124 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1900. 



said he believed the roads ought to follow the pattern of the 

 turtle's back, which was made by the Lord to shed rain. 



Arthur J. Marble said good roads interest all classes of 

 people. There is no question but that the horticulturist is as 

 much interested in the subject of good roads as anybody else. 

 I do not think, if our State roads were properly used and 

 properly repaired, that the first cost in 20 or 30 years would be 

 as great as it is under the old system. As you travel the roads 

 you will notice signs put up by the Massachusetts state highway 

 commissioners, requesting those using the road, which has been 

 laid down at a cost of from $9,000 to $12,000 a mile, to use and 

 not abuse the road. Mr. Marble said drivers of heavy teams 

 should show some consideration for the other users of the State 

 roads, and he made an argument against the road-hog. He said 

 it is nature's teaching to use gravel for the surface of the roads, 

 because the water will not affect a gravel road as much as a road 

 made of other material. It is not always possible to run our 

 road through gravel, but we can, after looking to the first prin- 

 ciple of road building, the drainage, use the best material at 

 command. I have seen material put on to fill in a road that 

 would make good fertilizer in a corn field, but is hardly the stuff' 

 for roads. 



I think that it doesn't take much of an engineer to see that 

 the proper way to repair a break in the road is to pick up the 

 hole in the macadam, get down to good hard stuff', put in new 

 material with a good binder, tamp and roll it down, and then 

 you have a good piece of repairing. But instead of that, we see 

 on Worcester streets a cart go along with a load of crushed 

 stone, drawn by a horse which is guided by a human being 

 having more or less intelligence than the horse, it would be hard 

 to tell which. Reaching a break in the road, the alleged human 

 being tosses in a few shovels of crushed stone and the repairing 

 of that spot is finished there and then, leaving the loose stone to 

 be scattered all over the road by the teams passing. Money 

 spent that way on Worcester streets is worse than wasted. If 

 they cannot afford to repair all the breaks properly, they ought 



