304 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



try was thinly settled, and money hardly to be had, are totally 

 unsuited to the present age with our dense population and abun- 

 dant means. The towns are required to choose annually one or 

 more surveyors to make repairs on the roads, and the custom is 

 to elect from one to twenty or more, according to the territorial 

 extent of the town, or the caprice of the voters. 



To each surveyor is assigned a certain portion of the road-tax 

 either in money, or in days' labor, according as the town deter- 

 mines that the tax shall be paid, and he proceeds to expend the 

 same upon the roads allotted to him, exercising his own discre- 

 tion about the time and manner of doing his work, and using his 

 own judgment, if he has any, of the kind of work required. 



Tlie time he chooses is generally when he has the most lei- 

 sure, and whether required or not, he frequently works out his 

 money at once, and gets done with it. The work is often per- 

 formed in the rudest manner, and the road is coated here and 

 there with thick patches of worthless stuff — better suited for top- 

 dressing for crops, perhaps, than for road material — to be washed 

 into the gutters on the occurrence of the first heavy rain. From 

 want of judgment, or want of interest, the money is wasted, and 

 the people are burdened with the heavier tax of struggling over 

 hard roads, made worse by the money they have paid for im- 

 proving them. Less frequently a man is chosen, who under- 

 stands better what is needful to be done, and with what means 

 he has, he commences some improvements, which if followed up 

 in after years would result in a public benefit, but his office 

 is only for a year, and he may be followed by a man to undo, 

 what was well begun. 



Our people do not manage their private affairs in this thriftless 

 way, neither is any other public business conducted so loosely or 

 wastefuUy, and it is a wonder that these evils have been allowed 

 to continue so long as they have. 



A few towns have tried to remedy these evils, with some 

 measure of success, by appointing a superintendent to have 

 charge of all the roads in the town, and keeping a corps of work- 

 men, with horses and carts constantly employed in making re- 

 pairs. 



The public moneys are contributions from the surplus earnings 

 of the industrious brains and hands of the Commonwealth, and 

 should be expended in the best discoverable manner, to secure 



