200 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS f CONVENTION. 



struction, it receives the severest test; it should be cared for most 

 carefully, for it you don't care for it you are bound to get bad results. 



Now, as to the question of bonds in the various counties. The people 

 are bonding and putting the money in the hands of a commission, and 

 that commission, after the construction of the road, turns it over to 

 the supervisors for maintenance. What the bond issue by the State 

 for eighteen million contemplates is this, that if the county, under the 

 bond issue, is built up to a certain standard, then the State would 

 assume or take it over and pay the county and then maintain that 

 road. That is what is contemplated in that issue. By roads I mean 

 the main roads between the county seats. This scheme, therefore, allows 

 the county to build its roads, but when it comes to the maintenance, 

 which is the important factor in the road problem, then the State 

 takes hold of it and maintains that road, and I sincerely believe that 

 the maintenance of the principal roads can be better handled by the 

 State than it can by the system we have at present. The states that 

 have the state aid plan in the East have gone through the same experi- 

 ences that we have gone through, and they are getting out of the rut. 

 they are getting good roads ; and the State of California, above any 

 other state in the Union, should have good roads, because it is the great 

 fruit raising state, it is the great scenic spot, you might say, of the 

 world. You are spending in the State of California to-day something 

 like fifty or sixty million dollars to haul your products just to the 

 railroad station. If you put your roads in a proper system of con- 

 struction and maintenance and look after them properly you can cut 

 this expense in half. If you do that you have saved that much money, 

 but you have not only saved it that way, you have given the country 

 district something that they want. Not only that, but I dare say that 

 with the good roads you will hold in check excessive freight rates. It 

 may be forcing the thing a little, but the time may come, if we had 

 smooth, good and dustless roads, that you may have some kind of trans- 

 portation outside of railroads. You may have motors, and instead of 

 about 5!/2 miles, the average haul now, you may be hauling 20 miles; 

 you may make the railroads come to an economical basis of fixing rates. 

 If with these roads you can preserve your fruit or keep it from being 

 spoiled by the jolts, the price that you get for it is higher. I have 

 watched grapes being hauled to market over the rough roads ; I have 

 watched different classes of fruit being hauled, and I have known any 

 number of instances where that product has been badly damaged 

 simply on account of bad roads. 



I do not think there is any more important subject to us than this. 

 The roads are a public institution, and they should be handled and 

 looked after the same as a private business should be handled and looked 

 after. The money expended upon them should be handled as econom- 

 ically as a private business. You don't see your great transportation 

 companies, the railroads, employing various men to run the railroad 

 business. For the construction and maintenance of these roads you 

 see trained men, you see high class engineers, and some of the railroads, 

 among them the Pennsylvania sj^stem, employ engineers who are really 

 or practically in charge of the railroad. Now. it requires just as good 

 an engineer to build a highway as it does a railroad, and it requires 

 just as good an engineer to maintain a highway as it does a railroad. 



