on
is subject to this service, and this, too, at a time when the need for
highway improvement is greatest.

While the former ways and means are inadequate or inapplicable to
present needs and conditions, there are other means more suitable for
the service, and existing in ample proportion for every need. The
tollgate-keeper cannot be called upon to restore the ancient system of
turnpikes and plank roads to be maintained by a tax upon vehicles
passing over them, but there can be provided a general fund in each
county sufficient to build up free roads better than the toll roads and
with a smaller burden of cost upon the people. The statute labor in the
rural districts cannot be depended upon, because it is unsuitable to the
service now required and spasmodic in its application, when it should be
perennial; but this statute labor can be commuted to a money tax, with
no hardships upon the citizens and with great benefit to the highway
system.

Former inhabitants of the abandoned farms or the deserted villages
cannot be followed to the great cities and the road tax which they
formerly paid be collected from them again to improve the country roads;
but it can be provided that all the property owners in every city, as
well as in every county, shall pay a money tax into a general fund,
which shall be devoted exclusively to the improvement of highways in the
rural districts. The state itself can maintain a general fund out of
which a portion of the cost of every principal highway in the state
shall be paid, and by so doing all the people of the state will
contribute to improving the highways, as they once did in the early
history of the nation, when substantially all the wealth and population
was distributed almost equally throughout the settled portions of the
country.

Having a general fund of money instead of statute labor, it would be
possible to introduce more scientific and more economical methods of
construction with cooperation. This cooperation, formerly applied with
good results to the primitive conditions, but which has been partially
lost by the diminution in the number and skill of the co-workers, would
be restored again in a great measure by drawing the money with which to
improve the roads out of a general fund to which all had contributed.

In many countries the army has been used to advantage in time of peace
in building up and maintaining the highways. There is no army in this
country for such a purpose, b