•246 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



that it was much cheaper than the poor gravel which was hauled less than half the 

 <listance. The Coal Company donated the slack: and the railroad gave favorable 

 rates over their road from the mines to town, and from the cars it was re-hauled to 

 the road. A team could haul a large wagon-bed heaping full, being two and a 

 half or three times the bulk of a common gravel-bed would contain. In this the 

 cheapness mainly consisted. 



Charcoal will also make a fair paving material. I will not claim that it is as 

 good as good gravel, but it is as good as average, and better than poor gravel. 

 Timber is often plenty where good gravel, or any kind, is scarce. In large quan- 

 tities it can be made and sold at the pit at three to three and a quarter cents per 

 l)ushel. Five to seven yards can be hauled at a load, which about offsets the cost 

 of cutting and burning. It absorbs and rapidly evaporates water and moisture, 

 tence giving a dry road soon after the rains cease. It should be covered with a 

 thin coat of good gravel, to hold it down, from blowing and washing away and 

 'from taking fire. 



My experimentfl have been limited to short spaces, and at my own expense, for 

 1 could not persuade the Board of Commissioners to risk it as a paving material, 

 and there is generally opposition enough to the road built strictly according to 

 law, without risking the use of unusual material. As the law now reads, any good 

 paving material may be used. But my experiments were very satisfactory. Gil- 

 lespie's Manual of Roads and Railroads mentions three roads made entirely of 

 •charcoal, and pronounces them eminently successful. 



A bushel of charcoal, when packed, is equal to about one and one-third cubic 

 feet. To build a mile of road, one foot deep and twelve feet wide of charcoal will 

 require about 48,000 bushels of charcoal which, at three cents per bushel at the 

 pit, will cost about $1,470. The average haul in Parke county would not exceed 

 one mile. At three dollars per day for teams, it can be hauled one mile for twelve 

 -cents per cubic yard, including loading, or $250 per mile. A cheaper, and quite 

 .good road might be built of charcoal nine inches deep by ten feet wide, covered 

 ^ith three inches of gravel. 



The braize, or burnt dirt, which covers the coal pits, is a good paving material, 

 and might be used instead of gravel to hold the charcoal down, as before men- 

 tioned. 



Charcoal has one merit above all other paving material I know of, that of he- 

 being as good after it is ground into a dust as when in lumps; it still maintains 

 Its compactness. It also has the merit of admitting more mud without becoming' 

 slushy than any other material. 



Before closing I must mention a paving material which has recently come to 

 my knowledge. It is the use of common straw to harden and make compact sandy 

 roads. This knowledge may be old, but it is new to me. A sand road is as tiresome 

 to a team, and as annoying to the traveler, out of sympathy for the team, as mud, 

 except in the relative cleanness «f the two. 



Four inches of loose straw spread on a sandy road will, in a few days' travel, 

 be ground into the sand, when it will become as firm and compact aa a dry clay 

 road. If this is old knowledge, I am quite sure it is not f/ena-al knowledge, for I 

 have never seen it used a« a remedy for sandy jjoads. I first observed it last sum- 



