SOLID BRIDGES FOR MOUN

TAIN ROADS

IN building highways through the mountainous regions of Colorado a queer bridge is being used in spanning the arroyos-the dry creeks which carry water only after rains-which often overflow on short notice. The ordinary type of concrete and steel bridge poorly withstands these floods. To do away with this, the highway engineers, instead of bridging the creek in the usual way, are building a solid road base of concrete to the bottom of the arroyo and laying the grade on top of it. Culverts are built through the concrete of sufficient capacity to carry off ordinary drainage.

At flood periods the water as it rages down the arroyos and meets one of these concrete walls simply goes over the top of it, the solid concrete base offering so

firm a resistance that the risk of its being carried away is hardly to be considered. After the flood has subsided, the débris is cleared off the bridge and the crossing is as good as ever.

HANDLES NINETY-FOOT POLES

WITHOUT TRAILER

AN electric truck with a capacity of

12,000 pounds has been designed to handle poles up to ninety feet in length without the use of' a trailer. The poles. are loaded so as to project both before and behind, as shown in the illustration. The heavy poles are loaded readily by means of an electric winch located in the center of the vehicle. This may be controlled either from the sides of the truck or from the driver's seat.

CARRIES STREAM TO MILL IN order to get a flow of water high enough for an overshot wheel, a miller in the Grand Traverse region of Michigan tapped Crystal River at a sharp bend. By means of a strong flume he carried the river across itself to an elevation on which his mill was located. The stream has been running from this elevated flow for a half-century. It is one of the sights afforded by the new Michigan pike which now runs the length of the State. It was a successful effort in pioneer fluming in the Wolverine State.

portation. The old price was but fifty cents a ton and the Illinois Road Commission is attempting to lower the new one of ninety-five cents.

STONE FOR ILLINOIS ROADS ILLINOIS roads are to be improved

with stone from the great spoil banks thrown up by the dredges which built the drainage canal. The material will be furnished to the road builders free of charge, the only cost being freight trans

In places the spoil banks are now covered with a heavy growth of sweet clover, which furnishes material for a number of apiaries owned by farmers along the route of the canal. Many of them pay chiefly because of this supply, which will be cut off when the banks are removed.

E

CONOMISTS have bewailed the increase of tenant farming in the United States; editors have held up this growth of renting as a sign that American agriculture is on the wane; others have issued solemn warnings that it is undermining American democracy, and that land ownership is the only condition of true agricultural prosperity.

But is this really the case? Is farm tenancy un-American, harmful alike to soil, tenant, and American democracy? Does it really tend to create landed aristocracies, and to make dependents of the men who actually work the soil? Is renting a cause of agricultural depression?

The Federal Government has been interested in the problems presented by tenant farming; and it has reached the conclusion that on the whole renting is not the harmful institution many have supposed it to be. Men who have made. a careful study of the phenomenon are of the opinion that it is thoroughly democratic and productive of good economic results.

Dr. W. J. Spillman, Chief of the Federal Office of Farm Management, is of the opinion that renting follows naturally from the fact that the farmer is not bound to his occupation by social or industrial precedent, and that in many cases he is willing to retire from active work, after having gathered a competence sufficient to satisfy his wants.

"For example, take the case of the farmer who owns land and owns a lot of it," says Dr. Spillman. "When he has farmed his land for a number of years and has made a success of the venture, naturally he wishes to be relieved of the cares and responsibilities of the work without being forced to give up the income he derives from his property. His logical move then is to rent out portions on shares or for cash rentals.

"Again, take the case of young men who inherit large farms. Many of them are attending agricultural colleges, engineering schools, and universities; and when they are graduated, ready to meet the brisk demand there is for such graduates, they prefer entering professional