"Good roads, my friends, like good manners, commend themselves wherever used. It is very noticeable along improved roads the tendency of the farmers to improve the appearance of their homes and other buildings. In fact, the presence of good roads seems many times to stimulate latent self-respect into practical expression. Social institutions, such as schools, churches and public amusements, are more or less dependent in the country upon road conditions. Think what it would mean to you to have a consolidated school where the more advanced grades and even high school subjects could be taught, a building containing an auditorium, where you could meet any season of the year. I have attended many concerts and even listened to grand opera singers, but I want to say right here I've never had my heart stirred by music before as it has been stirred here this afternoon. Think of the advantages to a community of being able to develop the talent displayed here--what it would mean to you people yourselves to be able to get together, especially in the winter, and sing. What a great benefit and uplift it would be in any community. "Now, good roads make consolidated schools possible and give you these advantages. "Take the benefits you now derive from rural free delivery of mail-- the happiness and home comforts it has brought; nothing contributes so much to its efficiency and regularity as good roads. "It is a matter of common observation that when any community has passed from a condition dominated by bad roads to a condition which is characterized by good roads, land values in that community advance. The cost of hauling farm produce to market is probably not so much increased by the grades as by the bad condition of the road surface. The trouble with unimproved earth roads is that they are muddy for many months in the year. "Do you know that you can haul six times as much over a good concrete road surface as you can through average mud? Or putting it another way, for the same load hauled one mile in mud, you can go six miles over concrete. "The Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Agriculture has collected much data that shows the waste of time and money by farmers using dirt roads. "Why has Joe Williams put power all over Brookside Farm? I'll tell you: for the same reason that you men are going to put it on your farms next year--not because the work is made easier, but because it saves time--lets one man do easily the work of three or four. That's why. Do you want to spend six hours hauling a load from town to your farm, or from your farm to town, when you can do it in one hour? That's what they mean when they tell you about conserving man power. Good roads and only good roads will do that for you.