48 STATE BOARD CF AGRICULTURE. 



CONSTRUCTION AND CARE OF CLAY ROADS. 



/ 



BY A. E. PALMER, KALKASKA. 



Clay and sand roads are not alike, but directly opposite in the best 

 methods of construction and care; although the location of the line of 

 the road, the mininnim of the required grades, the building of culverts or 

 the covering of the roads, to the end of more permanent and good roads, 

 may apply alike to all classes of roads. 



Clay roads should not be built so narrow as to cause the travel to 

 follow the same track, because of the tendency to rut while the surface is 

 moist and to pound up into dust in dry weather, particularly with the 

 too narrow tires oftentimes used upon wagons carrying heavy loads; 

 perhai)s location may have an influence, but about twenty-four feet 

 between ditches is a good average width. 



The proper form for a clay road is a turnpike of one inch to the foot 

 grade from center of the road bed to each side; more than this causes 

 too much wash from the surface to the ditch, while less grade is apt to 

 leave too many depressions to be filled with water, a very bad condition. 

 These roads should be built or repaired only in the spring when the 

 ground is wet or soft; fairly good roads are oftentimes made bad by 

 work done during the summer months, or early fall, and this condition 

 will continue during the balance of the year, or until another summer. 

 In the hands of an expert the road grader is one of the best of tools in 

 smoothing up or finishing the road bed, economical and rapid in its 

 work, but in any other hands may be made a most destructive agent and 

 expensive in the extreme. 



In the construction and care of clay roads, water is not only the most 

 damaging but the hardest to control of any natural element, hence, 

 labor used in eliminating the moisture from the road bed is money well 

 invested. In low, flat stretches of road this is often a most difficult 

 problem. 



Too little attention is given to this matter of drainage and quite often 

 insufficient or carelessly constructed ditches are worse than none at 

 all; that is, deep and narrow side drains with sluggish passing of the 

 water stream, permits the soakage of the road bed from the sides, for a 

 long time after each rain storm; it is therefore quite necessary that the 

 work done to secure good drainage be made in as permanent a manner 

 as possible, this is true economy. Hence, we say ditches should be con- 

 structed along all clay roads, even where the water may be present but 

 a short time at any particular season. 



A mistake very frequentl}' made is in the digging of the ditches too 

 narrow and too deep, rather they should be broad, and as shallow as is 

 consistent with the ability to quickly remove the water at least three 

 feet below the surface of the road at the center. Such ditches should 

 be so constructed as to be constantly free for the rapid passage of the 

 water and with the maximum fall which the general lay of the land will 

 permit. The outlets should be kept free and carefully guarded against 



