86 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



learn, the widest constant, unvarying, single set of ruts in 

 the world. I do not mean that carriages are not made as 

 wide as this anywhere else ; but that nowhere else are they 

 used so uniformly and universally as to set the gauge for 

 pleasure and travelling carriages, and to make a uniform 

 and inevitable rut from which there is no escape.^ It i§ 

 the only track so wide as to control the travel and con- 

 venience of other vehicles. It has sometimes been asserted 

 that the roads are improved, and an advantage may be 

 gained by two or more widths of axles in the same sec- 

 tion. This might possibly be the case in sections of the 

 State in which roads are uniformly hard and smooth ; but, 

 in the regions of the wide axle to which we refer, a narrow 

 axle, only nine or nine and a half inches shorter, cannot 

 escape the rut on one side or the other, and the shoulder 

 of the rut on another side. There is a horse-track in the 

 sand, rendering it inconvenient for a horse not in the cen- 

 tre between the ruts ; whilst the result is, that the carriage 

 is continually obliged to cross the shoulder of the ruts, and 

 change fron one rut to another. 



As we go west in Massachusetts, the customary track nar- 

 rows to four feet four inches in Springfield, and in Berkshire 

 to four feet eight inches, out to out ; with light carriages, 

 as narrow as four feet two inches to four feet six inches. 

 The standard track in Maine, New Hampshire, New York, 

 Western Rhode Island, in the larger part of Connecticut, 

 and in almost all the Western, Middle, and Southern States, 

 is four feet eight inches ; whilst everywhere, except in the 

 south-eastern section of Massachusetts, and its neigborhood 



1 On the contrary, omnibuses in New- York City, in which there are, of 

 course, no ruts, generally track six feet six inches, but lighter ones, six feet 

 two inches. In the Mitldle States (excepting New Jersey) the wide track, five 

 feet two inches and a half, is used for city railways, without exceptions, to 

 accommodate their old mail-coach track, which was five feet, centre to centre, 

 or five feet two inches, out to out. In Australia the principal carrying-vehicle 

 in use is built very strong, its carrying power ranging from four to six tons, and 

 its standard track is five feet nine inches, inside to inside. But the carriage 

 track varies; the manufacturers have no standard to guide them, and, as the 

 necessity for such has not arisen, they are guided by individual choice, merely 

 keeping in view the necessity of giving sufficient width of track to prevent 

 their vehicles from toppling over too easily. In France the law prescribes 

 the track of omnibuses to be 1.G5 metres, or five feet five inches, for hind-wheels, 

 and 1.55 metres, or about five feet one inch, for front-wheels. In practice this 

 is reduced to 1.55 and 1.35; but the roads are excellent, and the carriages made 

 for all tracks. 



