250 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



thousand dollars, I would go a great many miles to see 

 them. 



The Telford-Macadam road which has been described here 

 is built from two to three feet deep, at an expense of per- 

 haps six times as much as the roads to which I have referred 

 cost. Mr. Pierce showed me places where a Telford road 

 which had been made several years had to be dressed up 

 every year to keep it reasonably smooth, while for five years 

 a four-inch road by the side of it was as smooth as need be. 

 The repairing of these roads is a very easy matter. In five 

 or ten years, if the top coating wears off, it is a very simple 

 matter to break it up and then put on another coating of 

 small stone and thoroughly roll it, when the road will be as 

 good as new, and at very little expense. 



The result of our work in Methuen is, that in two years 

 we have built half a mile of street about forty-four feet in 

 width, macadamizing it in that way, and making a very fine 

 avenue of it, at an expense of five thousand dollars. We 

 think that to have paved that same amount would have cost 

 over thirty thousand dollars, and this street is very much 

 preferable to drive over. The expense of keeping it in 

 repair perhaps will be a little more ; but the interest on the 

 money that would have been spent for paving will be more 

 than sufficient to meet the extra cost of repairs. This method 

 perhaps would not be so well adapted to our country roads ; 

 but take our common country roads, where they are only 

 from twelve to twenty feet wide, round them up, roll them 

 thoroughly, and then put on six inches or even eight or ten 

 inches of stone, and roll it down well, and I believe it would 

 give you a permanent road at very small cost ; for in many 

 places there are almost stone enough going to waste by the 

 roadside which can be very easily and cheaply worked into 

 good material for a road-bed. I believe that the system of 

 road-building and the character of the roads in our country 

 towns are almost altogether wrong. It seems that the man 

 who can get the most votes, whatever his knowledge or lack 

 of knowledge is, takes the charge of the roads in our country 

 towns ; and I know that in places very near Methuen there 

 are two sets of men running from one end of the town to the 

 other for three weeks before town-meeting day to get votes 



