A study of the annual cost per patron in the rural delivery service for the year 1916, shows that in the States of California and Utah, and in the District of Columbia, it was less than $1 each. In the States of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia, it was more than $1 and less than $2. In Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming, it was more than $2 and less than $3, and in North and South Dakota it was over $3 and less than $4. Annual cost of service for patron decreased from 2,066 in 1915 to 1,966 in 1916. The annual cost per piece of mail handled on rural routes was lowest in the States of Arizona, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Utah, and the District of Columbia, and highest in Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee. Annual cost per price handled was .0144 in 1915 and .0150 in 1916. The States which had the largest number of patrons served on rural routes (over a million in each) were Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas. The States which had less than 100,000 patrons served were Arizona, Delaware, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Utah, Wyoming and the District of Columbia. Population and Extension of Rural Service Relative to the provision in the act making appropriations for the rural service for the fiscal year 1917, “that rural mail delivery shall be extended so as to serve as nearly as practicable the entire rural population of the United States,” it should be stated that rural delivery service covered, at the end of the fiscal year 1916, 1,037,259 miles of roads, while star-route service was operated upon 139,634 miles. It is estimated that there are 2,199,646 miles of public roads in the United States, so that there remain 1,022,753 miles or roads on which no mail service is in operation. At the end of the fiscal year 1916 an estimated population of 26,307,686 was served by rural routes, 520,000 by star routes, and approximately 10,000,000 by fourth-class post offices. The total rural population in the United States is placed at 43,991,722. It will be seen, therefore, that while 83 per cent of the rural population is receiving convenient mail service, 47 per cent of the rural road mileage is uncovered. Speeding Up the Rural Service by Motor Vehicle