THE STONE BREAKER. 223 



It will be evident, that a very much greater quantity of the 

 soft stones would be required to repair a certain road, than of a 

 harder kind, and on a road lying out of the way of a hard stone 

 quarry or deposit, the question will arise which is cheapest, to 

 pay more for the raw material and get good stock, or pay less 

 and use the worse. There have been some interesting results in 

 places where this matter has been the subject of experiment, 

 continued for a number of years. Thus on a road in Baden 

 which was formerly macadamized with rock costing only fifty 

 cents per cubic yard, it was finally found cheaper, to take harder 

 rock from a distance costing one dollar and seventy-eight cents 

 per cubic yard, the saving being both in less quantity of mate- 

 rial used and less labor required in repairs. Just where the 

 limit is, must be found in each case by long continued experi- 

 ment, which it is well worth the trouble to make, both to save 

 expense and also to have the best possible road, the harder ma- 

 terial making a road better at all times, at the same or less cost. 

 After the right kind has been determined, none other should be 

 mixed with it, and should any inferior piece accidentally or de- 

 signedly get into the stock to be broken up, it should be picked 

 out and thrown aside. The stone is broken up into macadam, 

 either by hand or machinery. Wherever any considerable quan- 

 tity of macadam is in present or future demand, a stone-breaker 

 is certainly a saving over hand-labor, though it is difficult to 

 draw the line exactly, where hand-labor or machine labor is 

 cheapest. Probably no town that pretends to keep thirty or 

 forty miles of road in good repair, ought to be without one of 

 these labor-saving machines. Those most in use are made by 

 Blake Bros, of New Haven, Conn., and the following is taken 

 from their circular. 



Their machine has been patented in the United States and in 

 several foreign countries, and is now in use in almost every 

 country on the globe. It is simple and compact, and being com- 

 plete in itself, requires no extraneous support or fixtures. 



Description. — Figure 3, is a perspective view of the machine, 

 entire. The frame A, which receives and supports all the other 

 parts, is cast in one piece, with feet to stand upon the floor or 

 on timbers. These feet are provided with holes for bolts, by 

 which it may be fastened down if desired ; but this is unneces- 

 sary, as its own weight gives it all the stability it requires. B, 



