Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 15).djvu/196

 he has to "cut the garment to suit the cloth." We start out with this dilemma. We must have better roads, and our means for getting them being very limited, if we cannot get them as good as we would like, let us get them as good as we can.

Let me give a practical illustration. Stone-road construction outside of turnpike corporations in West Jersey was begun in the spring of 1891. I was called on by the township committee of Chester Township, Burlington County, to construct some roads. Moorestown is a thriving town of about three thousand inhabitants in the center of the township. The roads to be constructed, with one exception, ran out of the town to the township limits, being from one-half to three miles in length. The roads were generally for local purposes. There were ten roads, aggregating about eleven miles. The bonding of the township was voted upon, and it was necessary, in order to carry the bonding project of $40,000, to have all these roads constructed of stone macadam. The roads to be improved were determined on at a town meeting without consulting an engineer as to the cost, etc.,