points ranged from 6.4 miles in the East to 23.3 miles in the Far West, with a national average of 12.1 miles. The average load for a 2-horse team was a little over 2,000 pounds and the average cost of hauling was 25 cents per ton-mile.[1] By comparison, the cost of hauling farm products by railroad was about ½ cent per ton-mile at this time.
The Object Lesson Road Program
As yet, General Stone had not found a satisfactory way to assist the agricultural colleges and experiment stations to disseminate information on roadmaking. A solution to this problem came out of the experience of the State Highway Commission in implementing the Massachusetts State-aid law of 1893. The Legislature had appropriated $300,000 with the provision that each county was to receive a “fair apportionment.” The Commission decided to parcel the money out to 37 widely scattered projects, each about 1 mile long, on the theory that once the people had a taste of good roads, they would put pressure on the Legislature for a bigger future appropriation. Each project was located where it would eventually form a link in a continuous system of trunk roads between the principal cities.[2]
Stone proposed to apply the Massachusetts idea nationally by building short “object lesson roads” near or on the experimental farms of the various States. These would serve to instruct the roadmakers, to educate the visiting public and to improve the economic administration of the farms.[3] This plan was satisfactory to James Wilson, the new Secretary of Agriculture, who preferred that the ORI emphasize the practical side of roadbuilding rather than the academic. However, the total annual budget of the Office of Road Inquiry was only $10,000 at this time, so General Stone had to scrounge most of the cost of the first object lesson roads.
He began the scrounging by reducing his own office staff, using the money saved to hire practical roadbuilding experts, of whom the first was General E. G. Harrison of Asbury Park, New Jersey, a civil engineer who enjoyed a national reputation as a builder of macadam roads. Next, he talked the road equipment manufacturers into providing equipment free as a good will and promotion gesture. Finally, he got the experiment stations, the local road authorities and, in some cases, private individuals to put up the cash to pay for labor, materials, hauling and part of the wages of the machine operators.
The ORI’s share of the cost of each project consisted only of the salary and travel expenses of the supervisory road expert, the expense of transporting the loaned equipment to and from the project and part of the wages of the equipment operators. However, the design, stakeout and supervision of construction were under the complete control of the ORI supervisor, “in order that the roads may be creditable to the Government when done.”[4]
Building the first object lesson road near the New Jersey Agricultural College and Experiment Station, New Brunswick, N.J., in 1897.
The first object lesson road project was comparatively small, involving a cash outlay of only $321 put up by the New Jersey Agricultural College and Experiment Station at New Brunswick. Under this project, General Harrison, in June 1897, placed 6 inches of trap rock macadam 8 feet wide on a 660-foot section of the main road leading from the town to the
