236 DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS. 



PRESENT ORGANIZATION. 



The Office as now organized has an administrative office consisting 

 of a Director, an assistant director, one special agent and expert, a 

 stenographer, a clerk, and a messenger. 



The road-material laboratory is operated in collaboration with the 

 Bureau of Chemistry, and Mr. L. W. Page is in charge with three 

 permanent assistants and one temporary assistant. 



REPORTS ON FIELD WORK. 



As indicated in my last report, the United States has now been 

 divided into four divisions, known as the Eastern, Southern, Middle, 

 and Western, with a special agent and expert in charge of each. 



EASTERN DIVISION. 



Mr. L. W. Page, the special agent in charge of the Eastern division, 

 having been placed at the head of the road-material laboratory, has 

 been engaged during the greater part of the year in work connected 

 with the testing of road materials, and the field work of this division 

 is therefore not reported upon. 



SOUTHERN DIVISION. 



Prof. J. A. Holmes, of North Carolina, was appointed special agent 

 of the Southern division on August 7, 1900. During the year Professor 

 Holmes has visited portions of nearly all the States of his division, 

 examining into the character and distribution of materials suitable for 

 road building. In many of the localities visited he has collected sam- 

 ples of material, which have been forwarded to the Washington testing 

 laboratory, and the results of these investigations have been reported 

 directly to the State, county, or municipal authorities especially inter- 

 ested in the matter. Special reports embracing the results of these 

 investigations will be submitted at an early date. 



While the chief purpose in Professor Holmes's travels through the 

 Southern States has been the examination of the road-building mate- 

 rial, he has endeavored at the same time, as an object of scarcely 

 less importance, to encourage and organize the good roads movement 

 in the several States in every way possible. With this object in view 

 he has visited the county and State authorities, and in many cases 

 has advised with them as to the best plans for promoting this move- 

 ment. He has also given public lectures on road building at the State 

 universities of North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, and 

 at various towns in the different States; he has also appeared before 

 legislative committees in the interest of good-road laws in the States 

 of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia. 

 On all these occasions he has advised (1) the establishment of State 

 highway commissions; (2) the abandonment of the old system of 

 compulsory road labor, and the substitution therefor of a system of 

 road building and repairing roads by taxation; (3) the use of convict 

 labor in road building. These are important features of any system 

 that may be adopted for the improvement of the public highways. I 

 am glad to be able to record the fact that in each of these Southern 

 States this view of the situation is being generally accepted, and will 

 doubtless be acted upon as rapidly as practicable. During the year 



