ON THE OPEN COUNTRY 



unnecessary miles, and the thought of it 

 disgusts me so I would like to go back 

 now and sue the county for damages. 



Just consider that there are loo busy, 

 hard-working people to-day in that same 

 .neighborhood, going to McPherson, say, 

 twice a week the year round. There are 

 12,000 miles of travel wasted every year 

 by just those few men and women of that 

 neighborhood. Was such economic waste 

 ever tolerated in anything else? Yet there 

 are thousands and thousands of cities and 

 towns in Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, 

 Iowa, Missouri and adjoining states where 

 no diagonal highways exist or were ever 

 thought of. Surely rural improvement 

 finds it easy at this point to propose some- 

 thing better. 



Something may properly be said here 

 for roadside planting. It is not practicable 

 to have every street lined with trees along 

 every rod of its length. There are stretches 

 which, from various considerations, ought 

 to be left open. But probably more than 

 half the mileage in ordinary sections would 

 be improved if suitably planted with trees. 

 Everyone knows how great a pleasure it is 

 to find a country road shaded by over- 



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