Wayback's Roads. What Would Happen To The Town If They Were Improved

The gi;nüe spring time ia with us again. It has brought with it many things, or if it has not yet brought them it is likely to. For instance, perhaps it will give us roses. Then again it may give us promise of big crops, if we are farmers, or promise of cheaper produce, if we are oí the people who buy of the farmers. There are two things which it is certain to bring. They are colds and mud. There is no excuse, however, for the certainty of the mud's coming, and if the mud failed to arrive the colds would, many of them, be side tracked before they got here. Therefore let us banish the mud. Now that it is decided that the mud shall be banished. the nest question is, How shall it be done? There is only one way of doing it, and the essentials of it are hard work one part, money one part and common sense ninety-eight parts. The work and the money are easy enough to gefe, bnt the common sense is acaree, and a good deal of it is needed. The difficulty is that most of our pathmasters and road commissioners don't fecognize what little there is of it lying around when they see it. They have a way of regarding propositions for the improvement of public roads as propositions by contractors for feeding at the public crib. In reality they are propositions for the enlargement of the public cribitself , so that its legitímate users may find more to appease their hunger, and for the improvement of its surroundings, so that those who do feed may do so with greater comfort and convenience. Suppose we take, for instance, the township of Wayback, which is sitnated in a rolling country, fifteen miles from the city of Bigmarket, where all Wayback's produce must be sold if it be sold at all. There are thirty miles of road in Wayback, and they are like the roads in most country towns, mere rivers of mud in wet weather and gullies of dnst when the.days are dry. Estimating tUe coet of putting down a macadam-telford pavement at $2,000 a mile, it would cost $60,000 to improve every inch of highway in the township. It may be said that $2,000 a mile is too small an estímate, but it mnst be remembered that in, making it I include the little used crossroads, constituting by far the greater part, of the mileage, which would require a much narrower metaled service and less elabórate drainage and care than the few miles of main thoroughfare. In order to raise the money required for making this vast improvement it would be necessary to bond Wayback for that amount, but this conld be easily done in a way that would avoid oppressive taxation. Iji calculating on such a loan it shouldbe remembered that the posterity of the present generation will be the greater gainers by the improvement, and that therefore it is not only just to borrow the money for a lon. term of years, but that it would be tuijust to do otherwise. The advantages which would accrue to Wayback from such a step would be manifold. As the roads are now, an impassable banier of mud is imposed between the township and the city for weeks af ter the frost leaves the ground. Farmers who have held their hay or potatoes or grain for "spring prices" start out with their loads from Wayback early in the monring for the fifteen mile drive to Bigmarket. If they get there at all it is only af ter a whole day of splasbing and tugging through the mnd. If the roads had been good, three or four hours would have sufficed for the drive. When the bad weather of fall comes on the state of affaire is a little better. If the roads are not in quite so vile a condition the additional amount of produce to be hauled more than evens matters up. The unnecessary hours on the road rob the farm work of the time of men and horses, and natural exasperation and dissatisfacüon with life in such a very sticky world nnfits everybody for doing his best work. The loads that can be drawn are comparatively small, too. Wayback is made up of f ertüe farms of great productive power. But the bad roads, as any one who stops to tbink will see, must necessarily largely reduce the profits by wasting time of men and the vitality of stock and vehicles. Let us say that Wayback landowners value their holdings at $100 to $300 an acre. The only way in which we can judge of the effect good roads would have on this valuation is by exanrorng results in other places. I personally know of one section where within two years the improvement on roads has alniost doubled the cash valne of land, and can furmsh namcs of land owners who will cheerf ully testify to the fact. Such an increase in valuation would more than pay the extra taxation imposed on Wayback by that $60,000 loan, wouldn't it? I tbink so. Another thing which the opposers of road improvement in Wayback fail -utterly to take into consideration is the faet that it costs much less to keep good roads in repair than it does tokeep toad onea in ruin. If Wayback adopta an intelligent System of road maintenanee, keeps the matter out of politica, and, abweall, does a way with that reBe of barharit y "worJring out the road tax," her ttrirty miles of roadway , after they have been telford-inacadaniiaed, can be-kspt in perfect order by an oaüayof (uveiJ&Lagthe different classes of roads) $K) a yoar per mué. This woold make tbe total ontlay fonaaintenance4ir200. Wayback spends now iii work and cash $2,000 on on her toads. i There is not a single phase of life in Wayback which would not be benefited by improved roads. The'pioductrveness of farms would be largely inereased and they wouM show a stordy growth in valne. Social interconrse would be made easter and would therefore be pramoted. Mach would be saved in wear snd-tear on live stock and vehicles and in the hire of help. Life in the mnddyseasons woold be robbed of the dreadful monotony of staying in one place, forit would be easy to go to otbers. Wayback would speedily devekjp from a dnll, barely prafitable, tmprogressive country towaship into a locaiity of comí ortabJe, proeperoua, happy people. In short it would nve. It exists now.