was fixed as the time for viewing the several routes by the State Board of Agriculture, which was divided into two divisions, one to start from St. Louis and the other from Kansas City in automobiles. The Board of Agriculture was accompanied by the Governor and the Highway Engineer and a number of prominent citizens interested in the work. Two days were required and the three routes were carefully viewed. Great enthusiasm was aroused among the people and quite a contest arose between the routes proposed. The Board of Agriculture assembled in Jefferson City on August 2nd to hear the arguments of representatives of the several routes, and after the hearing, on August 3rd, selected the central route as the official cross-State highway.

Later is was determined to hold the dedicatory services at Columbia on October 28, 1911, and another automobile inspection tour was arranged, and on October 27th a large number of automobiles left St. Louis and Kansas City over the route selected, and both divisions arrived in Columbia early the next day. A great crowd assembled in the auditorium of the University, where the route was officially dedicated by Governor Hadley, assisted by the Board of Agriculture and other public men.

Now that the cross-State highway has been officially located and dedicated from St. Louis to Kansas City, the spirit of rivalry for the honor engendered by the contest of the three routes will be forgotten. But the spirit aroused among the people favoring and advocating either of the other routes will not down, and it is confidently believed that at least three crossState roads will be builded as rapidly as money and men can do it. Nothing has been lost by the cordial but friendly rivalry. Indeed, the result has been a distinct gain everywhere, and a wonderful awakening has taken place in the minds of the people of the entire State in behalf of better roads. The road question is as old as the country; but never has there been such a resolute purpose amounting to genuine enthusiasm among the people-all the people, city and country alike, to build good roads where bad ones exist, and better ones where tolerable ones now exist. Conditions are now (as never before) such that the town and city dwellers are almost as much interested in this matter as our purely rural population. Good roads appeal to all our people, and all are ready and willing to help. Fortunately we now have the eightmile square district law and the country assessment-benefit district law, under the terms of which it is possible to organize districts continuously across the State from east to west and north to south, with power to raise sufficient money by issuing bonds in the several districts to build permanent good roads wherever our people really want them.

The most urgent question now is the organization of the road districts, raising the money and buckling down to work. The time for arguing about the advisability of building good roads has passed. The practical questions of methods, materials and cost are now to the front and require most careful, conscientious consideration. The methods must be determined by competent road engineers; and the materials used, in the nature of things, must be left largely to engineers or scientific men having technical knowledge of such things. Upon a proper determination of these two things will depend the cost of the finished product, and its permanency. And by permanency is not meant perpetuity without care; for we may not hope to build a permanent roadway-one requiring nothing to maintain it. Nor do we mean by permanent a road built like the Appian Way, which is said to be, at places, constructed of wonderful concrete three feet thick. To state it affirmatively, what is meant by permanent is a road of easy grades, surfaced with rock, gravel,

mixed clay and sand, or chert, or such other material as science may declare to be suitable and adequate to make a good road the year round for all sorts of vehicle traffic, climatic conditions being considered as one of the factors in the character of roadway to be constructed. This idea invites a provision for constant and systematic inspection and maintenance, which is as important as original construction. For it would be absolute waste to build a good road at large expense and provide no way to keep it good after builded.

We are blessed with abundant and great variety of road-building material in Missouri, and climatic conditions are not so exacting here as further north, where King Frost rules much deeper and more disastrously. Hence, we can and ought to build good roads in Missouri cheaper than they can be built in Minnesota or Wisconsin.

As districts are organized and bond issues are discussed, the costper mile or through the proposed district-becomes a burning question; and while this question cannot be precisely answered for every district unit the same way, approximate answer can be made.

It is generally known that the office of public roads of the Agricultural Department at Washington has, for several years past, been assisting and directing the building of experimental stretches of roads in all sections of the nation; and an examination of the results and figures sent out from that office are authoritative and interesting. I quote briefly from table 1:

In this work the government furnished the engineers and experts to direct the work and such machinery as was necessary, while the local authorities supplied the common labor, teams, fuel, etc. The cost of the few short sections built in Missouri is shown above. Attention is invited to all the figures as you consider the stated rate of cost per mile. A study of the work of the public roads office leads to the conclusion that a macadam road about 15 feet wide would be desired for a great cross-State highway, and a depth of 8 to 9 inches would be considered sufficient in this latitude. The figures given are for macadam roadways, not gravel, chert or other cheaper material.

It is a fair conclusion that upon the suggested width of road and depth of macadam the cost to our people will be about $4,000 per mile, even if we furnish our own engineers and experts. Perhaps these could be obtained from the public roads office free.

This cross-State road will be approximately 300 miles long, and at the rate stated would cost $1,200,000.

Waiving the question of State aid and assuming that all the funds now in sight under our law would be required to maintain such a road from year to year, let us consider whether the citizens along the route selected can afford to build such a highway across the State.

It has been established by experience elsewhere that the enhanced value of real estate lying along the line of such a road as contemplated is not less than 20 per cent on present values; that is to say, back from said road on

either side thereof one-half mile; and for the next half mile back on either side 15 per cent, and the next half mile 10 per cent, and the next half mile 5 per cent, to say nothing of the substantial increase in values of the remaining lands within the 4-mile limit on either side of the road under the 8-mile square district required by law.

Now, it is fair to say that the present value of the lands along the route selected, on an average, is not less than $60.00 per acre (probably $75.00 would be nearer the exact truth). Figuring it at $60.00, the strip of land one mile wide, one-half on either side of the road, 300 miles long, or 192,000 acres, is worth now $11,520,000; and if it is true that the building of the road will enhance this value 20 per cent, or $2,304,000, this mile strip will be worth, when the road is completed, $13,824,000. The next one mile strip, one-half on either side of the road, one-half mile removed from it, will be increased in value 15 per cent, or $1,728,000, and the next similar one mile will be increased 10 per cent, or $1,152,000; and the next 5 per cent, or $576,000, thus covering only two miles on either side of the road. These figures, added together, show an enhancement of the four-mile strip alone, directly caused by the building of the road, of $4,760,000. Two and a half per cent added to the value of the other four miles across the State amounts to $1,152,000, bringing the increased value of the eight-mile strip across the State up to $5,912,000. No attempt is made to estimate the enhancement of town and city property in the towns and cities through which the cross-State highway will pass. The figures would doubtless add much to those given for farm lands. These figures are conservative, and it ought not to require further argument to convince any landowner along the line of this road, or any similar one, that the building of it at an expense of $1,200,000 is a good investment when nothing but dollars are considered. Other advantages neces

sarily accruing from the building of such a road are incalculable, and are passed up for the present.

This department is of the opinion that the figures on cost are too high. And if it could be arranged to do a large part of the work by convict labor there would be an enormous saving to the people. This is done in other states, and with a continuous population of able-bodied men of over 2,000 in our penitentiary, at least one-half of them could be successfully used in building good roads in Missouri much cheaper than they can be built by free labor.

Manifestly the people along the route selected, or along any other routes which may be determined upon, should proceed at once to organize road districts touching one another along the whole route, making a continuous road belt from St. Louis to Kansas City, where roads are not already built, or districts formed, vote adequate bonds, sell them, and go to work with the money on the roads.

We are on the national route from ocean to ocean, as shown by maps from the office of public roads at Washington. The whole country is aroused, and it is a certainty that good roads will receive more attention in this country during the next few years than was formerly given to the building of railroads.

And to the ordinary American citizen this movement means more than the building of railroads in the past. Now that Missouri has a great crossState road selected and dedicated, let the people who are to be benefited most directly show the country that Missouri has taken her place at the front of this great national movement, and thus invite the admiration of the whole country. The prompt and proper construction of this cross-State highway means more to the people of Missouri than any enterprise since the building of the first cross-State railroad; for it will enable, as no railroad has ever done, the great throng of national and interstate travelers to see the lands, homes and herds of our people. There was a time, it is said, when men from the east, boarding a train at St. Louis, would instruct the conductor to wake him up when the train arrived at Kansas City. It is different now, and this great national highway will enable the people from the east to see Missouri, and when they have seen the wealth, the homes and the civilization of the State they will be irresistibly attracted within our borders, and will become citizens of this great Commonwealth.

CHAPTER 3.

DIRT ROADS.

Notwithstanding the great popular demand for permanent rock roads in this State, the subject of ordinary dirt roads is always one of absorbing interest; and no matter how many cross-State rock roads may be built within the next year, or next decade, there will always be plenty of common old Missouri dirt roads worthy of our attention and demanding constant care. Every intelligent citizen who has traveled about the State to any extent has had occasion to note some "bad places"-when it was not all bad-and often he has been provoked to profanity by a really perilous "mudhole" that had

no right to exist, naturally did not exist, being produced and continued by artificial means.

Next to the actual building of rock roads, the most important matter touching the subject of good roads is how to build and how to maintain good dirt roads.

There is no use discussing the location of roads in this State, for, generally speaking, they are already located by statute. The matter in hand and of interest is how to work or build the strips of land called roads or lanes into roads over which vehicles can safely pass, the most of the year, at least, and upon which in the dryer seasons of the year reasonable loads of produce can be hauled to and fro by the average team. The average road overseer is not to blame for all the shortcomings of our public roads. He is not provided with the means to make a good road, nor with which to keep it good after it is made good. This State has tried many theories, so far as lawmaking goes, during the last twenty years; and while the laws passed have been good, bad or indifferent, they have all been defective at the main point. That is to say, they have not provided the money necessary to accomplish the work, to say nothing bout money for maintenance.

It is true we have bought many road graders and built many roadways. They are useful and indispensable in the prairie and level section of our State; while in rough, rocky, hilly sections they are worthless and useless. The only fault to be found with the grader and road drag, where they exist, is in the fact that they stand and lie idle by the roadside too much of the time. In the rocky, hilly sections the plow, maddock, pick and shovel must be relied on, and an ax is often necessary to this work.

It seems strange that the world got along some way and waited for the coming of John Louden Macadam, about the beginning of the last century, to emphasize the great principle of drainage in road building. It is not proposed to discuss rock roads in this chapter. But it should not be imagined that this hard-headed Scotchman paid no attention to the building of dirt roads. He pointed out the two things that made a permanent good road, either rock or dirt, impossible-water and frost; which is really one and the same so far as effects go in destroying a road. No matter if every other requirement of a good road has been met-if every fact of science and every suggestion of experience have been considered in its construction, and the problem of drainage, whatever it may be at a given point, has not been