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as much as by travel, they would be unprofitable. And this, 

 he thought, would be the case even with roads passing from 

 one county town to another. 



The Governor's suggestion of ditching would do if the 

 ground was thrown up in the middle, so that the water could 

 run off into the ditches. In clay soil and in a rolling or hilly 

 country, the washing of the road was the great evil, and no 

 other remedy existed, but to drain off the water from the 

 centre of the road directly into the ditches. If suffered to 

 run along the wagon track, gullies were soon washed, and 

 the usual working they received under the existing laws was 

 to have these filled up with loose dirt, to be washed out again 

 by the first hard rains. But no hope can be entertained for 

 better common roads until the laws will require a narrow 

 track to be worked in such way as to make the centre of the 

 road the highest, and not, as now, a broad road, so flat that 

 the accumulated waters from it alone will forever keep it 

 scarcely passable. For general utility, we must rely on well 

 worked common roads. And to work them, one of the best 

 and cheapest scrapers was made by taking the shovel off the 

 shovel plow, and in its place pinning on a board about two 

 feet long and one foot wide, made of oak and bevelled at the 

 lower edge. 



Mr. Murray remarked that if we have to rely on common 

 roads, then it becomes an important question how these roads 

 may best be worked. It has been very correctly said that 

 by the present mode the labor of one year is but to do over 

 again what was done the preceding year. There was but 

 one correct method, and that was to adopt a narrow track, 

 and throw the ground up in the centre. In Elkhart county, 

 this plan was being adopted. From eight to ten furrows 

 were ploughed along the sides of the track and then the dirt 

 carried to the centre by scrapers. When thus made, the 

 road was dry, which was the great object with them, the 

 country being level. 



The plan of Mr. Ellsworth would suit the north well. 



