38 BULLETIN 393, U. S.eDEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
In 1915 the rates were 75 cents in Rose Hill, 90 cents in Jonesville, 
80 cents in Rocky Station, and 60 cents in Yokum Station, and pro- 
duced about $37,000. This is about $10,000 per annum more than is 
needed for the first issue of $364,000, but will be required to pay 
interest and create a sinking fund for the $91,000 sinking-fund bonds 
subsequently issued. 
While it is true, therefore, that the county adopted the most ap- 
proved method of financing its road improvement so far as the first — 
issue is concerned, 1t seems that it will have to carry a rather heavy 
tax burden. Applying this, however, to an individual case, it may 
be stated that a man owning a $5,000 farm assessed at $2,000, a fair 
example of the prevailing practice, would pay, on the basis of the 
1915 rate of $1.96 for all purposes, State, county, and road bonds, a 
total of $39.20, of which 61 cents of the rate, or $12.20 total, would 
apply to the road bonds. 
In 1913 additional 5 per cent bonds, to the extent of $60,000 for 
Rocky Station District and $16,000 for Rose Hill District, were 
issued on the sinking-fund basis, bearing interest at 5 per cent. In 
the fall of 1915 Rose Hill District issued $15,000 additional bonds. 
The sinking-fund method, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this — 
bulletin, invariably proves more expensive than the serial method, 
except in those very rare cases where the sinking fund yields as large 
interest return as the interest payable on the bonds. The total of 
all bonds issued by the county was $455,000, which, with premiums, 
yielded a total of $464,560. This is the only bonded indebtedness of 
the county except $11,000 of short-term bonds for two high schools. 
A striking Wlustration of the disadvantage incident to the issuance of 
bonds by districts rather than by counties is brought out by the 
experience of Lee County. White Shoals District, in which no bonds 
were issued (see Pl. XIII), extends entirely across the county, separat- 
ing the improved roads of Rose Hill District, located in the south- 
west corner of the county, from the improved roads in the other 
parts of the county, thus imposing considerable mconvenience on 
other neighborhoods of the county, whereas if the county as a whole 
were handling the project the improvement could be systematically 
conducted. It is explained that the opposition in White Shoals 
District to the voting of bonds is due to the fact that convicts are 
not yet available for work in that district and that as soon as such 
aid is available the district will probably take up the work. 
A comparison of taxation between the years 1910 and 1915 reveals 
the fact that while the total tax rate for all county purposes in 1910 
averaged $1.05, or, including the State tax, $1.40, the rate had 
increased in 1915 to an average of $1.86 for all county purposes and 
$1.96 for all county and State purposes, a total tax-rate increase of 
40 per cent, while the 61-cent average for road bonds was an entirely 
