47 



it will run to the sides of the road very slowly. Steepness is the worst 

 quality a road can have, as all other bad ones may result from it. 



Water breaks are necessary on hills to turn off water. The should 

 be made straight across the road, rather than diagonally, for when 

 HO made they are liable to break the couplings of heavy wagons. 



It has been found by experience that stone roads built of three 

 layers of stone of different sizes, prove most durable. The road bed 

 should be level, solid, and free from roots and decayed wood. The 

 largest stones are laid or thrown on it. On thfese a thin layer of 

 smaller stones is put to fill up low places and to make it solid. The 

 last layer should be fine dust and stones from a stone crusher. It 

 should be of stones that contain cement such as lime stones. Such 

 a road as this may be sprinkled and rolled or left for a year to settle 

 before using. 



A few facts worth remembering when building roads. 



1. It is cheaper, quicker, and easier to remove large rocks by ex- 

 plosives than by hand. 



2. Plenty of all kinds of tools, kept in good condition, lessens 

 the cost of labor. 



3. The laborers should never be left without instructions where to 

 work. They will always find the wrong road. 



4. A lazy man on the w^orking crew is dear at any price. 



5. Be boss yourself unless your advisors are more experienced. 



All public roads on a reserve should be in charge of the Depart- 

 ment of Forestry. The location of many of these will often be such 

 that they should be main reserve roads. They cannot be so if town- 

 ship officers have the authority to repair them in any way they see 

 fit. 



Not until the annual two cent road tax is taken off forest reserves, 

 and all the roads on the reserves built and maintained by the Depart- 

 ment will it be satisfactory, to our side at least. 



Firelanes. 



Firelanes will serve only for the suppression of fires and diseases, 

 and as boundaries of forest divisions. 



They will likely always be necessary in Pennsylvania. The prob- 

 lems that interest us most are their cost, location, and width. 



The expense of cutting firelanes will, in some cases, be reduced by 

 the sale of the trees cut. Where old roads can be cut out and used 

 for firelanes, the cost will be from flO.OO to |20.00 per mile. When 

 made separate from roads they take up a large area from which no 

 revenues can be had, and require frequent cleaning with money pro- 

 duced by the forest. 



