their limit of growth territorially; and we pay six hundred million dollars every year to get the seventy-five per cent of our raw material and produce from our farms to our railways.
This is the main proposition of the good roads problem, and the reason why the road question is to be one of the great questions of the next half century. The question is, How much can we save of this half a billion dollars, at the least expenditure of money and in the most beneficial way?
In this problem, as in many, the most important phase is the one most difficult to study and most difficult to solve. It is as complex as human life itself. It is the question of good roads as they affect the social and moral life of our rural communities. It is easy to talk of bad roads costing a half billion dollars a year—the answer should be that of Hood's—"O God! that bread should be so dear, and flesh and blood so cheap." You cannot count in terms of the stock exchange the cost to this land of poor roads; for poor roads mean the decay of country living, the abandon-
