rock or gravel, so that the main highways are always passable, even if traffic is slowed up considerably by the muddy and slippery condition of the roads. For a week or so after the "wet spells" these roads are rough and often cut up with deep ruts. This condition gradually gives way to smoothness and dust as the roads are travelled with broad-tired wagons and the daily milk rigs.

Gravel

Poor dirt road
Road map.

Fair dirt road

We have seen what the condition of the roads in this township is, and at the same time attention has been called to the fact that, though for total road improvement this township ranks higher than the average, nevertheless there remain stretches of poor dirt road which tend to make the marketing seasonal. In the previous chapter it was pointed out that at times it would cost more than two and one-half times as much to market the farm products as it costs when the roads are dry and in good shape. It

is important to know by what system and methods these roads have been constructed and are now being maintained.

This township has always worked its roads under the old system. As is well known to rural people this system provides for a yearly levy of road tax by the town board, this tax to be "worked off" by the farmer against whom it is levied. Though the state law does not specify the limits of the rate of this tax, it appears to be customary to levy a tax of twenty-five cents on every hundred dollars of the assessed valuation of taxable property; hence a two and one-half mill rate. This local levy, as already stated, is worked out by the farmers themselves. Since it furnishes by far the most important part of the local road work, let us see how efficiently the work is done.

The township is divided into districts, each having from three to six miles of road to look after. The division into districts is done by the supervisors and, in making these divisions, much local politics is often played. The supervisors are, of course, appealed to from many different parties as to how the districts are to be laid out. No matter how conscientious they may be, great inequalities in tasks may be allotted to the different districts. We have already seen how the roads of the southern part of this township are in very bad condition. This is largely due to the insufficiency of the tax levy and yet the people of this district were taxed at the same rate as those of the districts farther north. Their land is of less value, in among the hills, and their roads require the most work. The people of the good-road districts argue that the people out south "never put in an honest day's work in all the fifty years that they've been at it. They've been loafing around, lying in the shade of the trees by the roadside, while we people were busy grading and gravelling." While it no doubt is true that there are districts where the farmers "do not do an honest day's work when they're putting in time on the road," this practice is by no means limited to the southern districts. They haven't gravelled because no gravel pits are near. Their roads are so bad in many places that "they've simply got to get out and dig to keep the roads at all passable."

One of these districts, having three miles of this hilly road to work, had a total of only about thirty-five dollars to be put into road work. They worked hard and faithfully and yet the best they could do this year was to fix about fifteen rods of road on one of the worst hills. There were three hills in the district, almost impassable after a rain. In another adjoining district the pathmaster complained that he had "fixed up one hill as far as our district extended, but the upper stretch on the long hill belonged to another boss; he wouldn't fix up his end, so after the first big rain, all of our district's work was washed away. That is the way we

have been tearing around for fifty years, and still we haven't got any roads."

Another objection made to this system is that the overseer, although he is boss, doesn't feel that he can afford to do anything that may antagonize a neighbor. When he gets his corn plowed and work in shape, ready for road work, his neighbors may have a very important job on their hands, and, if he uses his power and forces them to leave their work to "do the roads," enmity is apt to arise. People all through the country will cite cases of where a "road boss sent in his books as paid when two or three farmers hadn't done a lick of work on the roads." He can't afford to have his neighbors as enemies and so he lets them off, after they've promised to put in their work when they get time.

Even where there isn't this sort of friction, the equipment that the ordinary farmer crew has is a poor one and entirely inadequate. They usually come on with "the poorest old rack of a team a farmer has, and an old rusty plow which it takes a half a day to get to scour. Some may bring an old pickax with a cracked handle, and when this breaks, a half day is spent in going back to get another tool." Thus "the time is puttered away." This township owns one big road grader, requiring eight horsepower to run it, two smaller graders, requiring four horse-power, four wheel scrapers, and several smaller scrapers. That, at least, was the inventory given by two supervisors although nobody seemed sure of just what their equipment consisted.

The big grader is used but little, although it is admitted that twice as much work can thus be done. The reason seems to be that no one is quite sure just where it is, and if he does know, "usually there are bolts gone, and some repairs to be made." Rather than "fool away bothering with it," they go at plowing up a stretch of road, and scraping out little ditches along the roadsides, here and there, where things look the worst. This is kept up until time has been worked off. With the coming of the summer freshets much of the loose dirt ridge is washed back into the ditches again, the road-bed proper remaining a well-nigh impassable mire for days afterward.

The efficiency of the present system of working roads is indicated by figures from the county auditor's office. The farming territory is given distinct from the village in 1881 for the first time. Computed at two and one-half mills, the local road-tax rate from the total assessed valuation of the rural township, we get a total of forty-five thousand dollars spent on the township roads since 1871. Thus there has been spent over one thousand dollars per year on these roads, an amount equal approximately to what it has cost to build a mile of "gentle-grade, well-drained, always dry" gravelled State Road. The above-mentioned sum of forty-five thousand dollars does not represent the total expenditure of labor on the roads of

this township. There are twelve years from the time the township first was organized until 1870 for which we have no figures. Since the amount for 1871 was six hundred and eleven dollars, it seems safe to assume that at least an additional six thousand dollars' worth of service was done on the roads during that time, especially in view of the fact that in early days gratuitous road work was often done in order to get a passable road to the market.

The figures just cited represent only the amount of tax that has been "worked off" by the farmers themselves. In addition to this the township has been making an annual levy of taxes that must be paid in cash to make up the Town Road and Bridge Fund. The amount of money that has thus been raised amounts to fifteen thousand dollars. "Practically all of this amount has been expended upon the construction of culverts and bridges and bridge approaches." In recent years there has been evinced an increased interest in the construction of permanent culverts and bridges. Whereas the Road and Bridge Fund in 1896 was about four hundred dollars, in 1910 it had increased to one thousand six hundred dollars. Although a little of this has been spent on the cost of gravel at about ten or twenty cents per yard, the great increase of expenditure has consisted almost entirely in the construction of stone and concrete culverts, and steel bridges. For bridges costing over one-eighth of one per cent of the taxable valuation of the township, one-half of the costs are paid out of the County Road and Bridge Fund. Two such bridges have been built in this township.

How much work on roads has been wasted can not, of course, be shown. It might be said that fifty miles of permanent roads could have been built with the fifty-one thousand dollars' worth of road-labor mentioned above. Each year a large amount of work would necessarily have to be done throughout the whole township to maintain the roads in a passable condition. That there has been a waste of community effort is evident, however, and it is generally admitted by the farmers themselves.

If it is an admitted fact that the present system of working roads is inadequate and wasteful, why is there not a change in the system? In the first place it may be said, that most farmers do not attach as great importance to the value of good roads as city people think they ought. It is admitted that the strain on horses is greater on slippery, muddy roads than on dry ones. The milk must be hauled daily regardless of road conditions, but "the loss in horse flesh" can not easily be figured in dollars and cents. Again, though the cost of marketing grain over good dry roads would be much less than it costs with poorer hauling conditions, only a very few farmers figure any loss due to this account. By marketing their grain in the winter, "a bit by bit," "when time isn't worth much of anything and when we've got to go to town once in a while anyway," there seems to