SOCIETY OF NOBTHERN ILLINOIS. 245 



ride over every day be made pleasing to the eye, and our children 

 learn lessons of order and neatness on the road too, as well as inside 

 the school house, and the strangers who visit us receive pleasant 

 impressions of the country they pass through? 



The ideal roadway should be seeded to grass in such parts as are 

 not used for travel, kept free from weeds and brush, and to facilitate 

 the mowing of weeds and grass with a machine, the sides of pikes 

 and ditches should be made with as easy slopes as possible. All 

 holes should be filled up, and rough, uneven ground graded smooth, 

 where practicable, grass and weeds should be mowed, at least, twice a 

 year; the first time previous to the 1st of July, as if not done by 

 that time, it will be sure to be put off until after harvest. All nox- 

 ious weeds, such as thistles, dock, burdock, velvet-weed, etc., should 

 be cut out by the roots. 



Shade- trees by the roadside are a luxury in the summer-time, 

 and could they be planted universally, would do much to break the 

 force of our heavy winds, both summer and winter. Street trees 

 should be planted near enough together to break the force of the 

 sun in the summer, but not so closely, nor headed so low as to kill 

 out the grass underneath them. With some protection while small, 

 the trees can be planted five or six feet in the road, thus leaving 

 room for a walk between the trees and the fence. It will be unnec- 

 essary to say that the highway is not the proper place to throw 

 brush and weeds, or to dump tin scraps and other refuse, or to scour 

 plows. One should as soon think of doing such things on his lawn 

 as in the road. But the question arises, how are we to have any 

 uniformity in this matter ? One man does his duty, but his slovenly 

 neighbor makes no effort to do his part, and his unkept piece, of 

 road spoils the looks of the rest, and his weeds seed the rest of the 

 highway and his neighbors farms as well. And this allowing of bad 

 weeds to go to seed in the roads is a serious matter. I have seen 

 persons carefully pick the ripe dock out of the grass they were 

 mowing on the roadside and throw it into the middle of the track 

 where the wagon wheels would carry the seed long distances, and 

 the water wash them into the ditches and sloughs to be carried even 

 greater distances. If I had a particularly choice article of an 

 extremely noxious weed, which 1 wished the whole country to get 

 the benefit of, I think I should seed the roads with it, and expect it 

 to be disseminated more quickly than by any other plan, unless 

 it could be made one of the ingredients of some of our seedmens' 

 packets. 



To return to the subjed; of how this work is to be done, I think 

 it is as much the duty of the highway officers to see that the roads 

 are cleared of bad weeds and brush as it is to fill up a mud-hole. 

 The mowing of grass and general looking after the appearance of 

 the roads may be left to individuals, until public sentiment demands 



