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The National Geographic Magazine 



parks of the great American cities. Here 

 thev do not wait until the roads become 

 impassable, nor until a mishap or wreck 

 calls attention to defective road-beds, 

 before repairing them. Their care, in- 

 trusted to experienced road-menders 

 who are subject to official inspection, is 

 •so systematized that a definite number of 

 men is constantly employed for this pur- 

 pose. The granite used for their con- 

 struction and repair is quarried from the 

 neighboring hillside, and this requires 

 additional laborers, while transporting, 

 •cording, and crushing the stone at the 

 roadside raises the laboring force neces- 

 sary to the maintenance of roads to a 

 •considerable number — in fact, forestry is 

 the only other occupation in which a 

 greater number of constant laborers is 

 employed ; and as forestry is the chief 

 occupation of the inhabitants, the need 

 -of numerous well-kept roads of easy 

 gradients is a practical necessity for the 

 transportation of the heavy timbers. 



Each road is divided into short sec- 

 tions, and a road-mender is assigned to 

 •each section. The menders constantly 

 patrol their beat and vie with each other 

 in keeping their respective sections in 

 faultless condition — free from depres- 

 sions, trimmed and swept as if con- 

 stantly expecting company — and all for 

 "fifty cents a day. The only perquisite 

 -which adds to the small income of these 

 road-menders comes from the sale of the 

 •daily sweepings of the road-bed, which 

 is purchased for fertilizing purposes by 

 the farmers along the way ; but the re- 

 sult of these sales seldom exceeds $10 a 

 year. 



Thus, at a comparatively small ex- 

 pense, a perfect system of highways is 

 maintained. The main roads, which are 

 "kept up by the state, and connect valley 

 with valley and crest with crest, and 

 "bind the whole Black Forest district into 

 one vast network, are again intersected 

 at various angles and points along their 

 -courses by the local roads, kept up by 

 the community ; but the plan of construc- 

 tion is the same in all ; all show the same 

 scrupulous care. Sometimes they are 

 -flanked by raised foot-paths, sometimes 

 hy fruit trees, and alwavs, on the side 



of a steep incline, by stone posts placed 

 at regular intervals. 



What the Appian Way was to ancient 

 Rome, what Unter den Linden is to Ber- 

 lin, these highways are to the Black 

 Forest ; they are substitutes for railways 

 and electric lines ; they are the post-roads 

 and the streets over which every phase 

 of life of this densely populated com- 

 munity passes, and, being everywhere so 

 uniformly well kept, they lend a tone of 

 prosperity to the general beauteous 

 aspect of the landscape. 



poor but comfortable; 



It would, however, be erroneous to 

 suppose that the people in general were 

 even in moderate circumstances ; with 

 occasional exceptions, the great mass are 

 poor. The remarkable fact is, how 

 general poverty can transform a country 

 into such wondrous beauty, and how, 

 under the limitations placed upon them 

 by nature, all manage to earn a living, 

 for the community is free from the pro- 

 letarian class. Certain it is that the 

 poetic side of the Black Forest lies in 

 the external beauty of the landscape, in 

 its many-tinted wild flowers, in the song 

 of the brook and the nightingale, in the 

 hum of the mill, in the bright sunshine — 

 in a word, in nature — while the songs of 

 real life are often written in a minor key 

 and a sadder strain. 



"How do you manage to live on so 

 small an income?" I asked a communica- 

 tive road-mender, who informed me that 

 he received only fifty cents a day and 

 had a family of eleven children. 



"Well, we get along some way. I also 

 have a small farm of three acres ; two 

 cows, three pigs, and a few chickens. 

 The oldest girls work in inns ; the boys 

 in factories and some in the forest. 

 Sometimes it's hard, but we live and are 

 contented." 



This is the story one frequently hears ; 

 it represents the wa.g"es and general con- 

 dition of the average common laborer 

 having a large family, and the number of 

 children to a family is seldom less than 

 seven and not infrequently fifteen. 



The report of a woodsman, a well- 

 known character of the community, was 



