by object lessons and other- 

 wise, the building of better roads. (Agr. Dept. Y. B. 1899.) 



Any person residing in the United States may have materials 

 tested free of charge by applying for instructions and blank forms 

 to the office of Public Road Inquiries or to the road-material labora- 

 tory, Bureau of Chemistry. Besides testing road materials, blank 

 forms for recording traffic are supplied by the Department to any- 

 one intending to build a road. When these forms are filled and 

 returned to the laboratory, together with samples of materials avail- 

 able for building the road, the traffic of the road is rated, each prop- 

 erty of the material is tested and similarly rated according to its 

 degree, the climatic conditions are considered, and expert advice is 

 given as to the proper choice of material to be made. (P. R. An. 

 Rept. 1909.) 



During the year 1910, lectures, addresses and papers number- 

 ing altogether 523 were given over a wide range of territory, em- 

 bracing the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Geor- 

 gia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mary- 

 land, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North 

 Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Caro- 

 lina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and West Vir- 

 ginia, and the District of Columbia. A large proportion of the ad- 

 dresses was given at farmers' meetings in small towns and villages, 

 but the work included a great many lectures and papers before 



