Road Demonstrations. 



321 



Curtis Hill. 



ROAD DEMONSTRATIONS. 



(Curtis Hill, State Highway Engineer.) 



During the past year exhibitions at the sessions 

 held by the State Board of Immigration at Spring- 

 field and Moberly and one road making demonstra- 

 tion trip over the line of the Frisco railroad from St. 

 Louis across the State by the way of Springfield and 

 Lamar were made. At the Springfield Congress we 

 had a display of plans, photographs, maps and pro- 

 files of roads and highway bridges, showing various 

 methods and types of construction and an assortment 

 of road building materials of the State such as clay, 

 sands, clierts, chats, gravels, rocks, oils and tars. In 

 addition to the above display at Springfield, there was shown at 

 Moberly miniatures of earth, sand-clay, rock gravel and oil roads 

 in the different stages of construction and a model illustration 

 of the size of loads possible to be hauled over these different 

 kinds of pavements. Models of metal and concrete culverts and 

 concrete bridge flooring were on exhibit; also an assortment of road 

 plows, scrapers, graders, wagons and rollers. The exhibit of road 

 tools and machinery and models of structures in concrete and metal by 

 this department for two years at the State Fair were creditable, but, as 

 an educational exhibit, should be given a more centrally located section 

 of the grounds and support by the fair officials that it may be made more 

 creditable. Aside from these already mentioned, five or six small demon- 

 strations would complete the list, all of which were only in a small way, 

 for the purpose of illustrating some feature of work adaptable to that 

 particular locality. Two of these demonstrated the use of the drag for 

 maintaining gravel roads, especially upon newly made roads when built 

 without the use of a roller and where the gravel is left to be packed by 

 travel. The following statement relates the success of one of these 

 demonstrations where an old gravel road which had become worn and 

 hollow and the side ditches filled was well crowned and ditched after an 

 hour's work with one team and the road drag: 



During a short course in agriculture at the Cape Girardeau Normal, 

 in February, 1909, the State and county highway engineers worked with 

 the school to put on a drag demonstration for earth and gravel roads as 

 a part of the program. There were very few present who had ever seen 



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