310 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



without mucli unnecessary labor. The commissioners are 

 usually men of other professions and share probably the mis- 

 taken estimation in which engineers are held by the public gen- 

 erally. The common impression that engineers are extravagant, 

 and that they look only to the achievement of ends, without re- 

 gard to expense, is exactly the reverse of the fact. Their great 

 aim and study is economy ; economy in every form consistent 

 with durability and adaptedness for use ; economy of money, ma- 

 terial, time and labor. This may be said to be the secret of the 

 profession. Without this economy very few of the great modern 

 works would have been accomplished ; for it is only by applying 

 labor and means to the very best advantage, and arranging costly 

 materials in structures with scientific accuracy, so as to secure 

 the greatest strength and durability, with the least possible ex- 

 penditure of materials, that such works have been made practi- 

 cable, or perhaps possible. 



Should the system here proposed not meet at once with a 

 favorable consideration, it is to be hoped that some different way 

 of constructing new roads will be adopted. Let there be a resident 

 engineer appointed for each county, who shall be employed by 

 the commissioners to make the necessary surveys, &c., for pro- 

 jected roads, and superintend the construction according to a 

 standard fixed by law. 



If the people were as clamorous for good roads as for new 

 ones, there would be less call for new ones, and the whole com- 

 munity would be benefited. 



Another and final reason for the adoption of some system of 

 responsible superintendence in the construction and care of roads, 

 is that streams are often obstructed and their habits changed, by 

 the improper location or construction of bridges. Much injury 

 sometimes results from these causes. In flat lands, upon slow- 

 flowing streams, large tracks are sometimes flooded more, and for 

 longer periods, from a deficiency of water-way under a bridge, or 

 some other mischievous interference with the natural current by 

 the structure. In hilly regions, the bridges themselves are some- 

 times swept away and great injury is done to property on the 

 borders of streams, from ignorance or carelessness in cramping 

 a swollen torrent into too narrow a space by the misplacement 

 of the abutments and piers of bridges, in order to shorten the 

 span a few feet. 



