MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 343 



Every one must have observed that at those times when the country 

 roads are at their wors^, when for the greatest part of the distance they 

 are impassable for loaded teams, there are always some places that are 

 dry and firm, where the wheels have not cut into the road-bed, and the 

 ground does not work up into mud. It may be only the crest of the 

 hill where the plow has never disturbed the soil, and where the natural 

 inclination of the land carries away the surface water. The same con- 

 dition can be applied to all our roads. Grading will carry off the sur- 

 face water, under draining will draw off the water in the soil, and a suit- 

 able kind of earth placed on the road-bed and thoroughly rolled down 

 while it is moist enough to pack together, will make, in the lowest, soft- 

 est and wettest places, a road that will be passable at all times of the 

 .year. 



It is useless to grade roads with the soft clay that composes our 

 subsoil. With the first rain that falls it becomes a bed of pitch that 

 gathers and rolls up ou the wheels of the wagon until they become a 

 solid mass of putty. Where the surface soil has been plowed up and 

 allowed to wash away, it must be replaced at whatever expense may 

 be necessary, or your road is only fit for dry weather. 



It would seem that any road overseer who has enough common 

 sense to plant and till a field of corn, could understand the necessity 

 of keeping the surface water of adjacent lands out of the road. Yet 

 we see roads worked with a ditch on the lowest side to catch the 

 water after it has crossed the road, and not so much as a furrow on 

 the upper side to turn the water from the fields adjoining out of the 

 traveled way. And we have seen roads "turnpiked" for half a mile on 

 a long down, grade without a single water-bar to turn the water that 

 collects in the wheel tracks into the side ditch; and we have seen that 

 same road torn to pieces by the first shower, and every particle of the 

 work that had been done obliterated and wasted. And this waste and 

 folly will go on as long as we adhere to the present system of electing 

 road overseers, and of working the roads by the unjust and oppres- 

 sive system of poll taxes. If we ever rise to the height of the just 

 and equal principle that the property of the country should bear the 

 expense of building the roads, instead of making it a tax on labor, we 

 shall have made one great stride toward a permanent improvement. 

 A tax that is felt to be an injustice and an imposition will always be 

 grudgingly paid, and will be of little benefit. 



Our present system might give us satisfactory results if every road 

 overseer was a practical road-maker who thoroughly understood the 

 work, and would make it his first and principal business to attend to 

 the duties of his ofiice, and who at all times when repairs are needed 



