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 loads his wagon as best he can, and the only care is not to exceed the quantity which it will carry; whether the team can draw the load, is not a consideration" Such arguments prevailed in the day when timber was considered almost a nuisance, and plank roads spread far and wide.

Few who were acquainted with primitive conditions have left us anything vivid in the way of descriptions of roads and road-making. "The pioneers of our State," wrote Calvin Fletcher, in an exceedingly interesting paper read before the Indiana Centennial Association, July 4, 1900, "found Indian trails, which, with widening, proved easy lines of travel. Many of these afterward became fixtures through use, improvement, and legislation Next to the hearty handshake and ready lift at the handspike, where neighbors swapped work at log-rollings, was the greeting when, at fixed periods, all able-bodied men met to open up or work upon the roads. My child-feet pattered along many of the well-constructed thoroughfares of today when they were only indistinct tracings—long lines of deadened trees, deep-worn horse paths,