146 THE THIRD POWER 



roads were allowed to get out of repair they would 

 be of much less service. Insufficient or worn-out 

 rolling stock, broken-down locomotives, unsafe 

 tracks, weakened bridges, poor terminal facilities or 

 none at all, would cost the farmer millions of dol- 

 lars. It is precisely so in the case of wagon roads. 

 When these are good and easy to be traveled every 

 day in the year, there is just so much added to the 

 value of the farm. When they are impassable, the 

 value of the farm is lessened by just that much. 



But this is not the whole story, one of the terrors 

 of the farm is isolation and loneliness. Against 

 these the American Society of Equity proposes to 

 wage war by improving or compelling the improve- 

 ment of the highways, in order that, among other 

 things, there may be an increased social intercourse 

 among the farmers. Good roads and human rela- 

 tionships alike tend to bind men together. Present 

 conditions, on many American farms, have been 

 beautifully and truthfully described by Meredith 

 Nicholson in his poem, "Watching the World Go 

 By": 



Swift as a meteor and as quickly gone 

 A train of cars darts swiftly through the night ; 



Scorning the wood and fiefd it hurries on, 

 A thing of wrathful might. 



There, from the farmer's home a woman's eyes, 

 Roused by the sudden jar and passing flare, 



Follow the speeding phantom till it dies, — 

 An echo on the air. 





