No. 10. 



Highways. 



323 



Here is a large quantity, but a ready mar- 

 ket is found. The increase of foreign ex- 

 ports is large. Up to last fall the duty on 

 it in England was $;2 42 per 100 lbs. Sir 

 Robert Peel's new tariff" reduced it to $1 

 per 100 lbs., which will cheapen it to British 

 consumers. The prices range in Liverpool, 

 according to quality, from ^10 to $15 per 

 112 lbs., and for three years past the London 

 market has never been overstocked but three 

 or four times, which has lasted but two to 

 five weeks. It is getting introduced into all 

 circles, and driving the Dutch article out of 

 market. Mr. Colman, in his Agricultural 

 Tour in Europe, says he found it gracing 

 the tables of the lords and nobles, where, 

 five years ago, it had never found its way. 

 He dined with a Marquis, who treated him 

 to American cheese, American apples, Ame- 

 rican cranberries, and American cider in 

 bottles. 



It is now exported to the East Indies in 

 boxes; found in Calcutta; and goes, with 

 other notions, to the Celestials of China. 

 None but the real skim-milk grindstones, 

 however, can stand a hot climate. — Detroit 

 Free Press. 



Highways. 



BY WILLIAM BACON. 



And what, say some of our brother farm- 

 ers, have highways to do with agriculture? 

 much more, why should they furnish topics 

 for agricultural papers? We certainly know 

 enough about that matter. When the time 

 comes round, we work out our taxes, and 

 thus make the roads very passable, and that 

 is the end of the matter, unless they are 

 filled with huge drifts, when "we break 

 through," or, if the drifts are too large, in 

 which case we go through the fields, until 

 they settle, so that we can pass over them 

 safely. 



We admit all the above to be fact, so far 

 as making, and repairing, and breaking out 

 roads are concerned ; but we do not subscribe 

 to the creed that they have nothing to do 

 with agriculture, or agricultural papers; but 

 on the contrary, in our opinion, the two are 

 very nearly associated, and the organ of the 

 one forms the very channel of communica 

 tion through which the claims of the other 

 should be urged most strongly. 



Good roads — what a luxury they aflrtrd to 

 the traveller, the man of business, or the 

 pleasure seeking public; what a convenience 

 to the teamster, who moves along almost un- 

 consciously over their smooth and well-fin- 

 ished surface! what a contrast to the up and 

 down, corduroy affairs, which are, even in 



this age of improvement, too often to be met 

 with — so rough, that if they do not positively 

 jar the very spirit of the traveller out of him, 

 they are certain to inspire him with any 

 thing but agreeable sensations either in body 

 or mind. 



Our best public thoroughfares, as a gene- 

 ral thing, are to be found where enterprising 

 farmers are most abundant, and we have 

 known very many instances where such men 

 did not stop their labours when their " tax 

 was worked out," but felt an obligatory re- 

 sponsibility to see to the little repairs neces- 

 sary in order to keep the work they had ac- 

 complished, perfect through the year. What 

 a ievf moments, thus employed, at proper 

 times, will effect in securing public ways in 

 right condition, and tend directly to a dimi- 

 nution of highway taxes, experience would 

 soon show if the practice could become uni- 

 versal. Let a gully commence, and each 

 succeediirg shower will tend to make it 

 worse, until from being unpleasant, it be- 

 comes uncomfortable, unsafe, impassable. In 

 the end, days of labour and dollars of expense 

 must be appropriated to put it where it was. 

 "eft the preceding year. Now, had the indi- 

 vidual of nearest access to the place, taken 

 a hoe and turned the water ofl^, a labour 

 which, in most instances, would not have oc- 

 cupied five minutes, when it first began to 

 wear this gully, he would have been four-fold 

 compensated for his service, every time he 

 passed that way; the public would have had 

 the pleasant and agreeable thoroughfare to 

 which they were entitled, a heavy bill of ex- 

 pense in repairs, and perhaps a heavier one 

 in damages, or a bill of indictment, justly 

 rendered, might have been saved — all by 

 five minutes labour before a shower. 



But we introduced this article to speak 

 more particularly of the common method of 

 repairmg highways, funds for which are 

 usually raised by a tax to be paid in labour, 

 at stipulated prices per day or hour. How 

 large a proportion of this tax, in many of our 

 towns, is worth six pence on the dollar, we 

 leave it for the curious to decide in their own 

 localities; we are certain, however, that 

 within the sphere of our own observation 

 there are some noble instances where men 

 labour with their teams with the same fidel- 

 ity that they would in getting in a crop on 

 their farms. This is the correct principle. 

 Every man who pays a highway tax contri- 

 butes to a common fund, which should result 

 to the benefit of all, and every man who can- 

 cels his tax by labour ought to consider this 

 labour as resulting directly to his own bene- 

 fit, not only as a matter of personal conveni- 

 ence and comfort, but in an economical point 

 of view. Doe.s an individual wish to sell his 



