402 
Roads and Highways : their Histonj, 
traffic is kept in one track. What, then, must be the effect on 
a Macadamised road ? A road may be perfectly level, without a 
rut on it in the morning; but let the time be just after a frost, 
or in very wet weather, and perhaps a dozen or twenty narrow- 
wheel waggons, each with loads weighing four or five tons, 
passing along in the morning ; they will all follow one another 
in a straight line, and leave a sufficient indent behind to show 
where they have been. Every cart and waggon that follows 
will take exactly the same track, each cutting deeper and deeper 
into the road and forming two deep ruts, although the road 
may be 20 or 30 feet wide ; whereas if the drivers had only 
varied their track a few inches, one set of wheels would have 
counteracted the effect of thQse before it, and the road would 
be left at the end of the day as good as it was in the morning. 
If this effect is doubted, let notice be taken that wherever there is 
a turn in the road or an inclination in the surface — however deep 
the ruts may be on a straight road — they disappear at these 
points ; because at the turning, the horses, when coming from 
opposite directions, naturally vary their course round the 
corners, and one wheel-track obliterates the other. Here less 
material is required than on any other part of the road. As 
the result of much experience, it may be stated that if the 
heavy traffic were evenly distributed over our ordinary country 
roads, they could be maintained at very much less cost than they 
now are. The object of the roadman should be so to manage 
his road that ruts are never formed. The surface should be kept 
level and the traffic evenly distributed over the whole of the road. 
Constant attention, — continually putting stones on in winter, in 
small quantities at a time, whenever a rut or depression appears, 
as shown by the water standing after a shower, — thus causing the 
traffic to be spread equally over the surface, is the ou]y way to 
keep at once a good road, and one on which horses can travel 
with comfort. In summer all loose stones should be picked off. 
A road which is smothered with loose stones, or which has deep 
ruts, is both wasteful of expense and bad for traffic. 
It may be taken as an axiom that material is always cheaper 
than labour, and money expended in the former will always 
prove more economical than that spent on the latter. At the 
same time, a saving of materials means a saving of money, and 
by a due attention to manual labour on the roads, material will 
be saved. By keeping the water off, and the ruts well filled 
in and levelled, materials are saved and economy effected. 
Where roads are not kept level, the practice of letting off the 
water from the deep ruts is often resorted to after every fall of 
rain, by dragging with a sharp-pointed hoe an opening in the 
side of the rut. Wherever this is done a rotten place is made in 
