44 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



doul)t put lis to untold inconvenience, especially as we have 

 become accustomed to their use, but it would ])e quite impossi- 

 ble to do without common roads. They are indispensable to a 

 civilized community, and may be reckoned among the necessi- 

 ties of life. 



The annual cost of keeping these roads in repair exceeds 

 seventy dollars per mile, amounting in the aggregate to about a 

 million and a half. If the roads were well built in the first 

 place, no doubt the cost for repairs would be very much lessened. 



Tlic numb.cr of surveyors of highways exceeds three thousand, 

 or an average of more than ten to a town. In the multitude of 

 counsellors there may be wisdom, but tb.e one-man power is the 

 rule for action, and it will be found that the few towns that 

 have adopted the system of having a superintendent or road- 

 master a sufficient length of time to show what he can do, can 

 point to better roads and more efficient and well executed work 

 than those towns that have divided the responsibility to such an 

 extent that it is too weak to stick anywhere. Responsibility is 

 invariably lessened by division, and about in proportion to the 

 number among whom it is distributed. 



Surprising as it may seem when its utter inefficiency is so gen- 

 erally admitted, the system of working out taxes in labor, or 

 the commutation system, is still continued in nearly one hun- 

 dred towns in this State, eighty-six paying road taxes entirely in 

 work, thirty-one partly in money and partly in labor. It is a 

 curious fact that the towns that work out the taxes pay a larger 

 amount for damages from defective and ill-cared-for roads than 

 those that pay in money. Take for example the county of 

 Franklin, where nearly all the road taxes are paid in labor, and 

 we find the average damage per mile returned at about $20, 

 while in Norfolk County, where nearly all the road taxes are 

 paid in money, the average is only about $9.13 per mile, — less 

 than half, — or, if we omit the town of Ashfield in Franklin 

 County, where the damage was exceptionably large, we still 

 have the average damage 811.50, or more than $2 j^er mile 

 greater than Norfolk where the money tax prevails. 



Two towns. Gay Head and Gosnold, have no public highways 

 to speak of. The town having the least number of miles of 

 highway is Hull, 7. The town having the largest number, is 

 Chelmsford, 275. 



