248 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



.^wick ; but three days after they are made put a team on them and 

 the wheels will go to the hubs. The centre of the road is pot 

 plowed at all. They grub through the woods and do not take out 

 all the roots, although they do most of them, and then cover up, 

 and the first rain that comes leaves the soft places very soft, and 

 the hard places very hard, so that you find it as hard a road to 

 travel on as though it had not been worked at all. 



In repairing roads when once well made, we let the shoulders 

 remain and fill inside with some hard substance. We ai'e not able 

 to pound stone to do it, but we use good gravel. If they are 

 once formed properly level, not rounded up much, we make better 

 roads a great deal by repairing them in that way than by plowing 

 the shoulders and raising them up, so that when two teams meet 

 the outside one must go in the ditch. 



Mr. Robinson. Twenty-four feet from ditch to ditch ? 



Mr. Putnam. Yes sir. 



Mr. Robinson. What would be the slope ? 



Mr. Putnam. The centre, I should think, two and a half feet 

 higher than the ditch. 



Mr. Robinson. Would there be any danger if you drove in the 

 ditch with your carriage ? 



Mr. Putnam. Not at all. 



Question. What was the character of the soil ? 



Mr. Putnam. It was clayey loam ; not very rocky. There 

 were some stones. 



Question. Did not the water soak down naturally ? 



Mr. Putnam. No sir ; we had to drain it ofi". I repair roads by 

 carting on hard gravel ; never by taking the sand out of the 

 ditches that is washed into them from the road, because it will go 

 right back again. 



Question. What depth do you allow the water to stand in your 

 culverts ? 



Mr. Putnam. None at all. ' It should run off at once. If it 

 stands it will make a hole under the road. 



Question. Have you had any experience in building roads 

 through clay ? 



Mr. Putnam. Very little. There are roads in my neighbor- 

 hood where I have seen teams set in the spring, with only three 

 tons weight, the wheels down to the hub. 



Question. What is the remedy for that ? 



Mr. Putnam. Centre draining. In one case of that kind, I put 



