236 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the jur3^ The town, but not the district, is large enough to own 

 whatever is needful for building and maintaining good roads. 

 There Avould be needed horses and carts, a stone crusher, worked 

 by steam, and breaking five or six cubic yards of stone each hour, 

 a roller for compacting the broken stone, with a few other minor 

 implements. The whole would cost some three thousand dollars, 

 and might be paid for by devoting a portion of the road-tax to 

 this end fur three or four years. And, again, the town, but not 

 the district, is large enough to keep^ constantly at work a number 

 of men sufficiently great for the most advantageous performance 

 of road labor with labor-saving machinery. An efficient road- 

 master could, also, be secured and kept in office for yeai's, that 

 the public might profit by his experience. There is always 

 enough to do at any season of the year. Beside the work which 

 specially belongs to winter, stone can be broken at that season 

 and drawn to the points where it will be required. In winter 

 gravel can also be carted to the places where it is needed ; and it 

 should be well understood that gravel — if screened the better — 

 can be profitably transported a long distance to mix with clay or 

 loam instead of the usual scrapings from the side of the road. 



This is the road policy pursued, with the happiest results, by 

 the town of Waltham, Mass. The town is quite populous and has 

 about sixty miles of road. For seven years prior to 1865, the 

 average annual expenditure on her roads, under this policy, was 

 only $3,357, embracing the expenditure for sidewalks throughout 

 a large village. In 1868 it cost the town $6,000 for repairs of 

 roads and clearing away the snow. She keeps ten to fifteen men 

 steadily employed,' working with the requisite labor-saving ma- 

 chiner3^ As a result of this policj', her roads are the best to be 

 found in any country town of Massachusetts, and are continually 

 growing better. The principal ones are macadamized. Never- 

 theless her road expenditures are below the average. Little won- 

 der that other country towns of our mother State of Massachusetts 

 have begun to imitate the example of Waltham. It would be well 

 for us to go and do likewise. 



In the third place, the political unit for the management of roads 

 should be as large as the town, because a certain amount of 

 the money — say one-quarter — expended on roads should be de- 

 voted to durable improvements, where the need of them is great- 

 est. Kvory town has its hills, its bogs, its sandy plains, which 

 should receive special attention. The district, to be sure, can do 



