The Athens Post

GOOD ROADS.
There is a good deal of inquiry and much interest is beginning to be felt on the subject of roads, as the line of railway approaches this section of East Tennessee. An increasing commerce and the business of our principal localities, as well as the farming interests all demand good roads, intersecting the nearest depots on the railroad. In the early settlement of the country, and the location of plantations on the best lands and generally in the rich valleys, the only thing consulted was the convenience of a neighborhood. As the improvements were extended, roads were removed by the County Courts to suit the convenience of the farmers, the effect of which was in many instances to locate them over ridges with steep grades. Most of the surplus of the country was driven off on foot, there being no market at remunerating prices for grain, and not requiring good roads for its transportation. In this respect a great change is to take place through the railroad. Grain of all descriptions will command, in the Southern market, money at fair prices, making it necessary to intersect the interior by improved roads over easy grades. Principal inland towns must have turnpikes. McAdam, or Plank roads, to points nearest of access, and to points more remote improved common roads, admitting of the transit of full loads to market, as well as return loads of salt, plaster, and merchandise required for the consumption and wants of the country. To this object our County Courts should have reference in any future action on road applications, and the attention of all good citizens is invited to the same object. In that case highway labor would result in a permanent improvement of our roads and upon localities that would not be changed.
It is important to obtain the most favorable grades and to locate the roads around hills rather than over them, which in this climate and soil would save a great annual expense in repairs, as steep grades are continually caving down in the rainy seasons. A great improvement could be made in the application of highway labor by introducing teams of two and three yoke of cattle with a strong turning plow, thereby in many instances saving the labor of fifty men with one team. In many instances stone may be used in place of earth at the same expense. It is a well established fact that plantations on good roads and leading thoroughfares are more valuable and command a ready market, as compared with other localities, as well as the advantage of a home market for surplus products, created by the teams and travel going to the market towns. The better the roads and the more of them you have the more prosperous the country. This is the experience of other sections, and it is not to be denied that we are badly deficient in this respect in East Tennessee. But we have neither time nor space to enter fully into the subject this week. We have thrown together the above remarks for the purpose of bringing the matter before our people. It is one in which they ought to feel a deep interest, and we shall take it up again at an early day.