Good Roads For All

Two or three years ago the farmers allowed theruselves to believe that the good roads agitatiou was wholly in the interest of the whselmen, and that the burden of providing them would fal npou tbe farmers' shoulders. That idea has exploded. While the farmers know that good roads mean increased comfort and pleasure for those who ride the wheel, they have come to understand that good roads mean more thau that for tbem; that they not only mean pleasure and comfort for them, bnt a high degree of profit - profit in time saved, profit in vastly larger loads while marketing their products, profit in saved horseflesh, profit in a large increaso in value of their farms. They have come to realizo that good roads are cheap roads, the cheapest that the farmer eau have. They have only to poiut to here and there patches of good road that have needed no attention, in some instances, for a quarter of a centnry. Good roads aro a logical, happy necessity for all - uot a luxury for the few. A Wasteful Repair System. It is a curious fact that farmers, who are the class most benefited by good roads, are usually the ]ast ones to move toward their improvemeut. They go on, in íuany conimunities, year after year workingout road tax, doiug the work in a slipshod, half way fashion, drawing soft eartfa up from the roadsides to thu luirirtle of the highway, making a thick cusbion over svhich teams and wagons struggle uutil the yielding mass is grouud and cut and cmmbled back again to the ditches í'rom wliicli it carne. This performance is the regular order, and the results are justwhat one might naturally expect - alrnost impassable mud and deep cuts, daugerous alike to vehicles and the faitbful beasts that draw them. - New York Ledger. Keep the Roads In Order. To keep a ïnacadanrized road in good order the dust should be removed from the surface iu dry wcather and the ruud when it is wet, so as to keep the surface clean, and the drains and gutters kept ciear, so that no water may lie on the surface. In England thti drainage of tlio roads is cousidered of so niuch iinportance that property owners, through whose lands any drain or ditch which carries off the water inay run, are reqnired by law to keep the drain or ditch in good order. - Exchauge. Roads Should Be Owned by the People. The turnpike riots in Kentucky offer a valuable lessovu on the subject of how not to build good roads. The outcoiuo of all private piko builñiug has been popular dissatisfaction with tolla. Subsequeutly comes the purchase of the pikes by the state, sometiines at high cost. The roads should be built by tliH peopie untier good road iaws. - St. Louis Kepubiic. Paved Witli Mnski-t Barrels. Bayard Taylor in one of bis books of travel tells of a highway in China which for over 1,000 yards is corduroyed with the barrels of old ruuskets. They are about seven feet long, and when u?ed a couple of hundred years ego wero carried by two raen and fired by a third.