COUNTRY ROADS AND ROADSIDE IMPROVEMENTS. 117 



spreading it more than from 4 to 6 feet wide in a road-bed 

 of a single width, or 8 to 12 feet in a double-track road. 



As far as possible when dressing over a road the coarser 

 material should be kept spread or raked forward as each 

 succeeding load is added and well covered with the finer 

 material. 



Road-repairing should be done in the spring before the 

 ground has become fully settled. 



If the shoulders of the road are kept worked off by the 

 road-scraper or plow, and a thin coating of gravel be put on 

 in the centre each season, any ordinarily well underdrained 

 road can be kept in good repair at a very small cost. 



Road-scrapers when properly used are great labor-savers, 

 and in sections where ordinary soil must be used and there 

 are many such they save a great amount of labor and ex- 

 pense. Where the unworn material on the edges can be 

 used to advantage, or for the purpose of breaking off the 

 shoulders, the rounding of the surface of the road in the 

 spring, the road-scraper will do the work quickly and 

 thoroughly, but to use it during the summer for any other 

 purpose than for scraping off the worn material will result 

 in more harm than good. 



The practice of turnpiking or scraping poor material, like 

 turf and loam, into the middle of the road during the 

 summer will largely account for the poor condition of many 

 of our roads. 



All turf turned up by the road-scraper or plow should be 

 removed from the road-bed entirely and used for filling in 

 over steep embankments, deep gutters, or in levelling up 

 and otherwise improving the roadside, 



