SUPPLEMENT TO 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



Published Monthly by the W. T. FALCONER MANrG CO., Jamestown, N. Y. 



YOl, II, 



APRIL AND MAY, 189S, 



No, 4 and 6, 



FARMERS, BEE-KEEPERS, EVER YBODY :-DO YOU WANT 



BETTER COUNTRY ROADS? 



The time has come when something should be done toward an improvement of the highways 

 and by-ways of this country, especially in those states which are thickly settled, such as the 

 New England, Middle and Southern States. It should be plainly evident to everyone that good 

 roads the year round would be of untold benefit to all; and especially to those people who live 

 in the rural districts. There has been considerable said and written on the subject recently, 

 and the following which is taken from Harper's Weekly, of March 19, is by Jno. Gilmer Speed 

 and will repay any one well to read it through carefully , as it covers the subject very thoroughly. 



The Movement for Better Country 

 Roads. 



BY JNO. GILMER SPEED. 



The common roads and country highways in 

 the United States are worse than those to be 

 found in any other country in the world pre- 

 tending to be civilized and enjoying a stable 

 form of government As it has long been an 

 axiom that the common highways of a country 

 are at once the means and the measure of its 

 civilization, it is somewhat strange that in this 

 country, where we boast of enjoying a higher 

 type of civilization than is to be found elsewhere, 

 our roads should always have been so wretchedly 

 bad. Even in the colonial times the necessity 

 to make better the condition of the common 

 roads was seriously felt, and in those parts of 

 the country settled by particularly long-headed 

 people, as, for instance, in the neighborhood of 

 Boston, there have always been pretty good 

 public highways. But, as a rule, all over the 

 country, from then till now we have been con- 

 tent with dirt roads, which in the winter are 

 muddy quagmires, and in summer streaks of 

 dust. Both Washington and Hamilton, after 

 the establishment of the republic, appreciated 

 fully the importance of a general system of 

 common highways. Washington recommended 

 to Patrick Henry, then governor of Virginia, 

 that the location, the building, and the repairs 

 of roads be taken out of the hands of the local 

 authorities; for he saw, what we see yet more 

 clearly to-day, that where our highways are left 

 to the tender mercies of the local authorities, 

 they are mismanaged, badly built, and even in 

 their worst condition harmed by any attempts 

 to make them better. This is not because these 

 local authorities would not like to have good 

 roads, but it is because they have no means 



with which to do much better than is done, and 

 if the} 7 did have the means, they lack the 

 requisite knowledge, without which no decent 

 roads can be built or managed. 



Some time ago there was begun in this 

 country a systematic movement in favor of the 

 betterment of country roads. The most active 

 promoters of this movement have been the 

 members and the committees of the League of 

 American Wheelmen, or, in other words, the 

 bicycle riders of the country. At the outset, 

 and even at this time to some extent, these 

 gentlemen have been somewhat handicapped 

 by the lack of esteem of the farming com- 

 munities The idea that better roads would 

 be only beneficial to bicycle riders is about 

 as wise as to suggest that cellar doors 

 were built primarily for children to slide 

 upon, or gates hung that young girls could 

 swing upon them. And, again, there have 

 been other difficulties in the way. The f aymers 

 have always had to pay for building and repair- 

 ing roads in this country, even when the roads 

 happened to lead from one prosperous town to 

 another. Very naturally these people, already 

 overburdened by direct and indirect taxation, 

 have felt very indisposed to take any action 

 which would add to that already heavy burden. 

 Any effort to secure their co-operation in road 

 improvement must provide that the cost of 

 such improvement shall not fall entirely upon 

 them. Unless this be made entirely clear, 

 from the farmers there will always be an active 

 and stubborn opposition. 



INDIFFERENCE OF THE FARMERS. 



Strange though it may seem, the farmers, as 

 a rule, take less interest in this matter of road 

 improvement than any other people. Very few 

 of them are travellers, and very few realize 

 how bad the country roads are. When they 

 are told of the roads which were built in pre- 



