IO 



As another point in favor of this change, we would 

 suggest that it would be likely to lead to something like 

 constant repairs, instead of the custom now common of 

 doing all this work within a few consecutive weeks, and 

 for the rest of the year practically letting the roads dete- 

 riorate as they may. By repairing only once or twice a 

 year, the result is that we have a thoroughly good road at 

 no time. It is so bad, just after repairs, that every one 

 tries to avoid the mended portions, as far as practicable ; 

 but after a time they become passable, and perhaps satis- 

 factory, and then too often are permitted to deteriorate, 

 until they reach the state which had before made repairs 

 a necessity. By a more constant supervision, might we 

 not have a good road the year round, and at even less 

 expense? 



The tables of results given by engineers, where the two 

 systems have been tried, are significant and seem con- 

 clusive. One of these authorities, speaking of this 

 change in the system of repairing roads in a part of Ger- 

 many, said some years ago : " It costs no more to keep 

 the roads in repair now than it did twenty years ago, 

 when this method of continual repairs was not in use, 

 although labor is more than three times, and materials are 

 twice as dear as they then were." 



To attempt to point out in detail the present prevailing 

 defects in our highways, may appear hardly modest in one 

 who has to confess that he never had more than a very 

 limited experience in road-making or road-repairing. But 

 there are some faults so obvious and so common, that for 

 one, in speaking on the subject of roads, to leave them 

 unmentioned might seem a neglect of duty. 



What has ever appeared to us one of the most exasper- 

 ating pieces of folly in the labor upon our highways, is a 



