The Public Highways

ANM ABBOR, June 16, 1894. To the Editor of the Michigan Farmer: I wish to make a few remarks on. the ■uticle written by F. W. Dnnham relating o road laws, which appeared in the Michigan Farmer, June 9th. His objection to our present road law s because the road distriets are too small. My construction of the old road aw is that one systein and one road law extends all over the state of Michigan, excepting in incorporated cities and villages. In his second he says the county system is better than the existing township systein of roads by inoney tax. This is a blow at decency and good citizenship. Is it possible that we as American citizens are conducting ourselves in such a manner in this, the 19th century, that we have to make laws that tend to centralization of power ! To make a long story short, and give your readers the actual workings of our present system in at least one road district of Ann Arbor township, Washtenaw Co., I will quote actual transaction of road district No. 7 : On June llth four shovelers, flve teams and their drivers hauled and put on the public highway ninety-one (91) yards of gravel. This is a fair sample of a day's vork done upon the public highway, in said road district, for tlie last ten or 1 fifteen years. We do as hard a day's work when we work out our road tax, if ; not harder, thau anydayin the year; aud almost invariably, if needed, work over our assessed time, which has been a day's work for eight hundred dollars assessed valuation. When a tax-payer in our road district skulks or hangs off, the overseer reports him to our highway commissioner, then the delinquent bas to come up with the cash when he pays his taxes, and the overseer hires soineone else to work and pays him for it. I dou't remember that anybody in our road district bas been reported twice, for the delinquent finds it easier and better for him to work than pay the cash in these days. . Again, Mr. Dunham insiuuates that in the old system we lack knowledge and brains for rnaking a good road. I never thought or believed that it required a highly educated person to build a good road, or any thing more than good common sense with perseverance and hard work, with the starting point a systematic method of drainage. Nearly all classes of people are liable tomake mistakes. In the year 1890 the managers oi Washteaaw Couuty Fair Association iiiiid a professor of civil engineering sixty dollars to lay out and give the proper irrade to a half mile race-track. In the course of a short time it was found the grade was out of proper proportiou, and the track was twenty-five feet too Ion;. The Board of Managers applied to a practical farmer to establish the proper rade and the half mile distance. Said farmer went to work and flxed the grade and staked out the half mile distance satisfactorily for two dollars. I am for good roads and ahvays liave been, but I am against a system that creates high priced officials. The money you pay those officers will not help the road. I am inclined to think iu our part of the country it would be unwise to build a macadamized road. A stone road would be barder on our borses and wagons, and would be more expensive than our present roads that are graveled and well kept up. I think the editor of the Farmer is level headed, aud knows what is for the interest of the American people. AVhen 1 say American people I mean all that are citizens, irrespective of race, trade, or calling. Class legislation I despise. We should, in a wide measure, be looked upon as one family. We all need each other's protection! Brother and sister farmers, give this much agitated road question your sincere thóught; live strictly up to the law and if there is anythine wrong about it, you will know it and can actintelligently for soraething better ; and if it is true'that such a state of aft'airs exists in working out our road tax as Mr. Dunham pictures, it is high time we adopt more stringent laws.