CONTINUOUS REPAIRS. 237 



1. The road-keeper is to remove the dust formed in dry 

 weather by sweeping with a brush broom. This is done to 

 greatest advantage just after a slight shower. In muddy 

 weather, it is essential that the mud be removed by means of 

 brooms or hoes. A little mud on the surface causes ruts, and 

 much mud softens up the whole road-surface. The mud is to 

 be raked up in heaps alongside of the road, there left to dry and 

 then carted off. To hinder as much as possible the formation 

 of any mud, the surface drainage must remain unimpaired ; 

 should it be out of order, the water standing on the road is to 

 be swept off. To diminish the wear of the road in dry times, 

 the road should be sprinkled.* 



2. Inasmuch as the covering gradually wears off, notwith- 

 standing all precautions, it must be renewed, and should be so 

 renewed gradually, in the same measure as it wears off. The 

 best time to put on new road metalling is during continuous 

 wet weather. 



3. In filling up holes, the bottom of the same is to be swept 

 clean of mud, then filled up level with the remainder of the 

 road, not in a heap so high above it as to obstruct travel. 



Every care should be taken to have the new material join as 

 speedily as possible with the old portion of the road, and it 

 should be so well laid that it will give the least possible hin- 

 drance to vehicles, which will then not avoid the patched places. 



4. When many ruts occur in a short distance, the deepest 

 only are to be filled at first. After the patching in these has 

 become solid, then the rest are to be attended to. Long ruts or 

 wheel tracks are not to be filled up the whole length at once, 

 but only short pieces at a time. If this precaution is neglected, 

 vehicles avoid such places, and new ruts are formed elsewhere. 



5. Inasmuch as more material is worn off in a dry season than 

 can be put on, there are then, when wet weather comes, large 

 places to be repaired. These must be mended by degrees, never 

 filling up a piece larger than 8-10 feet X 4-7 feet, at a time 

 and not having these pieces too near together ; when these have 



* Bowles, in his book, " Our New "West," mentions the case of the stage 

 road from Sacramento to Virginia City, via Placerville, one hundred and 

 fifty miles long, and having an annual traffic of seven or eight thousand 

 heavy teams, and whose proprietors found that the simplest and cheapest 

 way of keeping it in repair during dry weather was to sprinkle the whole 

 of it, — one hundred and fifty miles of mountain road. 



