28 HOW TO PLAN THE HOME GROUNDS 



ally used on country places, is about one foot in twenty, 

 or five per cent. It is entirely practicable to use 

 much steeper grades, but it will, probably, be done only 

 with the assistance of a brake going down hill and at 

 the expense of a slow walk up hill. The grades one 

 foot in thirty feet, or one foot in thirty-four feet, or 

 about three per cent., are most desirable, because then 

 the speed ascending need never be slower than a trot, 

 and descending will never require the application of the 

 brake. 



In constructing the roads of a place, the excavation 

 and embankments at once call for attention, for on them 

 depends the preparation of the roadbed whereon is to 

 rest the stone structure or metal of the road. If we 

 are not so fortunate as to have our cuts and fills balance 

 each other, we shall be obliged to cart our surplus mate- 

 rial to the nearest point we can find, and obtain or make 

 convenient places from which to cart additional soil. In 

 making these embankments it should be remembered that 

 different kinds of earth do not fill the same space in 

 artificial embankments that they did in their natural bed. 

 The increase in volume of freshly dug earth often varies 

 twenty per cent, among the different kinds; but, curious 

 to relate, when formed into embankments, it shrinks to 

 less than its bulk in the natural bed. 



In excavating and moving earth, it is first loosened 

 with picks, shovels, or plows — the plow is very useful 

 — and then shoveled into carts or barrows and taken 

 away. For short haulage, say ninety to one hundred 

 feet, the ordinary road scraper, holding about one-tenth 

 of a cubic yard, will be found useful. It is not profitable 

 to work the road scraper over ground that is steeper 

 than one foot in five feet, or twenty per cent. For dis- 



