ROAD MACHINES 8l 



durable and makes a harder surface, and at anywhere near 

 the same cost should be preferred. Many times I have seen 

 teamsters pass over the coarser gravel in a gravel bank because 

 the finer shoveled easier. The incorporation of somewhat uni- 

 form stony gravel with clay on a well-drained foundation gives 

 a surface in some respects superior to macadam. 



ROAD MACHINES 



Road machines are adapted to the work of the quick and 

 economical removal of earth from the sides to the middle of 

 roads, and they are excellent for smoothing up a rutted road, 

 provided the blade of the machine is inclined backward instead 

 of forward, as in common use. I will only speak of the former 

 use. If it is necessary to remove earth to the centre from the 

 sides, the road machine may be profitably used, but it is not 

 always desirable to do this to a road. A road surface should 

 be hard, smooth, and properly shaped. Months of travel are 

 frequently necessary to consolidate the material on a road sur- 

 face. This should not be ruthlessly torn up or covered with 

 sods and sand each year, for the sake of making people think 

 that something is being done. In ordinary cases, outside of 

 villages, we cannot obtain grade in any way so cheaply or well 

 as by the employment of a road machine, but when a piece of 

 road is once taken in hand, a thorough job should be done. 



The road should be properly shaped clear to the side ditches, 

 and then covered with sufficient good gravel to smooth over 

 and bind together the sods, sand, stones, etc., brought in from 

 the ditches. In any country town raising on the average $25 

 or more per mile, I would not use a road machine upon a main 

 thoroughfare without following with the cart to cover sods, 

 stones, etc., with good surfacing material. If I could not do 

 a whole road one year, I would do the worst places first, espe- 

 cially the hills, rounding them up and obtaining as hard a sur- 

 face as possible. I would leave the completion of the work 

 for the following year. Thereafter, with the occasional excep- 

 tion of repairing damages by freshets, etc., I would keep the 

 road machine largely at home, doing enough each year, and 

 each season of the year, with the cart, or simply with the 



