552 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



And this leads to another most common defect, which arises from the custom of semi 

 annual repairs, and that is the neglect to pick up and remove the small loose stones that are 

 constantly working up through the improperly-applied material to lie on the surface, to ham 

 mer up the road-bed at every blow of the wheel, and to endanger life and limb. Hard, firm 

 rocks projecting above the surface are bad enough, and cause the resistance of collision ; but 

 other inequalities, loose round stones and other loose materials, striking against the wheels. 

 are far worse, for they cause great loss of momentum and waste of the power of draught, for 

 the carriage has to be lifted up over them by the leverage of the wheels. Any town that 

 fails to remove such obstacles promptly and often, ought at least to be reported to the Society 

 for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. No money can be better invested than in fre 

 quently removing the loose stones always to be found in a badly-constructed road, and in 

 snow ploughs for a prompt removal of snow in. winter. 



Drainage for Roads. Perhaps the most common defect to be observed in the 

 methods of making repairs upon roads is the total want of any proper attention to the 

 drainage. You will see whole miles of roadway perfectly water-logged in spring, making it 

 very difficult for light carriages to pass over them, and for heavily-loaded teams quite impos 

 sible. The treatment for such sections requires to be radical. 



They need to be reconstructed, and it requires quite as much skill and judgment to recon 

 struct properly roads that have been badly built, as it does to make good roads in the first place, 

 and probably more. But drainage is one of the things that can be carried out in the course 

 of repairing without any very serious outlay over and above what it would have cost to 

 have drained them properly in the original construction of the roads. 



There is no one point in which our highways are so lamentably defective as in being 

 wet at the foundation. They need thorough drainage as the first step to any possible improve 

 ment in their permanent condition, and thorough drainage alone will in many cases make a 

 good road out of a bad one, while without it no amount of labor will result in permanent 

 improvement. 



In many cases, hundreds of cartloads of gravel will be dumped in to fill up a sinking 

 slough, when perhaps half the money spent in drainage would have remedied the evil. 



As a general rule, there ought to be two independent systems of drainage for most com 

 mon roads, one to control the surface water by means of side ditches and culverts wherever 

 needed, and another to drain the foundation on which the surface or shell of the road-bed 

 rests. For this latter, under-drains are most serviceable and properly-laid tile-drains on the 

 whole the cheapest, because they are most durable and effective, and, being laid below the 

 frost, they continue to operate when the surface is frozen, and allow the road to settle when 

 the frost comes out of the ground in spring without an entire breaking up of the surface cov 

 ing, to the infinite inconvenience of the public. Of course, this work, wherever it is done, is 

 in the nature of a permanent improvement, and could not generally be undertaken by a small 

 and poor town on all its roads at once, but by taking a portion, or the worst portions, from 

 year to year, and doing them well, the roads in such a town would, in the course of a few 

 years, begin to wear an entirely different aspect. 



Catch-Waters, or Bars. One of the very common errors in the manner of con 

 structing catch-waters or bars on steep grades, and one which often causes the traveller no 

 little inconvenience, is to make them too high, and crossing the road often diagonally, so that 

 the wheels strike them at different times with a shock sometimes sufficient to unseat the 

 driver. If raised too high, also, they become dangerous for the horse. They should be 

 made in the shape of an inverted V, with the point directed up the ascent, so as to divide the 

 water. 



