236 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



cations for the peoples constructing them; but there is only 

 one way to do the work. There must be teams of broad- 

 tired carts driving over every inch of the self-filling 

 material, compacting it as fast as it is dumped and nicely 

 spread on the highway. This is the doctrine for country 

 road making. Every good citizen may see, if he chooses, 

 that the broad-tired cart for city use is the natural fore- 

 runner of the narrow-tread steam roller and the traction 

 engine. We must creep before we can run. 



W r e hear of much being done with thin coats of small 

 stone, rolled into sandy or gravelly streets, where the 

 drainage is naturally very good. This " gospel of thinness" 

 is a pretty doctrine; it gives us something to travel on, 

 with the same cost for grading and finishing as if we had a 

 road with a good deal more substance in it. The bottom of 

 our four-inch work is in the dirt, and the top will soon be 

 growing nasty with surface accumulations. It begins to 

 appear, within a year or two, that there are exudations of 

 mud from the subsoil we thought was sandy enough. At 

 last the most sanguine friend of the experiment sees that it 

 was a mistake, and that resurfacing is necessary ; but by 

 that time every particle of the four-inch glaze is saturated 

 and slippery with manufactured clay. Too late we recall 

 that M'Adam recommended ten inches of solid stone for the 

 climate of England, where frost is scarcely so severe as in 

 Virginia. Good country roads, to cost little and wear well, 

 must be narrow. 



In resurfacing with another thin coat upon the muddy first 

 strata, we are liable to lose in two or three ways, besides 

 the loss and disgrace of doing our work over again. If we 

 do it in a wet time, we shall certainly crush our clean stone 

 into the mud. If we do it in a dry time, we are liable to turn 

 a heavy steam roller into a regular rock-crusher, grinding 

 much small metal to powder between our upper and nether 

 mill-stones. In either case we have incorporated a layer 

 of filth in the heart of our road. Had we applied eight 

 inches of solid stone with broad-tired carts in the first place, 

 we should feel at least four times as secure from internal 

 friction, with every particle of material slipping and sliding 

 upon every other one, and grinding to destruction under 



