Partly Practical 83 



pull you back, while if they are young, 

 springy, and secretly resolved on outdoing 

 each other, what should be a tour of ob- 

 servation degenerates into a mere scramble, 

 and you end each day fagged and dis- 

 heartened. No rule can be made, because 

 weather and roads have much to do with 

 progress. Light rains need not stay you, 

 but mud will, and in this country the art 

 of road-making is in its infancy. In much 

 of the South the roads are as rude as the 

 people, and are often mere trails, impas- 

 sable for wagons. In one section, in 

 Eastern Tennessee, where I stretched my 

 legs a little, the only access from one 

 town to another was along a railroad track. 

 The roads of the prairie district are often 

 shameful : hog-wallows where wagons 

 break down and farmers lose more than 

 the price of decent highways through their 

 inability to get to market. Even in New 

 England one must prepare for hard going, 

 for the farmers, poor and unprogressive, 

 too often think that good roads are made 

 only for bicycles. Would that some of 

 those complaining gentry could be dropped 





