118 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1900. 



carrier at all seasons of the year. The report shows that in one 

 county in Indiana the farmers were so desirous of securing free 

 mail delivery once a day that they voluntarily incurred an ex- 

 pense of $2,600 in the improvement of a highway to make it 

 meet the requirements of the government. As a result of the 

 introduction of the system, farm land has rapidly increased in 

 value from one to two hundred dollars per acre. And wherever 

 the system has been established more letters have been written 

 and received. Farmers have subscribed for and received more 

 newspapers and magazines, and a great many small articles have 

 been sent through the mails. It has been found that the trouble 

 of a long drive to the post-office had been sufficient to discour- 

 age subscription to periodicals and to cause people in remote 

 districts to go without many small articles they now receive by 

 parcel post. This system of rural mail delivery is in an experi- 

 mental stage in this country ; but it has been tried very success- 

 fully in Switzerland, Germany, France, Austria and Great 

 Britain, where the free postal carrier passes daily on all important 

 routes. 



As soon as we have good roads the system will become perma- 

 nently established in this country, and some of the isolation of 

 rural life will then disappear. A daily mail delivery would put 

 the farmer in close touch with his friends and with the active 

 life of city and village. The early receipt of the weather 

 reports each day would be of assistance to him in his farming 

 operations, and the daily newspaper would keep him posted on 

 current events. 



An electric street railway is not necessarily a part of a good 

 highway, yet it is a fact a railway is more likely to be built over 

 a good road than a poor one. The mileage of street railways has 

 grown with wonderful rapidity in recent years, and without 

 doubt they will ere long be found upon the main thoroughfares 

 of the suburban and country districts. When properly built, 

 located and managed, they will not interfere much with travel 

 on the highway, and the}' will help to bring people in different 

 localities in close communication with each other. The telephone, 

 and especially the long distance telephone system, which is being 



