November, i p / 5 
35 
COUNTING THE COST OF FARMING—I 
Graft and Petty Politics in Rural Highway Improvements—Why and How the Private Road was 
Built — The Storage Shed for Crops 
FLORA LEWIS MARBLE 
(Going back to the land either makes or breaks a man. Either he masters the soil, or its problems overzvhelm him. In any instance, he 
must spend money, and he must spend it efficiently, if he would succeed. 
This article is the first of a scries relating the experience of a city man and his wife who took up farming. They bought 140 acres at 
$40 an acre. It was the right distance from the village, along a hill that commanded the finest view in the country, a farm with some excellent 
apple land. 
They wanted to make $ 5,000 a year and zvere willing to wait ten years to accomplish this end, putting up the necessary cash meanwhile. 
They decided to grow apples, zvith potatoes as a side line to start with, and set about building the land into a working proposition. 
As a study in the dollars and ce)its side of farming this series is invaluable. The next installment mill give the facts of the barn, farm 
cottages and farm equipment . — Editor.) 
THE ROAD 
O describe the only road 
coming by our farm is to 
draw a picture of nine-tenths of 
the country roads everywhere in 
our climate. It follows the 
cheapest path for the road-build¬ 
er. regardless of the most direct 
way from place to place. It 
touches the farm a mile from 
the house, and then, twisting 
along the hillside, crosses the 
railroad twice with no apparent 
purpose and climbs the steepest 
part of the hill toward our home, 
hut here we have an eighth of a 
mile of private road to maintain 
before we reach its course. 
The public road is kept up by 
property taxation. A path mas¬ 
ter is elected by the vote of the 
people to keep it in order. He is 
always a farmer, because there 
is no one else available. Lie is 
paid by the day for his services. 
Lie can hire such help and teams 
as he needs for the work, keep¬ 
ing within the allowance allotted 
for maintaining his piece of 
road. He uses his own team, 
his own hoy and the neighbor 
he likes the best for the work. 
He attends lectures given by the 
state about good roads. He 
builds a split-log drag. He is 
to use the road machine that 
travels over his district. He can 
do the work when he sees fit — 
the only apparent object being to 
use up his appropriation during 
the year. In the spring, when it 
is too wet to plow, he tries his 
new drag. It does not help the road any, for it is raining and 
far too wet. Then comes planting time. He plows and plants 
his farm. After the crops are in he drags the road on an oc¬ 
casional rainy day and we settle down to the fact that the 
road is ready for the automobiling of the festive summertime. 
About this time work is slack on the farm. The farmer gets 
the road machine. He and his neighbors start the engine and 
plow the whole road on his section; along comes harvest time, 
and he goes back to his farm, letting traffic wear down the 
lumps he has left behind his plow. It is so late in the season 
that the road cannot get settled down for winter, so it is a sea 
of mud, or ruts, until the next season — when this is all re¬ 
peated. Just so long as farmers are also path masters this will 
happen, and every farmer voter knows it, but he also knows 
that he will probably have the job himself some day, and it’s 
a good soft snap. 
Coming to the realization of this state of things, we decided 
that the less hauling we did over roads that we could not work 
ourselves the better for us. Our land took in a piece by the 
railroad, where a private switch is to be installed when the 
apple and potato crops reach the size of carload shipments. 
Our first object, then, was to 
build a good road the length of 
the farm between the fields, so 
that material can be hauled to and 
from the cars to every point on 
the farm without waste of time 
for men and teams. With a sur¬ 
veyor, and the man who knows 
how to build good dirt roads, the 
fields were laid out so that forty 
acres of orchard land lay together 
on the west end of the farm on 
the highest slopes of the hills'. 
The low land was cut into fields 
for hay and vegetables. By fol¬ 
lowing the hillside between the 
orchard and fields a road was laid 
out the length of the farm. It 
reaches the top of the hill, where 
our home stands, without any 
heavy grade, and makes every 
field accessible. This road is a 
mile long. Incidentally it cuts off 
for us over a mile of the public 
road to town, the two railroad 
crossings and all the steep hills. 
The orchard land was covered 
with stone, which must be hauled 
away before the land could be 
plowed. The stone was needed 
for the road, so the cost of re¬ 
moving it from the land was 
counted against road building, 
though it would have had to be 
done if the road had not been 
built. The road was started the 
middle of July and finished the 
middle of October. Dragging and 
repairing since that time have 
been counted against maintain- 
ance expense. It is found that 
$25 a year keeps the road dragged, 
the ditch and culverts cleaned out, and the road in good con¬ 
dition despite much heavy hauling. 
Cost of building one mile of road was as follows: 
Hauling stone, laying road bed and building culverts $202.92 
Hauling dirt, working road machine, dragging, grading 288.88 
$491.80 
Necessity of a Shed 
Whenever we drive through the country and see a farm 
where the wagons and machines are standing around in the 
fields where they were last used, we say to ourselves: “That 
farm is mortgaged” ; when these tools and machines are lay¬ 
ing about the barn, we say: “That farmer is slovenly.” There 
is only one place for these articles when not in use, that place 
is a good water-tight shed. Hired labor will not look after 
things unless the way toward caring for them is the easiest 
way to do it. 
With this truth well in mind, we built the shed below the 
bam, on the road to the fields. It was designed without doors, 
The orchard land was covered with stone, and this was 
hauled to build the road; the cost amounted to $491.80 
