60 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



have drained them properly in the original construction of the 

 roads. 



There is no one point in which our highways are so lament- 

 ably defective as in being wet at the foundation. They need 

 thorough drainage as the first step to any possible improvement 

 in their permanent condition, and thorough drainage alone will 

 in many cases make a good road out of a bad one, while with- 

 out it no amount of labor will result in permanent improve- 

 ment. 



In many cases hundreds of cartloads of gravel will be 

 dumped in to fill up a sinking slough, when perhaps half the 

 money spent in drainage would have remedied the evil. 



As a general rule there ought to be two independent systems 

 of drainage for most common roads, one to control the surface 

 water by means of side ditches and culverts wherever needed, 

 and another to drain the foundation on which the surface or 

 shell of the road-bed rests. For this latter, under-drains are 

 most serviceable and properly laid tile-drains on the whole the 

 cheapest, because they are most durable and effective, and 

 being laid below the frost they continue to operate when the 

 surface is frozen, and allow the road to settle when the frost 

 comes out of the ground in spring without an entire breaking 

 up of the surface covering to the infuiite inconvenience of the 

 public. Of course, this work, wherever it is done, is in the 

 nature of a permanent improvement" and could not generally be 

 undertaken by a small and poor town on all its roads at once, 

 but by taking a portion, or the worst portions, from year to year 

 and doing them well, the roads in such a town would, in the 

 course of a few years, begin to wear an entirely different aspect. 

 The details as to how it should be done will be found developed 

 at considerable length in the Prize Essays to which I have 

 alluded. 



One of the very common errors in the manner of construct- 

 ing catch-waters or bars on steep grades, and one which often 

 causes the traveller no little inconvenience, is to make them too 

 liigh, and crossing the road often diagonally, so that the wheels 

 strike them at different times with a shock sometimes sufficient 

 to unseat the driver. If raised too high, also, they become dan- 

 gerous for the horse. They should be made in the shape of an 



