212 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Making the Road-bed. 

 Under this head are included, earthworks, drains, culverts, 

 bridges, stay walls, &c., &c., all matters requiring a special kind 

 of skill to construct properly. The writer believes it impracti- 

 cable to write a book which shall at once be interesting to and 

 therefore valued by thd public, and of value to the professional 

 man, and thinks an attempt so to do results always in a failure 

 in both directions. True to the determination expressed in the 

 introduction, he proposes, therefore, to treat under this head 

 mainly with those parts of the subject in which the public at 

 large is most interested, for example, the data for the cost of 

 earthworks, general information relating to drainage, bridges, &c. 



Eaethworks. 



The basis of all values is the daily wages of a common un- 

 skilled laborer, and in the data given below, this figure, what- 

 ever it is from time to time and in various places, must be taken 

 as unity, or the standard measure. 



The cost of earthworks may be divided into three parts — (1) 

 cost of loosening the earth, (2) cost of transport, and (3) cost 

 of forming the transported earth into the desired shape. The 

 cost of the first part depends materially on the kind of earth to 

 be handled. The cost of the second, mainly on the distance the 

 earth is to be moved. 



We find by experience, that in digging and loading or throw- 

 ing 5-10 feet horizontally with a shovel, we obtain for difierent 

 materials the results of the following table : — 



villages, rose, however more than 1,200 feet in going from Chittenango to 

 Cazenovia, and rises more than four hundred feet in going from Cazenovia 

 to Chittenango, in spite of this latter place being eight hundred feet lower. 

 That is, it rises four hundred feet where there should be a continual descent. 

 The line of the plank-road laid out by George Geddes, civil engineer, as- 

 cends only the necessary eight hundred feet in one direction, and has no 

 ascents in the other, with two or three trifling exceptions of a few feet in 

 all, admitted in order to save expense. The scenes of similar possible im- 

 provements are scattered all over this and the rest of the States ; and these 

 facts are still more or equally to be borne in mind in laying out new roads, 

 where the ounce of prevention may take the place of the pound of cure. 



