This condition will probably be improved as people awaken to the importance of the matter and as men become better qualified to perform the duties of their office.

Good management does not consist in spending large sums of money, but in building the best roads with the least amount of money. To what extent shall the State build and maintain our roads ? Our State has taken one step in that direction by appropriating a tax of 5 per cent, for permanent work on our main roads. This, I believe, is a step in the right direction for it goes to help the weaker rural towns. This is new in our road management and the money secured from this source should be carefully and wisely used. Upon this will depend future legislative action.

If the money received from this source should be expended under poor management, with little improvement to highways, there will be little encouragement to continue this line of work, and it seems to me best to adopt such methods as will accord with the spirit of the times and result in better roads.

The system which I would advise in this State is the building of one mile sections in different parts of the the State, these being a part of one general plan, simply links in the chain, and when completed and joined they will make good roads throughout the State, each way, north, south, east and west, a work that will add greatly to the prosperity of this State. I believe every branch of industry, agricultural, manufacturing and commercial, will be stimulated and made more productive by it.

It is useless to talk of having crushed stone roads through our smaller towns, for they are too poor to go to that expense. Towns like Brattleboro, Rockingham, and many others can have all these things, but for most localities the wisest thing for the present, is to expend with economical and judicious care the money that can be raised for highways. In the past, half at least of the money raised has-been wasted.

I can very well remember the way we used to manage our roads 15 or 20 years ago. I think I was about 21 or 22 years old when the selectmen of the town came to me with a list of taxes, and wanted me to call out the tax payers in that district and repair the roads. You all well know how it was done in those days. After we were all through planting and the farm work was done, we notified the taxpapers in the district and all came out to have a general good time, a holiday as we used to call it. There would be some 20 or 30 who would come out with ox teams and plows and scrapers amj manure forks, etc., and fix the roads. For a number of years I had charge of fixing the roads in the district where I now live. Great changes and great improvements have taken place since then in regard to the management of our roads. As I said before, we used to have a good time in those days fixing the roads, and all the old men and boys, the lame, halt, and blind, used to come out and we would have some lemonade, and would fix the road and work out the taxes; and in the fall they would travel in the mud, and in the spring they would travel in the mud. The brush was growing up on the sides of the road and the sluiceways were full. We could not fix them properly in that way.

Now how do we fix our roads? A commissioner is appointed, and that commissioner gives the road matter careful study. When he starts out in the spring of the year he will hire the very best help he can get and he will instruct them what to do. In the first place he will go about the district in the spring when the snow is going off and see that the water is kept out of the road. Then, as soon as the frost is out of the ground, he will call the men together who are going to work the road, and have one man trained to look after the sluices and run offs and to cut the brush back ; another man to run the machine and another man to drive the team. Right here let me say it is a very good plan for the different towns to own their teams. I see, in the town of Brattleboro, you made a saving this year in buying and owning the teams. That is the way they have been doing in Townshend where I live, and we have made great savings in doing that way. This trained company of men—I have not been in the habit of having only three or four, or four or five—each man is instructed in his work and each man knows what he is going to do. The man who takes care of the sluice-ways knows what he is going to do; he has the tools to do with and will do that part well. If the road commissioner is the right kind of a man he will hire his help to work ten hours, not to tell stories, but to work and attend to their business. He should then go on and fix the roads as soon as the frost is out of the grounds, starting his teams and men at tha#time, and he should have the general repairs all done by the first of June if possible, so that the people throughout each town can have the benefit of roads during the year. After you once get the roads fixed up in good shape you want to look after them and keep them so. To do this you should have a man in the town to look after the roads. Where would our railroads be if they did not have section men to look after them ? We want to manage our main roads in the same way, seeing that the stones are kept out and the ditches clean. In most every town there will be some wash-outs in the spring that have to be fixed, and it will cost all the way from $25 to $300 or $400 to keep them right. The water is the great enemy of the roads. It is the duty of the road commissioner, not only to fix that place so the people can travel over it in the summer, but to repair that section of the road so that it will not wash out again. It is the duty of the road commissioner to put thought and study onto that road. When I commenced to build roads a few years ago I thought I was fixing them all right and the people were satisfied, but if I should go on and lay out money to-day in the way I used to, they would think I was a subject for the insane asylum.

Now, after getting the general repairs completed throughout the town, the roads are fixed for use during the season. The road commissioner should keep track of what he does, and when he has completed repairs he should put the balance of the money allowed him into permanent improvements on the highway. There is a 5 per cent, road tax, and if every town should lay it out, in accordance with the law, what a wonderful amount of good it would do. I am a little afraid some of the towns do not. I have tried to lay this money out as the law directs, not only the 5 per cent, highway tax, but some of the other, some of the town highway tax, putting it into permanent improvements. I do this in various ways. For instance, in filling mud holes with gravel, in putting in stone culverts, etc., and in that way we have something that will be lasting.

In traveling through the country I find that a great many of the water bars have been dispensed with on our hill roads since we have been using the road machines. I know that unless those water bars are made right they are uncomfortable things to ride over, but if made right they are a good thing and I do not see how, on many of our hill roads, we are going to get along without them.

There are some places where the roads can be built without them, by under-drains, and have them smooth and better for riding over.

By keeping these section men on after the road is fixed, and following it right along until the ground freezes up in the winter, the road will be ready for the next spring when the water begins to come down from the side of the hills into the roads.

One thing I wanted to speak about is, that in Townshend we have been putting in stone arch bridges and culverts. I think where you can put them in they are ahead of iron bridges and do not need to be watched at all. There is a gentleman here to-day who has put in several of them in our section. He understands how to do it, and it is a great saving. I would recommend these arch bridges to be used, in towns where they are practical, instead of any other kind. They are a great saving over the old style bridges built of stringers and planks. …”

Reference Data:

Vermont Agricultural Report, by Vermont State Board of Agriculture, 1897, pages 100-5