260 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[JtTLT, 
limestone common in much of the -western 
country will make an excellent road, hut will 
need more frequent renewal, the cost of which, 
however, is but a small item compared with 
that of the foundation. Neither is it necessary 
hardest rock to fragments of the required size. 
The broken rock is then hauled and spread 
upon the road to the proper depth, when the 
steam roller compresses it with great force into 
a solid mass which binds together with great 
a grade of one foot in fifteen. An engine 
weighing eight tons has a compressive force 
upon the road of 270 lbs. to an inch of bear- 
ing surface, and uses 400 lbs. of coal per day. 
The total cost of working is about §6 a day, 
Fig. 1. — WARING'S ROCK-DRILL. 
Fig. 2.— STONE-BREAKING MACHINE. 
in all cases to be at so great a cost for the pre- 
paration of the bed. A veiy fair road may be 
made without excavating the foundation, and 
a large portion of the cost saved. If the rock 
is to be blasted from a ledge, the compressed 
air-drill or a percussion steam-drill is used. 
The drill shown in figure 1 is the Waring corn- 
compactness. A certain portion of sand or fine 
stone screenings adds greatly to the binding 
together of the stone. 
The steam roller is shown in figure 3. It is 
a road locomotive which has a double set of 
wheels, one for ordinary draft purposes, and 
one of greater weight and width used only for 
and the cost of the engine with a set of four 
furrow plows for preparing the foundation or 
for field plowing is about §4,000. An engine 
of this weight is twelve-horse actual power, 
and may be used for threshing or any other 
purpose to which a locomotive engine is suit- 
able. This general availability renders it of 
pressed air-drill, which is capable of making 
1,000 strokes per minute and of boring in any 
ordinary rock with great rapidity. In the em- 
ployment of drills of this character a large 
amount of time and labor is saved. The rock 
is broken by a Blake stone-crusher, which pow- 
erful machine (shown in figure 2) reduces the 
Fig. 3.— AVELING & PORTER'S HOAD LOCOMOTIVE. 
rolling and compressing the road. It is made 
by the Messrs. Aveling & Porter, of Rochester, 
England, but is imported and sold by their 
agent in this country, where it is already in 
somewhat extensive use. One of these engines 
has drawn eleven two-horse wasrons loaded 
with stone upon an ordinary country road up 
such service that its cost is within the means 
of almost any township in the country or of 
any agricultural association. Some of our 
agricultural societies could, by putting these 
machines in use, help to solve the question of 
the usefulness of steam cultivation, and also- 
that of how we can have durable roads. 
