14 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



have. If we were to attempt to accomplish it in detail, and 

 should undertake to make one and a half miles of stone road 

 per year, it would take thirty-three years to complete the task, 

 and the cost of the one and a half miles of stone road would 

 oblige us to more than double our present tax rate. So that 

 it would take thirty-three years of double taxation to make 

 these roads in our town. Now, there are dozens of towns 

 amonof our hills whose valuation is less and whose road mile- 

 age is more than that of our town. So you see the impossi- 

 bility of. undertaking to do anything of this kind without 

 State aid. There are those who are in favor of State aid ; 

 there are those who are opposed to it, believing in the old 

 idea that towns and communities should take care of them- 

 selves. 



I have some ideas which have occurred to me on this sub- 

 ject, which I will suggest to you. One is, that the State 

 might undertake to build a road connecting each town with 

 its natural market or its most elii^ible railroad station. 

 Those roads would not only be valuable in themselves to the 

 community, but would be an object lesson to the towns, and 

 if the cost, the system upon which they were made, and the 

 reasons for the plan being ado})ted for that location were 

 reported in detail, the towns could see what they could 

 aflbrd to do in that line upon the remainder of their roads. 

 It seems to me that along with this policy should come a 

 system of bounties or gratuities ofiered by the State, to in- 

 duce the towns to do something in this line. For instance, 

 suppose the State should say to the towns, by legislative 

 enactment, " If you will build one mile of road to the accept- 

 ance of the State engineer, the State will build another in 

 your town." Or, if it is thought that the State could do the 

 work better than the towns, the State might say to the towns, 

 " If you will appropriate money sufficient to build one mile 

 of stone road, the State will build two miles, or in that pro- 

 portion." I believe in State aid ; I do not believe in laying 

 all the burden on the towns ; and I think that something of 

 that sort has got to be done. 



Along with this there should be provision for the appoint- 

 ment of an engineer to go out to any town and make plans 

 and specifications for a proposed road, and estimates of the 



