CONSTANT REPAIR— LESS EXPENSE. 



235 



such thing as a constantly good road — a proposition that can- 

 not too often be repeated. By repairing a road annually, or 

 twice a year, it matters not which, the result is, strictly speak- 

 ing, 2^ good road at no time during the whole year. The road 

 is wretched just after repairs ; it becomes passable after a 

 while, and deteriorates from that day forward, until it is again 

 made wretched ; and so on, ad infinitum, according to the pres- 

 ent only too commonly followed system. By the other method 

 is offered us a road as smooth as a floor, year in, year out, and, 

 let it not be forgotten, at a less expense. 



A French engineer, named Tr^saguet, was the first, in 1775, 

 to call attention to this proper method of making road repairs. 

 His system — the above described one — was adopted in Baden in 

 the year 1845, and has been long in universal use in all the ac- 

 tive European countries. The two tables below give, the first, 

 the actual average quantity of road macadam used per mile of 

 road in Baden to make the repairs in one year, and show the 

 decrease after 1845. The second gives, in the first column, the 

 cost of materials and labor required to repair one league for 

 one year according to the old way, — this column being calcu- 

 lated for the years following 1845 from the cost of the preced- 

 ing years, and allowing for the increased value of labor and 

 materials, — while in the second column we have the actual cost, 

 as it was with the system followed at the time : — 



Table I. 



Cubic yards used per 

 mile in one year to re- 

 pair roads. 



1832, 

 1839, 

 1851, 

 1855, 

 1856, 

 1860, 



218.6 



198.7 



127.2 



91.4 



89.4 



93.4 



