196 ENGINEERING ON THE FARM 



their real cost unless it is directly called to their attention. 

 A farmer sold i ,600 bushels of corn at 50 cents a bushel, to be 

 delivered in February. His object in selling was to get the 

 corn to the market before the roads broke up and the spring 

 work began. On the day he was to begin shelling, it rained, 

 the roads becoming impassable. When the roads again 

 became solid so he could haul, it was in the middle of the 

 oat-sowing season. He had to stop sowing oats, haul his 

 corn to town, and sell it at 50 cents when the market price 

 was 55 cents. He not only was on the road when he should 

 have been in the field, but he lost $80. He attributed his 

 misfortune to the weather: if it had not rained the road 

 would have been good. It did not occur to him to look 

 at it in the reverse order: if he had had a good road, the 

 rain would not have delayed him more than a day. He 

 could have held his corn until the price suited him without 

 regard to the road. When the matter was presented to 

 him in this light, he felt that he was paying a heavy tax 

 for a poor road. 



Social advantages. The social advantages of good roads 

 are equal to the economic advantages. Good roads permit 

 the country children to attend the town grade and high 

 schools. They enable the farmer and his family to enjoy 

 the concerts, lectures, entertainments, and religious exercises 

 of the town and stimulate the organization of farmers' 

 clubs, institutes, and other public meetings by making it 

 possible for the people of the community to attend by 

 spending only a short time on the road. 



Uniformity of travel. One advantage of a good road is that 

 it can be traveled uniformly during the year. Comparison 

 of the traffic over poor and good roads was made in Illinois. 

 Observations made simultaneously near seventy-two towns 

 upon certain days of each month showed that roads are best 

 in the summer and fall and poorest during the winter and 

 spring. These observations showed that traffic is nearly uni- 

 form throughout the whole year on hard roads, while on 



