ECONOMIC SURVEYS OF COUNTY HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENT. 51 
1,500 pounds, with an average haul of 4 miles. Estimating cost of 
driver and 2-horse team at $3.50 per day, and that two trips were 
made per day, it follows that the cost per ton-mile was 57 cents. 
After the roads were improved, the average load for the whole im- 
proved road system, comprising not only macadam roads, but graded 
earth roads as well, was 2,500 pounds. This increase in load serves 
to decrease the hauling cost to 35 cents per ton-mile, but on the 
improved roads it is possible for a 2-horse team to make three trips 
of 4 miles each per day, which still further reduces the cost to 
about 23 cents per ton mile, a saving of 34 cents per ton mile, which, 
applied to the entire 200,000 ton-miles, would aggregate $68,000 per 
annum. ‘This computation is not intended to represent an actual 
saving of that amount of money to the people of the county, but is 
rather intended to afford a basis for estimating the loss of time and 
energy on the old roads. As indicating the individual benefits of 
lowered hauling costs, one teamster found that he would save $1,500 
in hauling 800,000 feet of lumber, as he would be able to haul 1,200 
feet with each two-horse team on the new roads as compared with 
800 feet on the old roads. 
EFFECT OF ROAD IMPROVEMENT ON SCHOOLS AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 
The principal advantage of the improved roads has so far been to 
facilitate travel from point to point and to better school and social 
conditions. (See Pl. XIX.) The postmaster at Big Stone Gap is 
authority for the statement that every family on his rural delivery 
routes has either built a new home or improved the old one since the 
roads were finished. The sanitary conditions in the country districts 
have improved, and many conveniences and comforts are now pro- 
vided in farm homes which would have been considered luxuries 
when these homes were partly isolated by the bad roads. 
The following information showing the relation of improved roads 
to the schools was furnished by James N. Hillman, the superintendent 
of schools of Wise County: 
At least 40 per cent of the school population is in what is classed as strictly rural 
communities. Here the average daily attendance, as well.as the enrollment, has 
increased by leaps and bounds since the building of our roads. For example, the - 
enrollment for the year ending June 30, 1915, was more than 1,000 increase for the year 
over any preceding year. The average daily attendance increased 700, the greatest 
in the history of the county. 
The past month (September, 1915), we enrolled in round numbers 9,000 pupils, out 
of a total school population of 11,000, and had an average daily attendance of more 
than 8,000, or about 90 per cent. This is the greatest in the history of the county, as 
the yearly average attendance heretofore has been between 60 and 70 per cent. I 
might add that we have a form of compulsory attendance in effect this year, which, no 
doubt, is responsible for some of the unusual increase in daily attendance. 
We confidently expect our enrollment to reach 10,000 during the year, We also 
expect to see the average attendance close to 8,000. 
