36 HOW TO PLAN THE HOME GROUNDS 



method will lead carriages to easily drive on the sides 

 rather than on the middle, where collision is apt to occur, 

 and will avoid the tendency to overturn or slide side- 

 ways near the gutters. This construction may be de- 

 scribed approximately as consisting of a surface which is 

 defined by two straight cross lines connected by a flat 

 arc of a circle on a road which in ordinary cases should 

 be sixteen feet wide. The inclination of the surface from 

 the end of this arc to the gutter, for rough earth roads, 

 should be one foot in twenty feet, and one foot in thirty 

 feet for ordinary gravel or broken-stone roads. 



It is evident that ordinary earth roads without a 

 broken-stone foundation can never be satisfactory at all 

 seasons of the year, but where we are obliged, on account 

 of their cheapness, to use them, we should remember 

 that attention to certain features of construction is 

 always important. In the interest of good drainage, 

 the ditches along the sides of the road should always be 

 kept open, and sufficient slope given to allow the water 

 to run freely. Hollows and ruts should be filled up as 

 fast as they are formed, and the customary rounding up 

 of the surface familiar in country districts avoided, and, 

 as already directed, a slope made from the center to the 

 sides that will not exceed one foot in twenty feet. It 

 should be needless to explain that earth roads above all 

 others should not be steep, on account of their imperfect 

 surface, but, unfortunately, it is the earth road that gen- 

 erally presents the heaviest grades. 



We find another hurtful practice common in the treat- 

 ment of earth as well as stone-bottomed roads, and that 

 is the scraping up of waste material for use on the trav- 

 eled surface of the highway. It is important, in every 

 case of repair where extra material is needed, to secure 



