No. 4.] COUNTRY ROADS. 235 



of digesting a ton and a half of rocks per minute) feel rich, 

 considering the enormous road fields requiring his land of 

 top-dressing. But he ought to be very careful about the pic- 

 tures he circulates to illustrate his business. No people can 

 make woful blunders and continue to pay. A narrow-tired 

 prairie wagon backed up to his broken-stone elevator, with 

 the screened coarse material dropping inside the schooner- 

 body, to go loose and wandering in the mud, — in lack of 

 the finer rock-filling spilling outside of load, — is fully a 

 hundred years behind the principles of M'Adam, and thou- 

 sands of years behind the ancient lessons of the best gravel 

 knoll described on the first page of this essay. If we allow 

 these blind road machinists to lead us, we shall be as well 

 off in the ditch as in the middle of the road. 



A word to the wise is sufficient, but something; more is 

 needed for the foolish. Let us bear in mind our grand dis- 

 tances of wealthy farming country, whose only real protec- 

 tion is the impassable nature of its highways ; where the 

 traveller for long mud-stretches has to work his passage by 

 frequently alighting from the vehicle ; where it is a constant 

 chore to disentangle his wheels from the tenacious clay that 

 has filled his spokes as solid as the paddles of -a churn just 

 before the butter comes ; where masses of the chafing material 

 cither lock his wheels or threaten to swamp his wagon-bed. 

 Under these circumstances it is proper to make the sign of 

 caution to those who so urge the claims of road machinery, as 

 to aggravate the sticky situation, east and west, north and 

 south, by filling the clay with loose, sharp rocks, even more 

 treacherous in waylaying the traveller than the quaking mire 

 alone. It is time to call a halt in highway talk for the best 

 repute of road machinery. 



There are thousands and thousands of places, where 

 narrow ribbands of unequally broken stone, laid really 

 solid, and well supported according to the strict principles 

 of M'Adam, with such local modifications as that 

 naturalistic road maker would be certain to justify if he 

 stood upon the spot, that would be perfect godsends for 

 millions of people, indestructible and millennial thorough- 

 fares, practically everlasting, better than perishable iron 

 roads on wooden foundations, social bonds, liberal edu- 



