320 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



July 



IMPROVE AND BEAUTIFY THE HIQH- 

 ■WAYS. 



UR public roads 

 are designed 

 not only to fa- 

 cilitate inter- 

 course, but also 

 to render travel 

 and transporta- 

 tion safe and 

 easy. In for- 

 mer times, when 

 long stretches 

 of road had to 

 be made and 

 kept in repair by a 

 few people with lim- 

 ited means, we trav- 

 elled patiently over rough 

 and imperfect roads, but now that 

 our population has become numer- 

 ous, and comparatively wealthy, 

 we are no longer required to make 

 a virtue of necessity, but should add the con- 

 ditions of ease and safety, and so far as prac- 

 ticable, should render travel pleasant and 

 agreeable. None of our cities and towns 

 should be satisfied with their roads being 

 merely passable ; they should be made safe and 

 easy both for teams and for pleasure travel. 



The town in which we reside has expended 

 large sums upon its roads, and has roads that 

 are generally thought to be in good condition, 

 and yet we will undertake to say that there is 

 not a mile of road in town upon which there is 

 not one or more places where a carriage might 

 be upset. A few years since a man was 

 tLrown from his wagon, by his wheel striking 

 a rock not three feet from the rut, on a much 

 frequented road, where many carriages daily 

 pass, and the town had to pay more than two 

 hundred dollars for damages. Another in- 

 stance occurred in which a gentleman was 

 driving a high-spirited horse over a piece of 

 road, where a narrow road bed had been 

 thrown up, leaving a gully upon the side. 

 The horse suddenly jumped out of the road, 

 and the gentleman was thrown out of the 

 wagon and dislocated an elbow and fractured 

 an ankle. 



Even where there is sufficient space enclosed, 

 we often find a road bed thrown up scarcely 

 wide enough for two carriages to pass ; with a 



bank upon the side, and a deep gully between 

 the bank and the road bed, or stumps or rocks 

 on the side of the path, or a cut through a 

 ledge barely sufficient to allow a team to pass, 

 with the broken ragged rocks of the ledge 

 protruding within a few inches of the wheels. 

 Then we often see on the ascent of some steep 

 hill a sort of canal worked into the face of the 

 hill, just wide enough to allow a carriage to 

 pass, the excavated soil being carried on to 

 low ground at the foot, and built up into a 

 road bed, eight or ten feet wide, with a deep 

 gully on each side. 



Now can travel on such roads be called safe, 

 especially as they are passed at all times of 

 the night as well as day ? And yet how many 

 such instances are found in all our towns. 

 The travelled way on most of our roads should 

 be made wider. In fact, the whole space en- 

 closed as a road should be made level, or at 

 least so level that it would be impossible to 

 upset a carriage, without some very unusual 

 accident. Ploughing out the sides and throw- 

 ing the soil into the middle of the road, so 

 generally practiced on country roads, is a cus- 

 tom attended with no small danger, and should 

 be discontinued. The leaving of banks one, 

 two or three feet high, by the sides of the 

 travelled way, is a dangerous practice, as a 

 frightened or unmanageable horse may readily 

 run one wheel upon i*, and upset a carriage. 

 Roads should be carefully cleared of boulders 

 and stumps and logs, and not used as deposi- 

 tories of lumber, broken carts, or other de- 

 cayed farm implements, and every obstruction 

 that can endanger carriages by running upon 

 them. The absolute safety of travellers re- 

 quires more attention to this subject than is 

 usually given to it. 



When roads have been made passable and 

 safe, then the ease of draft must be attended 

 to. In constructing a new road, all the con- 

 ditions necessary to a highway should be re- 

 garded. Roads should not be made of com- 

 mon soil or loam, but of some material that 

 will become compact and hard, and firmly 

 keep its place. It can be made to keep its 

 place only by proper drainage. That will pre- 

 vent it from becoming gullied by the wheels. 



A road for a distance of ten miles may be a 

 good road ; that is, most of it is good. But 

 a few places it that distance of perhaps only a 

 rod or two each of heavy sand, in which the 



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