588 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



in the cost of production. The improvement of wagon roads during 

 the past nine years has probably helped to increase the average 

 quantity of farm products moved by a day's wagon haul, and so to 

 reduce the cost of hauling. 1 Such reduction in the cost of hauling 

 constitutes a direct economic or money advantage, which follows the 

 improvement of public roads in every community. Besides this 

 direct advantage, certain dependent or reflex advantages also arise in 

 a community where roads have been improved. The increase hi the 

 value of farm lands is an example of such indirect advantages. Of 

 course the direct decrease hi the cost of hauling and the increase in 

 farm values are not entirely separate and independent. The farm 

 increases in value partly because the cost of hauling is decreased. 



Whatever methods are used to improve a road, the improvement 

 for hauling purposes is due to three causes the betterment of the 

 road surface, the reduction of the grade, and the shortening of the 

 length. On such an improved road the time required to haul a given 

 quantity of material a given distance is reduced. The reduction may 

 be largely due to increased speed of hauling, to increased load, or to 

 both. It is important to recognize that for transportation purposes 

 reduction of time is equivalent to a decrease of the distance from the 

 market centers. It is easy to see, then, why the increase of farm 

 values must follow improved roads, for their effect is to bring the 

 farms, in a sense, nearer the towns. The fact that on roads with 

 improved surfaces hauling becomes largely independent of the season 

 of the year or weather conditions means another very considerable 

 reduction in hauling costs. 8 It also means that many of the limitations 

 of the number and kind of farm operations are immediately removed. 



In order to fix one's ideas on the reduction in the cost of hauling 

 due to the improvement of roads, the transportation of goods to the 

 railroads and of farm produce to market should be considered. The 

 cost of this work in the United States at present is high and is due 

 mainly to steep grades and yielding road surfaces on unimproved 



1 The remainder of this reading is adapted from Farmers' Bulletin 505, pp. 3-10. 



This point might well be elaborated. If the roads are usable at all times, the 

 fanner can often do hauling wh'en his time and that of his team would otherwise 

 be wasted. Likewise, he can deliver his goods to market at just the time when 

 demand is strong and prices good. We talk much of the advantage the farmer 

 would gain by storing on the farm instead of dumping his goods on the market 

 as soon as harvested. But if the character of the roads is such that he must do 

 his hauling before the rains begin in the fall or before the frost begins to come 

 out of the ground in the spring, these benefits are out of his reach. EDITOR. 



