MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
67 
but every hamlet would be reached and every important artery of travel 
included in the system. 
Michigan's state reward road law became operative in 1005. It pro- 
vides for paying a bounty ranging from $250 to $1,000 a mile for roads 
completed in the manner prescribed by the state specifications. The re- 
ward on gravel roads is $500, and on macadam roads $1,000 a mile. 
In the five years ending July 1st, 1010, there had been completed 545.5 
miles of roads on which state rewards were paid. 207 miles of this 
were gravel, 234 miles macadam, and 14.5 miles were the various other 
kinds of roads on which state rewards can be paid. 
The money raised by state taxation to pay these rewards is not in- 
cluded in the highway taxes above given. 
Taking the 545.5 miles of road completed previous to July 1st, 1010, 
the date of the Department’s last biennial report as a basis, we find the 
average cost of improved roads of all kinds to be $3, ISO a mile. The 
average state reward paid per mile was $710 ; hence after deducting 
the state bounty, the average net cost to the community building the 
road was $2,46i a mile. Now, taking the $4,123,206.80 highway tax of 
1010, for example, what could we have accomplished? 
Last year the commissioner’s reports show that $631,505, an average 
of about $0 per mile, were expended on bridges and culverts, while 
$850,157.50 of the above amount were expended in the construction of 
county roads. Deducting these two sums from the total highway tax 
above given we have left $2,632,544.30 which went into the up keep of 
our 70,000 miles of highways and such permanent work as may have 
been done by the several townships. It is an average of about $37.60 
a mile. 
Where the King drag, or other kinds of drag that accomplish the same 
purpose, have been systematically used, it has been proved that well 
graded and drained earth roads on clay or loamy soils can be kept in 
good condition, at all seasons of the year when it is possible for such 
roads to be good, at a total annual cost of much less than $10 a mile. 
Mr. Iv. I. Sawyer, county road engineer of Menominee County, re 
ports that a thorough system of dragging followed up the entire season 
reduced the cost of up keep on the earth roads under county supervision 
from $28.17 a mile in 1900 to $8.65 a mile in 1910, at the same time 
keeping the surface in as good or better condition than formerly. This 
is a net saving of $19.52 a mile, or more than 69%. 
About 40% of the roads of Michigan are so sandy that this kind of 
treatment is of very little use. In fact very little money should be ex- 
pended on such roads, except to maintain a fairly even surface and con- 
serve the moisture until such time as they can be given a hard surface. 
But suppose we should expend $10 on every mile of road in the state 
each year, it would only take $700,000 and would leave $1,932,544.30 
that could and should be used for permanent work. At a net average 
cost of $2,461 a mile to the communities building, (and that has been 
the average for the past 5 years) this sum would construct 785 miles 
of improved road in the state each year, and would complete the entire 
14,000 miles of main highways in the state in 18 years. 
