50 BULLETIN" 440, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
of one to one. The usual slope for an earth fill is one and one-half 
to one for most soils encountered in railroad building in this region. 
Most of the grading is done with pick and shovel. This is partic- 
ularly true of sidehill work where the bank may be picked away and 
shoveled to the lower side. Light work on fairly level ground is done 
in the same way, the dirt being borrowed from ditches or borrow pits. 
Frequently moderate sized cuts and fills, under favorable soil condi- 
tions, are handled in the same manner, the material from the cuts 
being mostly wasted and that needed for fills borrowed. 
Pick and shovel work is usually done by day labor, as are all other 
parts of railroad construction. As a rule the men work in crews with- 
out any particular task for each. Very good results are secured, how- 
ever, by assigning each man to a 25-foot station. This promotes 
rivalry, as the men do not like to be left behind when their neighbors 
have finished and gone ahead. The cost of digging and spreading 
dirt is commonly from 15 to 25 cents per yard for common loam, and 
from 30 to 35 cents for heavy soils. 
In larger cuts the dirt is moved to adjacent fills with wheelbarrows. 
Even better success is secured by using light two-wheeled hand dump 
carts holding from one-third to one-half yard. Three men handle 
each cart, first filling it and then wheeling it out to the fill. Planks 
are laid in the bottom of the cut to facilitate wheeling. The cost of 
such work, where rocks are not encountered, ranges from 30 to 50 
cents per yard. In very large cuts it is sometimes the practice to lay 
a temporary track and remove the dirt by shoveling it by hand onto 
a train of flat cars, which is hauled out on the line by an engine, the 
dirt being used for ballast. 
A typical pick and shovel crew consisting of a foreman, a black- 
smith, a man with a team and wagon, and 44 muckers, costs $2,500 
per month. Working under rather favorable conditions, with soil 
that is easily worked and a moderate amount of soft rock, this crew 
grades about 85 stations per month, the average amount of material 
moved per station being about 60 yards. This is done at a cost of 
$1,560 per mile, or 49 cents per yard. 
Many firms supplement the pick and shovel crew by a second crew, 
using teams and scrapers for grading the larger cuts and fills. A 
typical crew of this sort contains a foreman, 3 teamsters, 3 men 
holding slips, 5 muckers, and 3 two-mule teams. The cost is about 
$3.20 per hour, and earthwork can be done for from 20 to 25 cents per 
yard for distances not over 100 feet. So-called slips are used to 
scrape up and transport the dirt after it has been loosened by the 
muckers with picks. Wheeled scrapers are rarely used. In some 
instances ordinary one-horse dump carts are employed with success 
for moving dirt some distance. Steam shovels are infrequently used 
in cuts on extensive main line roads ; usually lumber roads rather than 
