TOURING FROM BOSTON TO SAVANNAH
DIXVILLE NOTCH
NEW HAMPSHIRE
THE BALSAMS, June to October
THE BALSAMS WINTER INN
October to June
New eighteen-hole Golf Course and Club House unequalled in the
Summer Resort Field. Playing length over sixty-three hundred yards.
Superb Location. Ask Donald Ross, who supervised its construction,
for particulars, and write for special descriptive booklet Tennis,
Boating, Bathing, Fishing and Wilderness Life.
As the northernmost point reached by New Hampshire's splendid
system of highways, and famous for its rare scenic beauty, Dixville
Notch is a favorite rendezvous of motor tourists. Garage, machine and
supply shops.
Two well appointed hotels in the center of a vast estate embracing
four thousand acres and including farms, dairy, fish-hatchery, hydio
electric plant and abundant spring water supply.
For booklets, reservation or information address,
CHARLES H. GOULD, Manager
Dixville Notch, N. H.
MMWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWW WWW WWW WWW WWW W WWWWW
"Choisa" Ceylon Tea
i lb. Canisters
60c
-i lb. Canisters
35c
Packed in Parchment-Lined One
Pound and Half-Pound Canisters
We invite compari
son with other Teas
of the same or higher
price
S. S. PIERCE CO.,
Tremont and Beacon SU
ronley Square
BOSTON.
Coolidge Comer,
185 Milk St Wholesale) JJ & UIM, BROOKLINE
o
OCK
The Mineral Water De Luxe X,
from the
White Rock Mineral Sprinds
WAUKESHA.WIS. U.S.A. D
Office 100 Broadway. N.Y.
Bank of Pinehurst
SAFE DEPOSIT BOXES TO LET
CHECKING AND SAVING ACCOUNTS
4 PER CENT INTEREST
J. R. ricQUEEN, President F. W. VON CANON, Cashier
A 1,800 Mile Trip Which Takes in Many Points of Historic
Interest and is Ninety Per Cent Oyer Good Roids
Written Specially for The Outlook by Henry MacNair
Mr. McNair, recently compiler and editor of the Automobile Blue Book, is the
greatest authority in the world upon American motor routes.
BOSTON and Savannah
are almost connected
by an improved high
way. Almost, because
there remains a little
stretch of less than fif
teen miles, seven of
which are really rough
and five hundred yards
xecrable, or ' 1 rotten ' ' as the average tour
ist says after he has pulled through it,
or been pulled out of it. Two husky
farmers with ears attuned to the laboring
motor in low gear, await a call for help
hard by, and when assured that their prey
is stuck fast appear as if from nowhere
with mules and offer to extract the car
from the mud at $10 per pull. Rather a
lucrative business in wet weather, but
when the creek was dammed and the
water diverted across the road in Choca
wamsie Swamp, arrests were made and
the overstimulation to a good enough
trade was abandoned.
However, The Outlook can promise its
readers that the worst part of the offend
ing stretch will shortly be repaired, for
the money has been raised by public
spirited hotels of Washington and Fred
ericksburg, to make the road .passable this
winter. At the same time a fund has been
started for finishing the entire fourteen
miles, under the supervision of the U. S.
Department of Public Roads. Even as it
is today, it is preferable to the long de
tour through Staunton, wherein the com
bined length of the bad roads will greatly
exceed that south of Occoquan. It is
practically assured that before another
season, the improved highway will extend
without a break all the way from Cape
Cod to the East Coast of Florida.
Greater improvement is visible in the
roads all along the way in the last two
years than at any similar period of the
history of the Capital Highway project,
and if a proper system of maintenance
can be kept up, which would seem to be
assured by the Department of Public
Roads having that matter in their direct
charge, there is no reason why the tide of
travel between the North and South
should not increase with each passing
year, until it will become the ordinary
thing to motor to Pinehurst from either
Boston or Savannah.
A great mistake was made in the earli
er years of motoring by boosting the
roads of the South which were not good,
and in trying to promote routes of
travel through districts which abounded
in red clay, torential streams and
mountain slopes, but was decidedly
short on comfortable hotels wherein
one might ease the tired flesh after
a day of jouncing. Many such schemes
were put forth, the principal one
being the so-called National Highway,
which was never National in anything but
name, connecting New York with Atlanta,
the great Southern business center. It
sounded fine, and reams upon reams of
publicity stories were spilled, but tho
wary tourist refused to swarm southward
as per schedule. For no matter what the
Gliddenites said for publication, to their
friends they privately whispered, "Don't
do it." The failure of this particular
scheme was not due so much to red clay
as to rough mattresses, and the ordinary
tourist will forgive a mudhole, but not a
hog an' hominy dinner. After a series
of mishaps on the poor road around Mar
tinsville, Va., another route was laid out
which cut off at Natural Bridge and pro
ceeded over the most terrifying piece of
road which it has ever been my ill for
tune to travel over. We crossed a little
bridge, then drove a short distance along
an old canal bank too narrow for one
vehicle, when we were confronted by an
A. C. A. sign pointing up the side of the
hill along which an indistinct trail mean
dered uncertainly. "Surely thera must
be some mistake,' ' all exclaimed in
chorus, when some resourceful one be
thought himself of the Big Book, which
he had hoped to escape referring to.
Solemnly it recounted the fact that one
must turn up hill through a break in a
stone wall 6-10 of a mile beyond the
bridge, which language was interpreted
to be entirely figurative as the only stone
wall we saw was the nill before us. The
roads over this impossible trail were fur
ther described as being of good shale and
the grades not steep, followed by some
miles of graded clay. This language was
also found to be figurative, except that
the shale itself was apparently as good as
any other shale, only it had never been
made into a road. As for the graded clay
it could have had no possible reference to
a road-grading machine. Along the high
bank of the James River we wound in a
rapid succession of sharp reverse curves,
sometimes having to back up in order to
get around, every moment expecting to be
plunged into the river hundreds of feet
beneath, and all hands praying that 'we
might not meet anything on the road for
the five miles we had to go.
But there was small danger from the
natives for none of them were quite clear
as to where the trail went, and as for tour
ists most of the wise ones had been warned
long ago. After what seemed an age, we
reached Lynchburg, and it being early,
thought to push on to some quieter place
for the night. We landed in Appomattox
at dusk and found what we thought would
be a quiet place, neglecting to observe
J