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V. — Farm Roads on Strong Soils. 

 By J. Bailey Denton. 



Prize Essay. 



As the practice of draining extends the importance of good 

 internal roads on clay farms will become daily more manifest. 

 The productive capabilities of clay soils being developed by 

 drainage, it will remain only to attract to those soils occupiers of 

 intelligence and capital by works of accommodation by which 

 their cultivation may be properly conducted ; and it matters not 

 whether we regai'd the possession of hard roads as a means of 

 economizing labour and time in the use of horses and men, 

 or as a means of lessening the wear and tear of carts and 

 harness, the advantage of having such roads in the place of 

 bottomless rut-tracks is so manifest to every one that it requires 

 no figures to prove nor arguments to enforce it. We can only 

 wonder how an improvement so generally required has been so 

 much neglected in districts destined to become, as the late Pro- 

 fessor Johnston has declared, " the richest corn-bearing districts 

 in the kingdom." Improvements, however, which necessitate a 

 considerable outlay, are ordinarily deferred until obligations en- 

 force their execution, and road-making in absorbent and retentive 

 clay soils is doubtless an expensive process ; for true economy in 

 this important art admits of no compromise with those funda- 

 mental principles by which an even hardness of surface is rendered 

 durable witliout a waste of material. Beyond the consideration 

 of expense, however, there is still a question unsolved, which 

 causes the work to be delayed, i. e. whether the making of farm 

 roads should be deemed the work of the occupier or of the 

 owner ? and until this question be practically answered by the 

 owner taking upon himself a work so essentially an element of 

 value in fixing the rent of land, it is not likely that agriculturists 

 will gain any extended experience themselves, nor profit very 

 largely by the knowledge of practical road engineers. 



It can readily be understood that the owners of entailed pro- 

 perty should be indisposed to expend large sums of money in 

 such costly improvements, Avhen it is improbable that they can 

 live to see the outlay liquidated by the increased rents which 

 should naturally follow ; ])ut if this be admitted as an impedi- 

 ment with respect to owners with limited interests, how much 

 more strongly does it apply to occupiers at will, who may have 

 nicely balanced their capital to the number of acres they purpose 

 to cultivate, and who cannot spare any portion of that capital for 

 permanent works of improvement I 



This observation may apply to all descriptions of permanent 



