MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



FALLACIES AND FACTS 



OF ROAD BUILDING 





From the time of the prophet Isaiah to the 

 present men have had their ideas of a perfect 

 highway. The plans of road engineers have been 

 criticized as newfangled while they were only 

 aiming at the road that Isaiah saw with prophetic 

 eye when he cried, "Make straight in the desert 

 a highway for our God. Every valley shall be 

 exalted and every mountain and hill shall be 

 made low, and the crooked shall be made straight 

 and the rougli places plain." Thus the fancy 

 that a straight road with easy grades is a new 

 idea is swept away by the words of Isaiah ut- 

 tered over seven hundred years before the Chris 

 tian era. 



Later Claudius Appius had his vision of a road 

 that would perpetuate his name, and his dream 

 has been realized ; but beyond that he gave, 

 what? the monument of a tyrant who com- 

 pelled thousands to work for naught, and a last- 

 ing example of how not to build a road. The 

 Appian Way, famous in picture and story, is 

 avoided over a greater portion of its length by 

 every traveler who is in a hurry to reach his 

 journey's end. 



This old Roman's idea of a deep foundation 

 has lived after him ; but no experienced road 

 builder adopts it. It has gone the way of the 

 Roman aqueduct, and, like it, has become a 

 monument of unnecessary work. The old Ro- 

 man's fancy that it is necessary to build a deep 

 foundation for a road crops out here and there, 

 even at the present time, and is exploited as the 

 best, and, in fact, the only true way to build a 

 road. It was not until road builders learned that 

 thoroughly drained earth was the only sure 

 foundation for any kind of road covering that n 

 great advance was made in road construction. 



That road improvement is an expensive luxury, 

 something nice to have but too costly for those 

 who have to work for a living, is the fancy of 

 some, but it is not borne out by experience. In 

 New Jersey every dollar expended for road im- 

 provement has added tens and hundreds of dol- 

 lars to our state's wealth. 



The first roads I built were 16 inches deep, 

 composed of 10 inches of telford bottom and 6 

 inches of compacted 2%-inch and lJ-2-inch crushed 

 stone, and finished with coarse stone screening?. 

 That the foundation of this kind of road lasts 

 is true, but the top wears off much more quickly, 

 and when that is gone every driver avoids the 

 telford road in good weather. I well remember 

 the first 16-inch telford I ever saw. It was in 

 1869, at my home city of Plainfield, New Jersey. 

 We boys were discussing it very learnedly, as we 

 thought; in fact, we were merely rehearsing 

 what we had heard our elders say, when an olcl 

 Scotchman passed by, and, catching the drift of 

 our remarks, said: "Boys, it is wrang, it is a' 

 wrang ; it is wrang in prencepil ; here ye hae tlv 

 anveel an' on it ye put the sma' stone ; alang 

 cooms the horse and wagon; the horse's hoofs 

 pound the sma' stone an' the wagon wheels grind 

 it, till, 'twixt the hammer and the anveel the sma' 

 stones are ground to powder." We laughed at 

 the old Scot, but my experience has since taught 

 me that he was right. Not only is a deep telford 

 more expensive to build, but the road wears 

 rough much sooner than a lighter macadam, and 

 is, consequently, much more expensive to main- 

 tain. It is also much harder on horses' feet, as 

 it has no elasticity. 



It has been argued that a deep telford road 

 will not be heaved by frost. This is not so. I 

 have seen 14-inch telford turned upside down by 

 frost so that the large bottom stones were on top 

 of the road, while 6-inch macadam built over the 

 same soil and subject to the same conditions of 

 travel remain unmoved ; the only other difference 

 in construction being that undcrdrains were 

 placed outside of the macadam while none were 

 used beside the telford. 



To build a good stone road, first grade your 

 hill down to five per cent, or less if possible; fill 

 up your flats so that you have a minimum grade 

 of at least one-half per cent. ; second, by under- 

 drains cut off all water that may threaten the 



road ; third, give your road a crown of three- 

 quarters inch 'per foot; fourth, cut out your sub- 

 grade, being careful to give it the same curva- 

 ture as the finished road ; fifth, roll the sub- 

 grade until it is hard and smooth, carefully re- 

 moving any spongy or vegetable earth that the 

 rolling may disclose; sixth, spread your bottom 

 course evenly, then roll and add a little binder 

 and continue the rolling until the stones cease 

 to sink or creep in front of the roller; seventh, 

 spread your second course and roll it, with the 

 addition of binder and water, until, the whole 

 surface is hard and smooth, carefully filling with 

 stone any depressions that may appear, then finish 

 the whole with a course of J^-inch stone and 

 screenings. This must be soaked with water 

 and rolled until a wave of mud is formed in front 

 of the roller, being particularly careful to com- 

 mence the rolling at the sides and gradually work 

 toward the center; by so doing you will pre- 

 serve the crown of your road. If this work is 

 well and thoroughly done, you will have a road 

 that is smooth, hard and convenient for travel af 

 all seasons of the year. R. A. Meeker, State Su- 

 pervisor of Roads, New Jersey, in Good Roads 

 Magazine. 



SOUND ARGUMENT 



FOR GOOD ROADS. 



I know something of the trials that we, as 

 pioneer farmers, had to undergo as. 29 years ago 

 I cut my way into the forests of Northern Michi- 

 gan, 15 miles from the nearest public highway; 

 and I am surprised to hear a brother pioneer 

 like Mr. Rhodes, who has himself experienced 

 these many trials and privations the early pioneer 

 must inevitably face, say, among other things, 

 that Mr. Earle is "one of the most dangerous 

 men in the state today," classing him and all of 

 his followers who are advancing the new ideas 

 for better work on our highways, as "a --H of 

 grafters," etc. 



Now it seems to me that Mr. Rhodes mus! 

 have a diseased brain, or at least a disordered 

 one, when he says that the plan of our fore- 

 fathers is good enough for him. Perhaps itii; 

 but it is not good enough lor the rising genera- 

 tion. They will not go back to the sickle, scythe 

 and snath, the grain -cradle or other crude im~r>i'-- 

 ments which were good in their day, but wuh 

 the advance of civilization have been laid away 

 as the mowing machine, binder, etc., have taken 

 their place. So, with the advance of civilization, 

 those crude instruments, such as the hoe. . old 

 plow, slush-scraper, etc., are being supplanted 

 with stone crushers and road-makers for building 

 gravel or macadam roads. The old statute labor 

 system has served its day, and is, or soon will be. 

 a thing of the past. 



Our learned farmer says that this advanced 

 idea is too expensive. Go, if you please, to your 

 respective county treasurer's office, and take down 

 the assessment rolls for the past thirty yei-s 

 and foot u pthe amount of money tax," statute 

 labor tax ; also the tax for cross roads a, id 

 bridges, and then compare the cost of the roads 

 with the cost of the macadam, and I believe >ou 

 will be ashamed that you were ever an advocate 

 of the old mud tax system. 



Our friend here, Mr. Rhodes, wants to Know 

 what the city of Jackson will do if vou should 

 adopt the .County Road System, and the city 

 pay as much towards the improvement of coumy 

 roads as the balance of the county. Well, we 

 won't worry about that, as I see there is ; 

 movement on foot among the "glass-eyed fellows" 

 of Jackson to buy a steam roller at a cost of 

 about $2,700 and loan the same to the farmers 

 free of charge if they, the farmers, will put up 

 two miles of stone road just outside of the city. 

 Is that graft? If so, take it. I believe the city 

 boys even those who wear glasses will look 

 out for themselves. 



You seem to be afraid to take measures to 

 merit state aid as a reward for good roads in 

 either class, A, B, C, or D. Now I do feel that 

 we should not stop at that ; but we should take 

 another step, and demand that our federal govern- 

 ment should take a hand in the work. We have 

 now the best waterways of any civilized nation 



under the light of the sun, but we have the 

 poorest highways. 



It is not necessary to refer to England, France 

 or Germany just step across Lake Huron and 

 note what our sister country, Ontario, is doing. 

 She is a hundred years in our lead in road build- 

 ing. So why should we not ask congress to 

 make an appropriation for the improvement of 

 our h:'ghways? The Philippine Islands have been 

 the objects of our solicitous care to the extent 

 of $5,000,000 in building roads for them. Porto 

 Rico, though not much larger in area than some 

 of our counties, has had over $3,000,000 expended 

 upon its roads. And little Cuba, who is unable to 

 govern herself, comes in for $2,500,000 for its 

 public roads. Even little Hawaii has come in for 

 a contemplated share for public roads of $2,500 - 

 000. 



Ihirteen millions of dollars expended for the 

 idle islanders who cannot govern themselves. 

 What have we got against our own people that 

 we should deny them blessing that are so freely 

 given to those idle islanders of the seas. 



Address delivered by Royal J. Taylor, one of 

 the County Road Commissioners of Cheboygan 

 county, and one of the vice-presidents of the 

 Michigan Road Makers' Association, at the an- 

 nual convention. 



GOOD ROADS PAY. 



Taxpayers of the city of Muskegon who have 

 borne the heaviest part of the burden of building 

 county roads which have tapped every farming 

 section of the county with the exception of Hoi- 

 ton which will soon be reached are now in a 

 position to begin to realize dividends in large 

 amount on their investment. 



It will be readily admitted that anything that 

 brings people into the city and causes them to 

 pass through it in a pleasant frame of mind is 

 a gilt edge investment and in this way Muskegon 

 county's roads are paying their way in a manner 

 that was not in existence at the time the sys- 

 tem was inaugurated. This in addition to the 

 conveniences to the local autoists now becoming 

 a considerable part of the tax-paying popula- 

 tion. 



That the county roads have been a paying in- 

 vestment in the manner intended as anticipated 

 when they were first built, as means of establish- 

 ing easy communication between the city and the 

 farming districts of the county by which alone 

 the city could have ever hoped to become a mar- 

 ket and shipping point for the produce of the 

 country, is apparent. 



Muskegon county roads surely pay and more 

 of them would do no harm. Muskegon Chronicle. 



CROSS-STATE ROAD. 



From the city hall in Detroit to the city hall 

 in Grand Rapids is 153 miles and within four or 

 five years it is expected that the two cities will 

 be connected by one continuous paved road. The 

 Wayne county road commissioners have already 

 planned the macadamiizng of the Grand Rapids 

 or Old State road, with other thoroughfares, 

 from the city limits to the county line, and on 

 September i7 people living in the townships of 

 Lansing, Delhi and Meridian and the cities of 

 East Lansing and Lansing will vote on the ques- 

 tion of macadamizing the portion of the road 

 within their jurisdiction. 



''It is a well known fact," says Edward N. 

 Hines, one of the Wayne county commissioners, 

 "that a good roads movement started in one 

 section will spread. The surrounding districts 

 are forced to follow the example because the 

 farmers and others will use good roads in pref- 

 erence to bad ones at any time, even if the dis- 

 tance is greater. 



Articles of incorporation have been filed at 

 Lansing by the Clark-Sligh Timber Company 

 of Grand Rapids, with a capitalization of $300,- 

 000, of which $150,000 has been paid in. The 

 purpose of the company is to hold timber 

 lands at Everett, Wash., a field in which Mr. 

 Clark has been operating with success for a 

 number of years. Those interested, all of 

 whom are residents in this city, are Melvin 

 J. Clarke. $75,000; Charles R. Sligh, $60,000, 

 and Frank Jewell, $15,000. 



