Moads • 
the road as they come from the quarry, and breaking them after- 
wards upon the road itself. It is no doubt the easiest method, and 
can be afforded at a less expense. But on the other hand it is open 
to great deception, and a very active overseer may be persuaded 
by appearances that the size of the stones is uniform, while the 
small ones cover large unbroken fragments. If the stones are 
broken up at the side of the road, and shovelled on from the heap, 
no such deception can take place. 
C. 
There is no word so little understood, or so much abused as the 
word economy. In nine cases out of ten in which it is attempted to 
be practised, its true meaning — the meaning proved correct by the 
result — is the waste of ignorance or of inexperience. The pro- 
verb, <£ Nothing is cheap that is useless,” is like most other pro- 
verbs, fraught with an important lesson. 
Nothing, in fact, is so cheap as the best workmanship employ- 
ed on the best materials. Labour is productive in proportion as 
it is cheerfully performed ; and no labour is cheerfully and well 
performed that is inadequately paid. Materials are cheap, in pro- 
portion as they are durable, and as the labour employed upon them 
is employed in sufficient quantity and with judgment. The bad 
condition and the unproductiveness of the stockholders of many 
of our turnpike roads, is to be attributed to the hard bargains, 
that is, the cheap bargains under which they were originally made, 
and the cheap materials of which they consist. 
When however an important communication is for the first 
time to be opened, and when after every exertion that patriotism, 
and local, and personal interest combined, can make, a fund only 
adequate to make an indifferent road, can be raised — I then agree, 
that at all events the work should be some how performed, or, as our 
road-makers say, u any how Such a road will always, before it 
becomes a good road, cost more in money, than a road well and 
permanently made at first, and undertaken, not by the lowest bid- 
der, but by men who have honest principles and regard their en- 
gagements and their character, more than the amount of the pro- 
fit they may make. Such men I have employed, and they are 
not difficult to be found. But it is hardly possible that a good 
road can cost too much, if the benefit to the community, and not 
to the stockholders is considered. 
D. 
The first turnpike roads made in the county of Essex, in Eng- 
land, over the perfectly level part of the county, and I believe all 
