330 
AMERICAN' AGRICULTURIST. 
[September, 
weeks there was a huge gully there, and dirt 
enough at the bottom of the hill to cost $50 to 
replace it. One dollar spent at first , in using 
plow and hoe, would have prevented all this 
waste. The supervisor of that district fairly 
owed the traveling public or the county treas¬ 
ury $49. “A stitch in time saves nine.” It is 
liis business to take the stitch. 
Rule 3d— Dig out all stones that stick up in 
the track. Of course throw out all loose ones. 
“ It’s surprisin’,” said my shrewd old neighbor 
before mentioned, “ how much cussin’ a few 
small stuns in the track will cause. Th’ use 
t’be an ugly one stickin’ up front of my house, 
and it spoilt my front porch for nooniu’s. You 
see, I found the swearin’ done over that stun 
was corruptin’ my morals, say nothin’ of spoilin’ 
my noouin’ naps. So I dug the thing up, and 
since then the teamsters have been more pious 
in front of my house. I b’lieve I stopped more 
swearin’ than the parson could by preachin’ 
on the hull ten commandments.” Nothing tries 
the temper of a driver and the stuff of his wag¬ 
on worse than stones in the wheel-track, and 
loose stones often seriously lame a horse. A 
supervisor can not do a better deed than to 
clear them all out of the road. 
Rule Mh.—Clean and fill all mud-holes , as a 
dentist would a tooth, so they will stay filled. 
It does no good to pile in dirt while they are 
full of mud and water. That merely enlarges 
the hole and makes it muddier. A few such 
“ fillings ” will spread it clear across the road. 
The water should be drained or dipped off, and 
the hole filled and rounded up so the dirt can 
not settle there again. If it is deep, small stones 
picked out of the track may be filled in at the 
bottom, if they are then well covered with 
gravel or dirt. 
When a supervisor has observed these four 
rules and acted on them, his roads will be iu a 
passable condition, and not liable to be render¬ 
ed impassable by the first heavy rain. He can 
then use the rest of his funds iu turnpiking and 
in improving the appearance of the highways. 
How They Make Eoads in Quiddletown, 
BY ONE WHO HAS BEEN THERE. 
Mr. Editor: I don’t want you to flatter 
y«urself that you are doing such a mighty 
sight of good by your paper. It is all very well 
for you to tell folks how to do all sorts of things, 
and then, for fear they won’t know what you 
mean, to rub it in with pictures. Your new¬ 
fangled notions may be good enough, and your 
pictures are awful taking; but you don’t know 
every thing, or if you do, you can’t teach it to 
the Quiddletown folks—you can’t teach them 
any thing, they learned it all from their fathers. 
• To say nothing about high farming, and sav¬ 
ing manure, and soiling, and all that, just take 
the matter of making roads for an example. 
Now, you think you know something about 
making country roads, don’t you? Well, may 
be you do, but if you do the Quiddletown folks 
don’t, and what they don’t know a’n’t worth 
knowing—as any one of them will tell you. 
I don’t know much about such things myself, 
but I am going to tell you how they do it, and if 
you get my “illustrations” up in good style, 
I’ll bet that a dozen people will follow this plan 
to one that will follow yours. 
In the first place, Quiddletown is an old town, 
and they don’t make any new roads; they only 
make the old ones over, and this is how they 
do it. Figure 1 is what you call a cross-section 
-of a road, as it looks after corn-planting time. 
The black part is top soil and sods; the light 
part is blue clay, and the lumps are stones. 
Figure 2 is the way the road looks after they 
have “made” it. In a little while, as the sea¬ 
son is dry, it gets to look like fig. 3, where the 
spotted part shows the dust. It keeps this way 
most of the summer; except for a rain now and 
then, but in the fall it gets pretty bad, as in fig. 
4. Then the committee gets mad aud puts on 
some stone, like fig. 5, Avith sods on top of them, 
so as to make the road hard in the middle any 
how. It makes it so hard that folks drive at 
the sides all Avinter, Avhen the road looks as in 
fig. G. It is only in the spring, Avhen the frost 
is coming out, that they go on the stones, be¬ 
cause they can’t help themselves, and this is 
just enough to make it look like fig. 1, again. 
Then they appoint a new committee, and they 
go over the same course again, only they pick 
off some of the stones to make the road smooth 
for summer. They have to put them back 
again iu the fall though. 
Noav this is most pictures enough for one let¬ 
ter, but I Avould like to sIioav you how they 
manage a springy place in the spring of the 
year. They don’t make a drain and tap the 
spring, the Avay you tell them to ; they just put 
on some loads of stones, and smooth them off 
with earth on top. It looks first-rate when it 
is ucav, and they do say it is the best plan, but 
I Avisli you could see what a mess it is when 
the ground a’n’t got no bottom to it. It is just 
like driving over a rotten corduroy in a swamp, 
and if it Avasn’t for these spots they could carry 
twice the load they do. Seems to me if Avater 
makes the trouble, they had ought to put in a 
drain and keep the water out of the way; but 
I suppose they know best—they say they do. 
Another funny thing is the Avay they man¬ 
age when two road districts join. They say 
every district must take care of its own water; 
so instead of turning the gutter doAvn alongside 
of the road where they branch, they make the 
other people keep the stream iu their own dis¬ 
trict, and every man of them has to drive 
through the mud or over the ice every time he 
goes to town. The other people don’t care— 
they don’t go that way. 
No farmer Avho has a supply of this valuable 
material, should permit the opportunities pre¬ 
sented during this month, to pass away Avithout 
digging out a supply, to be hauled during the 
Avinter. After this month has passed aAvay, the 
fall rains may be expected, which Avill flood all 
the Ioav grounds, aud prevent digging, or make 
it so uncomfortable that any excuse Avill be 
found to avoid it. No more valuable addition 
to the manure heap can be procured, and a sup¬ 
ply that Avill last all winter, to absorb all liquid 
Avaste from stables,cow-houses, kitchen,and hog¬ 
pens, and keep hen-roosts avcII provided, should 
be procured without fail. Next spring no money 
can in many cases procure the supply of ma¬ 
nure that may thus be made Avith only the ex¬ 
penditure of some days’ labor now. Whenever 
Ave hear or read of the successful bringing up 
of a run-doAvn farm, we invariably come across 
this fact, viz.: “ He hauled some swamp muck.” 
Now, whatever chemists may say about the 
composition of this or that material, we farmers 
knoAV that avo must have a certain amount of 
bulk iu our manure. The soil needs the median- 
Fig. 1.— THE AVAY THE ROAD IS AFTER CORN-PL ANTING. 
Fig. 2. —THE ROAD “MADE”—ALL THE SURFACE SOIL OF THE GUTTERS BEING PILED ON IT. 
Swamp Muck. 
Fig. 3.— DUSTY TIMES, ALONG IN JULY. 
Fig. 4.— MUD AND SLUSH—ALL AFLOAT. 
Fig. 5. —THE MUD CURED BY A RIDGE OF STONE AND SOD IN THE MIDDLE. 
Fig. 6. —WINTER WEATHER ROADS. 
