CALIFORNIA

GOOD ROADS ARBOR DAY.

It was found that trees in their intimate relation to animals and man could not stand alone in the schools. The meaning of Arbor Day was scarcely understood before it became Arbor and Bird Day in many States. Now the roads, neglected in location, poorly built and bare of shade, clamor to share the name, and it becomes Good Roads Arbor Day. The forests will have no less attention by the change; the birds will have more fruit trees to feed upon; the children, "to whom the world belongs," will so learn to mend their ways" as to relieve our country of this stigma of having the worst roads of all civilized nations.

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A good road is beautiful in all seasons, for it is properly built. There is no mud in wet weather, nor dust in dry weather, on a good road. Bordered by pleasant shade trees, so planted that one does not travel in the gloom of a forest, but in alternating shadow and sunlight, a good road gathers to itself many travelers. They pass with pleasant greetings. Feeling no discomfort, they are friendly toward all mankind. The good road draws to its neighborhood good farms and good homes. It is worth while to raise large crops where they are easily taken to market. The resulting prosperity shows itself in the homes men build. The good road fills the country churches. It stands for neighborliness, and, best of all, it leaves good schools all along its line. It calls the city boy to the country, not to live, perhaps, but for pleasure, to teach him to walk and to know the birds and God's out-of-doors. It keeps the country boy with it. The good road is a sign of the culture, knowledge, and civilization in a county, a State, or a Nation. Does your community stand the test?

"If a country is stagnant, the condition of the roads will indicate the fact; if a people have no roads, they are savages."

OFFICE OF PUBLIC ROADS,

United States Department of Agriculture.

History.-In March, 1893, a petition signed by the governors of many States, by the chambers of commerce of many cities, and by universities, was presented to Congress asking that a Road De

partment, similar to the Agricultural Department, be established at Washington for the purpose of promoting the construction and maintenance of roads. Before the end of the month the Office of Road Inquiry was established by an act of Congress as a part of the Department of Agriculture, with an appropriation of $10,000 to be spent in investigation of the best systems of road making and road management and for the education of the people on the subject of good roads. The name was changed to the Office of Public Roads in 1905.

Nature of its work. The office has been most systematic and assiduous in presenting object lessons to the people of well-built and well-maintained roads. A recent increase of appropriation allows it to build short experimental sections of road. It endeavors to cooperate with States, so that the road building may be along uniform lines within a State and that each State may know of the progress and methods used in every other State. An excellent photographic laboratory has been established, as pictures are frequently more valuable than words in the education of the people. Over 3,000 lantern slides and 6,000 negatives have been prepared illustrating every phase of the road problem. The slides are used not only by the lecturers from the office, but the privilege is extended to teachers for schoolroom use and to responsible individuals and institutions. A road-material laboratory tests materials sent to it from every State in the Union for their value in road building. The office cooperates with various railway companies in the operation of a Good Roads Train, usually composed of three coaches attached to regular trains over their lines. One is a lecture coach provided with a stereopticon. In another are models of all standard types of roads and bridges and miniature models of a stone-crushing plant and a road roller actually in operation. This Good Roads Train is a school of instruction in road building. The publications of the office to the number of 180 are most valuable, and may be had by teachers on request made to the Office of Public Roads, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.

HISTORY OF ROADS IN AMERICA.

There is no doubt that the first road builders were animals in search of food and water. Road making in large sections of the country began when the buffalo, searching newer feeding grounds and fresh salt licks, plunged rapidly through the forest. The great weight of their bodies made a compact "beaten road," frequently lower than the level of the adjoining land. The Indian found it most convenient to follow the buffalo trace. Walking in single file, each stepping in the tracks of the one ahead, the road widened none. Daniel Boone was employed in 1775 to lay out the Wilderness Road,

and with his usual keenness used a buffalo trace part of the way. Great floods in the valleys caused the animals, the Indians, and the white man to take to the hilltops; so our early highways were the highest ways as well. They were the driest courses. The winds swept them of snows in winter and of leaves in summer and they were excellent outlooks from which to spy upon foes or to signal friends. When the white man went west, he more frequently traveled over old Indian trails than by water. Blazed trees along the old trails are an interesting proof of their use by the white man. An Indian never blazed a trail, though he is charged with it. Why the white man should have done so, on such well-defined pathways, is a mystery. The wily Indian imitated it and lead a band of pioneers to the fatal Battle of Blue Licks, for the white men thought, because of the fresh marks on the trees, that the Indians were fleeing from them.

There was no thought of comfort in the early roads. The shortest way to one's neighbors, to the meeting house, to the village, or the line separating tracts of land became the road. In many parts of the country we are still patiently enduring this early engineering.

The first great American highway, the Old York Road, extending from New York to Philadelphia, was laid out in 1711. The first macadam road in America was laid in 1792, from Philadelphia to Lancaster. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century private companies began to build turnpikes or toll roads. Washington and Jefferson furthered the cause of good highways, and by 1810 appropriations were being made for national highways. Fourteen million dollars was spent for this purpose between 1810 and 1837. Because of the panic of 1837 and the development of railroads, none were finished except the Old Cumberland Road.

Not much Government recognition was given the subject of good roads until 1892, when the first national good roads congress was held at Chicago during the dedication of the World's Fair. From this meeting came the National League for Good Roads, which concentrated its efforts in obtaining congressional appropriation for the establishment of the Office of Road Inquiry, which has now become the Office of Public Roads under the Secretary of Agriculture.

ROAD BUILDING IN HISTORY.

The Romans.-The Romans were the greatest road builders of ancient times. The Appian Way, named after the censor Appius Claudius, was the first road they built and, on account of its excellence, was called the "Queen of roads." In the zenith of Roman glory 29 imperial highways radiated from the golden milepost in Rome to the uttermost limits of her empire. Thus came the proverb, "All roads lead to Rome." The surfacing of these roads was 3 feet thick, and, while the roads were but 5 yards wide, they could not

now be duplicated for less than $50,000 per mile. They were practically indestructible. Many of them still remain, forming the bed for some of the modern roads and in a few instances the surface as well. These roads ran in straight lines, always taking the shortest distance between two points. If a hill were in the way, it was leveled; if a ravine, it was filled. The longer hills they climbed. A huge trench was dug, a foundation of heavy stones was put in, and then layers of stone in mortar, and finally huge blocks of stone set in mortar. The road in places was elevated above the adjacent land and was then protected by stone parapets. No trees decorated the roadsides. Their decorations were stone mounting blocks for the convenience of the cavalry, milestones showing the distance from the Roman Forum, and great monuments, gifts of conquerors or rich merchants. Roman roads were the best and only roads in Europe for nearly two thousand years. No later nation had the cause, the army, the wealth to build such roads; so with the passing of the Romans the era of road building ended.

Middle ages. During the middle ages the old Roman roads were regarded with terror. Robbers lurked along them ready to kill, as well as plunder. In 1285 a law was passed in England directing that all bushes and trees along roads leading from one market to another should be cut away 200 feet on either side to prevent robbers hiding therein.

Incas.-The Incas in Peru built roads that compared well with the Roman roads, and that at an elevation of 12,000 feet. Their roads were bordered by shade trees and running streams.

Modern times.-Tresaguet, a French engineer of the latter part of the eighteenth century; Telford, an English engineer of the early part of the nineteenth century; and MacAdam, an observing Scotchman with no training as an engineer, were the originators of modern methods of road building.

MacADAM AND HIS PRINCIPLES.

Telford and Tresaguet modified the old Roman road building, but they both retained the idea of using large stones in the foundation of the road. MacAdam came forward with the principle that the natural soil is able to support traffic, and while it is dry it will sustain any weight.

Drainage and a waterproof covering were all he asked for a good road. Simple, isn't it? A house with water in its cellar and a leaking roof is not a good investment, for it is neither pleasant nor a healthful habitation. A road with an undrained foundation, inviting every rain to soften it, every frost to heave it, is not a good investment. People avoid it. MacAdam raised roads in the middle so the water would drain to the gutters on the sides, and then he put