FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 43 



only designated as to the kind of improvement expected, but as to its 

 order in that plan of improvement, a sj^stem can be devised, adopted by 

 the various township boards and adhered to, which, in a few years, 

 would result not only in the substantial improvement of all the main 

 roads, but would set in motion a system for the economical construc- 

 tion and maintenance of all other roads which must wait many years 

 for a hardened surface. 



With this brief preliminary statement I desire to offer some sugges- 

 tions, somewhat in the form of detailed specifications, for the building 

 and maintenance of the various forms of earth, gravel and macadam 

 roads. 



EARTH ROADS. 



Location. — In that portion of the United States where the land has 

 been surveyed in rectangular townships and sections, it seems to be an 

 unwritten law, as unchangeable as that of the Medes and Persians, that 

 section lines were laid out for the express purpose of building roads 

 upon. For the most part it is necessary that section lines be made road 

 lines, in order to reach the homes of the people, but this should not be 

 allowed to become a hard and fast rule and we should not hesitate to 

 deviate from them when physical conditions make it practically impos- 

 sible to build roads on such locations. High hills too expensive to 

 grade down, swamps too extensive to drain or fill up, and streams too 

 diflScult to bridge, are all proper reasons for deviating from section line 

 roads, even at considerable cost for new right-of-way. It is usually 

 economical to go around the bad hill or swamp, following the easiest 

 grade possible, even though a whole field has to be bought for that pur- 

 pose. These undesirable and untillable hills and swamps and spare 

 corners which the township would then own could be planted to trees 

 and shrubbery and thus be made into natural parks along the road- 

 sides. They would thus become valuable object lessons in tree culture 

 and road decoration, as well as in the economy, not only of the first cost 

 of road building and maintenance, but a much greater economy to the 

 users of the roads for all times. 



Grades. — Hills and hollows which it is not desirable to go around 

 should be cut down and filled up till the grades are not steeper than six 

 per cent for rolling and hilly country, and be kept down as low as two 

 or three per cent on comparatively level land. 



It should be remembered that the force required to move a given 

 load on the level varies from one-twentieth of the weight of the load, 

 on a common earth road in good condition, to about one-thirtieth of the 

 load on a good gravel or on a fair macadam road and continues to dimin- 

 ish to as little as one-fiftieth of the gross load on the best macadam 

 surfaces. But, when a hill has to be climbed, an additional force is 

 required equal to that fractional part of the load obtained by dividing 

 the height of the hill by its length. It is not probable that grades will 

 receive the attention they demand until the truth of this statement 

 is more fully realized and we will therefore illustrate it a little more at 

 length. 



To simplify the expression we speak of grades in terms of their rise 

 in each one hundred feet of length. Thus a hill rising five feet in each 

 hundred is spoken of as having a five per cent grade, while the extra 



