512 



FAExMERS' REGISTER— ROAD LAW OF VIRGINIA. 



plenicnts except axes, grubbing hoes, and broad 

 weeding hoes. These only were the tools brought 

 by laVjorers to assist in repairing roads — and the 

 same usage continues (in Lower Virginia) with- 

 out material change or improvement. Whatever 

 then is done towards sliajnng or draining the road, 

 is done by some of these lew and inetEcient uten- 

 sils — and so accustomed are we to this old usage, 

 that almost no use is made (indeed the want is 

 ecarccly ihought olj) ot'eiihcr the plough or spade, 

 cart or scraper, for repairing roads. Yet the su- 

 perior value of horse labor is not greater in cul- 

 tivating our fields, than it would be in repairing 

 roads. 



Well — with axes and hoes only, the roads are 

 to be shaped and drained. Where a gully has 

 been washed from one to three leet deep, it is the 

 quicker job (and will serve as well for the next 

 grand jury) to fill it with green pine or cedar 

 boughs, and cover tlieni over with earth. This 

 was very easy tbrmerh', Avhen one or both sides of 

 the road was covered with trees — and so strongly 

 do we hold to old practices, even after the causes 

 and facilities have disappeared, that the surveyor 

 now often sends the axe-men 300 jards off' to cut 

 bushes, and then drag them to the gullies. These 

 bushes, no matter how compactly put down, or 

 Jiow well covered with earth, v.ill sink, and soon 

 or late must rot: the depression draws the currents 

 of rain water to the same channel, and rhe gully 

 is again washed out. The proper course would 

 have been to fill with earth only, (unless the bet- 

 ter material stone was convenient) and to use a 

 plough to dig, and either carte, wheelbarrows, or 

 a scraper, to move the earth. The trodden track 

 cannot long spare even the little earth which is 

 used to fill gullies — and if the margin, from which 

 it is obtained, is twelve or fifteen feet distant, the 

 earth, after being dug by grubbing hoes, is thrown 

 or dragged that long distance by weeding hoes. 

 So much for the shaping — now for the draining. 



If the roads in our generally drj^, level, and 

 sandy soils, were shaped so as to rise slightly in 

 the middle, and all running or overflowing water 

 was kept off, there would be scarcely any repairs 

 needed: and when required, if they were given 

 properly, with a view to these ends, the repairs 

 woidd not only be far more efficient, but cheaper 

 than now. Remember the tools used — the or- 

 dinary want of knowledge to direct — and the very 

 inefficient laborers withal (1o which I shall advert 

 hereafter) — and the result of the draining opera- 

 tions may well be anticipated. To divert the 

 water from running along the middle of a road 

 down a hill, a pole is laid diagonally across the 

 level road above, to turn the rain water to the 

 side of the road, and a ditch to lead it down that 

 side is dug by grubbing hoes, and scraped out with 

 weeding hoe^s. The pole which is to serve as a 

 dike, is a much greater obstacle to wheels than to 

 torrents of rain. The ditch leading from it is per- 

 haps a foot deep and not much wider, and after 

 being carried along the side of a road cut down 

 by long continued washing, the bottom of the little 

 ditch is higher than the road, or large ditch. The 

 road on the level land above, being also deeper 

 than its margins, collects a torrent in heavy rains, 

 which sweeps over the pole and down the road 

 as before, and with like injurious effects. 



To prevent mires from oozing springs, or from 

 standing pools of rain water, the usual operations 



are equally injudicious and ineffectual. As to 

 mires in clay soil, caused by rain water being re- 

 tained and trodden in by the travelling, most sur- 

 veyors consider that to be no business of theirs': 

 "they could not prevent the heavy rains falling, 

 and enough water will of course make a clay road 

 miry" — and the evil is left to be remedied by the 

 dry winds of the next March. But when a per- 

 manent mire comjiels the repair of some particu- 

 lar spot, the usual means is to make a "causeway" 

 of round poles, forming upon a small scale, what 

 in the South are sometimes called "corduroy turn- 

 pikes" and "Carolina rail-roads." I am not ob- 

 jecting to these wooden coverings for a wet sur- 

 face, where water cannot be kept off', (as in 

 swamps subject to inundation.) but they are re- 

 sorted to when other means would be much less 

 troublesome, and far more efficient. Wetness 

 from a small spring oozing out of a hillside and 

 spreading its water over a clay road is often reme- 

 died by a laborious "poling" of this kind, when a 

 trifling side drain would have kept the water 

 from reaching the road. Sometimes "mud holes" 

 are cut into a level and generally firm road, by the 

 wheels plunging in heavily' and every time bring- 

 ing out some of the mud, so as to keep the reser- 

 voir for water enlarging. A few cart loads of gra- 

 vel, or even sand, would fill and permanently cure 

 one of these mud holes — but as the use of a cart 

 seems to be out of the question, these holes are 

 either filled with similar earth, which being thrown 

 into the water, makes a fluid mire that will not 

 become dry for months, (even if it should not be 

 soon conveyed away by sticking to the wheels 

 which pass through,) — or a more energetic sur- 

 veyor will cover the spot with poles which form 

 traps to catch horses' legs while they remain, and 

 after rotting, leave the spot fitted to form another 

 mud hole. 



These may be extreme cases of ignorant waste 

 of' labor. But though the manner of repairing 

 roads may be, and doubtless is, very different in 

 difl^erent places — and though some surveyors ex- 

 hibit proofs of their intelligence, and ability to 

 make good roads under a good law — still it will 

 not be dened that every county, if not every sur- 

 veyor's district, will furnish facts such as are 

 here stated. The want of proper utensils for 

 road mending, and the want of knowledge to di- 

 rect the operations, would serve to cause a waste 

 of much the greater part of the labor applied, even 

 if there was no want of industry in the laborers. 

 But the want of industry, in addition to all others, 

 is so great, that two days' labor on the road is 

 scarcely equal to one at home. The surveyor eats 

 his breakfast at home, and then rides or walks 

 some miles to the place to begin Avork. The la- 

 borers would be without orders, and of course 

 would do nothing if they were to come earlier 

 —and so long has this state of things continued, 

 that if a surveyor was to order early meetings on 

 the road, and to go himself by sunrise, he would 

 wait two hours perhaps before a laborer would ap- 

 pear. Of course no strict discipline can be exer- 

 cised where so many laborers are brought togeth- 

 er, scarcely known t(# their superior, and to remain 

 but a day or two under his direction. The whole 

 business is to the laborers a frolic and halt' holiday 

 — and if they perform 4 or 5 hours work in a day, 

 it is as much as can be expected. Hence, in ad- 

 dition to all other and greater evils in the system, 



