236 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
the case of long journeys, and with some kinds of goods, 
in order to save the cost of transhipment, it would be 
possible to transfer the bed of the road truck from its 
trame on to the frame of the railroad truck, so that the 
goods, with one loading, might pass direct to London. 
Our American cousins are quite capable of inventing a 
transferable truck of this kind. In return, goods loaded 
in London would never leave the same bottom till un- 
loaded at the farmyard or in the midst of the village, 
For all long journeys the rails would probably always 
remain the great carriers, and the road trains serve as 
their most valuable feeders. When farmers found it 
possible to communicate with the cities at reasonable 
rates, and at reasonable speed, they would be encouraged 
to put forth fresh efforts, to plant vegetables, to grow 
fruit, to supplement thcir larger crops with every species 
of lesser produce. This, in its turn, would bring new 
traffic to the lines; for instead of one or two crops in 
the year only, there would be three or four requiring 
carriage. There would be then speedy results of such 
improved communication. One would be an increased 
value of land; the second, an increase in the number of 
small areas occupied and cultivated ; the third, an in- 
crease in the rural population. A fourth would be that 
the incredible amount of money which is now annually 
transferred to the Continent and America for the 
purchase of every kind of lesser produce would remain 
in this country to the multiplication of the accounts at 
Post Office savings banks, Every one who possibly 
could would grow or fatten something when he could 
just put it on a road train, and send it off to market. 
Two through passenger road trains a day, one in 
each direction, carrying light parcels as well, and travers- 
ing say forty or fifty miles or less, would probably soon 
