Rural Mail Delivery Is A Go

RURAL MAIL

DELIVERY IS A GO

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The Carriers Travel About 

25 Miles a Day.

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HORSEBACK AND WHEELS

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Carrier Makes one Delivery

and Collection a Day

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Many extensions are to be made during the coming fiscal year in rural free mail delivery, the experiments in which have been highly satisfactory to the government.

During the past year many changes have been made, the result of finding weak points in the first experimental services, says the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. In the future the carrier will not attempt to go to the door of every farmer on his route, as has been the case in the past. A route will be established over from 25 to 30 miles of road. The carrier will be scheduled over this on a time basis. He will pass within at least one mile of every farm house on his route. Those living off of the road can put up mail boxes at certain points, where they can leave mail for collection and also receive mail. At every cross road will be a government mail collection box, similar to those used in cities, where all may deposit mail with the assurance it will not lay there over 12 hours. By this change almost twice as much territory can be successfully served at the expense which was formerly necessary for the smaller routes.

The salaries of the carriers has been raised from $300 to $400, and special permits from the department enable the carriers to establish a parcel delivery of their own. Most of the carriers - where the topography of the country is such that it is possible - use bicycles during the summer and go horseback in winter. They make one delivery and one collection a day. Their equipment is practically the same as that of city letter carriers.

At present the most extensive experiments are being made in Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan and Kansas in the central section, and Colorado and California in the west. During the ensuing year, however, special tests will be made in the Rocky Mountain districts.

Assistant Postmaster General Perry win permit much improvement and extension of tests. Rural mail delivery has been introduced under the most favorable conditions in the garden district of California, where 75 miles of macadamized country roads lead through a succession of parks and past palaces, and are sprinkled daily like city streets. In has been put in operation along the banks of the Bayou La Foarche, L. , where the carriers drive along on each side of the bayou. It has been inaugurated in the productive irrigated fruit-growing districts of Arizona, among the well improved and prosperous ranches of Georgia, in the backwoods of Maine, in the lake districts of Vermont and among the summer boarders of Massachusetts. It has been carried over the mountains of Arkansas, through the heavy roads of Sangamon county, Illinois, which Lincoln could hardly get through when he rode the circuits along the rough banks of the Missouri in Kansas, through the unsurveyed and roadless farming districts of Kentucky, over the hill and through the snow-filled cross roads of Michigan, down the stiff clay roads of North Carolina, along the sparsely rocky ridges of Westmoreland county Pennsylvania, and among the scattered colored settlements of Virginia. The results have been highly satisfactory. During the ensuing year we hope to battle with even greater natural obstacles. The department wants tests under every condition. There is now no doubt that in a very few years this will be one of the greatest departments of the service.

The effect of rural delivery is noticeable upon the people to whom given. It brings them into as close contact with the outside world as the people living in towns and cities. The morning newspapers are laid down at their doors as early as 8 o'clock on the day of publication.The increase in letter writing, in some instances, has been 1,000 within a year. Farmers know the markets, the weather forecasts and the general news of the world every morning. The benefits and effects are so obvious that they are hardly worth enumerating. This advanced condition of the farmer has its effect upon the city.

Mr. Heath takes the high ground that, under the present mail service, the United States is not fulfilling her obligation in change of services with those European countries - notably England, France, Germany and Belgium - which deliver letters and other mail matter to the doors of their rural, as well as city residents. It is proposed to keep the expenses of rural mail delivery very nearly within the figures of the present mail service. This is to be done by abolishing star routes and small post offices. The cost of delivery and collection is very low. In fact, it is surprising. In many districts it runs much below one cent a piece. This will be lowered as the new changes in service simplify and better it. This, however, must come as the result of experiments.