OUR COMMON ROADS—MURPHY. 44] 
attention to grade, surface, drainage and sub-drainage, should be 
secured. The grades should be easy, not exceeding 1 in 30; the 
road surface should slope not less than 1 in 20 from centre 
towards the sides ; the ditches should be deep and capacious, with 
a fall of not less than 1 in 120, and trees should be removed 
from the borders to admit the wind and sun. In soils composed 
of a mixture of sand, gravel and clay, the road is formed of this 
material, and requires only that the ditches be kept open and 
free, and that the ruts and hollows be filled up as fast as they 
form in the surface, in order to render the road a good one of 
its kind. 
In loose, sandy soils, a top layer of 6" thick, of tough clay, will 
be an effective method of improvement, which to save expense 
may be restricted to one half the width of the roadway. Sand 
may be added to adhesive clay soils, with equal benefit, the object 
in either case being to produce an inexpensive road covering that 
will pack under the action of the traffic during the dry season, 
and will not work up into adhesive mud during rainy weather. 
“ A pernicious custom prevails throughout a Jarge portion of 
the United States of repairing country roads only at certain 
seasons of the year, The cost of maintenance would be greatly 
reduced by frequent repairs, and especially by keeping the side 
ditches clear and open to their full width and depth, but promptly 
filling in the ruts, and by maintaining the required slopes from 
the centres towards the sides. It will seldom be found that the 
material obtained by cleaning out the side ditches is fit to put 
upon the roadway.” These remarks so largely apply to the clay 
roads of our own province, to the methods of repairing them 
and the material being used that I quote them fully. 
Corduroy Roads.—So called from their ribbed character 
scarcely deserve the name of road, but are, nevertheless, useful to 
the settler. They are generally made over marsh and swamp, 
which in wet seasons would be otherwise absolutely impassable 
for wheeled vehicles. Nearly all the logs for such construction 
are usually procured in clearing a width of four rods or 66 feet 
prescribed for most country roads, the width of the corduroy or 
covering being restricted to 15 or 16 feet so that two vehicles 
