H>()0.] ESSAYS. 117 



trouble. When ;i road runs between stone walls the snowdrifts 

 thereon are almost sure to be as deep as the height of the walls. 

 I have sometimes thought that it would be a good investment 

 for a rural town to remove the highway walls, at the public ex- 

 pense, and if they should be used as the foundation of good 

 roads their removal would be useful in several ways. Some of 

 them have already disappeared beneath the State roads, and it is 

 to be hoped that they will all be used in the same way during 

 the next decade. 



Perhaps the farmer ought not to be expected to improve the 

 road through his land, but he usually owns the fee of the land 

 on the roadside and can cultivate and use the same to his own 

 advantage or detriment, provided he does not thereby incom- 

 mode public travel, and therefore he should be held responsible 

 in the same degree for the condition and appearanee of the 

 roadside by his premises. 



In New York and some other States he is required by law to 

 cut all the noxious weeds and brush by his wayside, but here his 

 public spirit is alone the guide of his action in this matter. A 

 good man is usually better than the law, and a good farmer 

 should be better than the law in this respect. He should be 

 willing to do what he reasonably can for the improvement of 

 his wayside, and in any event he should not deface it by using 

 it as a dumping-ground for stone, wood, lumber, rubbish and 

 his worn-out vehieles and farming-implements. 



Good roads will help the farmer and the horticulturist in 

 another way. The subjeet of rural mail delivery is being dis- 

 cussed extensively in all parts of the country, and the experiment 

 is being made in different localities by the national government. 

 The recent report of Perry S. Heath, the first assistant post- 

 master-general, shows that three hundred and eighty-three free 

 rural delivery routes have been already established in the 

 different States. In this State the system has been introduced in 

 Greenfield, Bernardston, Deerfield, South Deerfield, Orange, Sun- 

 derland, Athol and some other places. The government makes 

 it a condition precedent to the establishment of a route that the 

 roads are to be kept in good passable condition for the free 

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