misoella:^eous papees peesei^ted at 

 INSTITUTES a:nd elsewheee. 



HIGHWAYS— THEIR CONSTRUCTION" AND MAINTENANCE. 



BY A. L. DREW. 

 [Read at the Three Oaks Institute.] 



This country, with all its power and wealth, may look with envy upon the 

 highways of ancient Greece and Rome, and learn with profit that the 

 improvement of their roads marked an important era in the history of their 

 wealth and military power. Common roads are to the people what the blood 

 is to the human system, a necessity, and should have the same consideration, 

 if we hope to maintain a healthy condition. 



How ready is the progressive farmer to avail himself of all the improved 

 machinery, that he may be enabled to cultivate his lands profitably! 

 Yet how slow are we to avail ourselves of improved implements for and 

 methods of constructing our highways. Well do I remember the manner 

 and methods of accomplishing this work in use forty years ago. 



Let the pioneers of this country go back in memory with me, if you please, 

 to those days when you were making the first effort to develop this country 

 by road making and take an inventory of the outfit. Of what did it consist? 

 of the same kind of tools that are in use at this day. Gentlemen, are we fol- 

 lowing the spirit of the times, when, at this era of mechanical ingenuity, 

 we satisfy ourselves with the same kind of appliances in the construction of 

 roads that were in use fifty years ago? 



With the permission of this meeting I will mark out a few things essential 

 to good results in the construction of our common roads. 



ALIGNMENT. 



First, alignment : This is the very first thing in the construction of a road ; 

 and if this has not been attended to, although the road has been improved for 

 twenty years, let it be done now, or before any more work is put upon it. I 

 have in mind numerous instances where the highway has been laid, and 

 recorded on a section line, and the work of construction entered into, with- 

 out the aid of a surveyor, for the sake of saving four or five dollars, where 

 large sums of money have been expended by commissioners, in grading hills 

 and turnpikes, which are entirely outside the right of way, and a total loss to 

 the community, and an injury to the owner of the adjoining lands. This is. 



