1876.1 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
175 
break up the piece. If my anticipations are well 
founded, this will enable me to keep land in grass 
fully two years longer than I am now able to. The 
form in which lime is usually applied in our vicin¬ 
ity is that of gas-house refuse. Oyster-shell lime 
is, however,' a good deal used. Gas-lime is, as is 
well known, a mixture of, to us farmers, unknown 
and indescribable things. We know enough, how¬ 
ever, to handle it with care as well as with shovels, 
and if we cannot spread it thin in winter and break 
down the lumps tolerably fine, to let it lie in heaps 
until the next year. Sixty bushels to the acre is a 
good dressing if evenly applied, and half the quan¬ 
tity of oyster-shell lime answers about the same 
purpose. It is not at all worth while to put on too 
heavy dressings, lest the burning effect be observed. 
Lime must have vegetable matter to act upon in 
such soils as ours, and the quantities of each must 
bear some reasonable relation to one another. 
Vegetable Mold Prevents Kieacliing. 
Almost all thin soils are peculiarly subject to 
“ leaching,” that is to having their goodness washed 
through them. The remedy is to make a soil full of 
fine mold. To this end the land must have a crop 
upon it all the time. A growing crop fills the soil 
with roots. The roots decompose and form mold. 
Red clover is pre-eminent as a mold-making and 
soil-making plant. Buckwheat is useful chiefly 
when it is plowed under. Corn sowed as for fod¬ 
der, being scattered in every third furrow when 
plowing, may be plowed under, or it may be cut 
and fed or cured; in either case it is beneficial. 
The roots and stubs make a great mass of mold in 
the soil, and where it is all made use of as a green 
manuring, the result is most satisfactory. Turnips 
cover the land quickly, and if plowed under are of 
marked benefit. In any event they prevent the 
growth of weeds, and as summer-fallowing is al¬ 
ways detrimental to such land, quick-growing 
green manure crops are our only resource, for by 
their use we work the soil, we kill the weeds, and 
improve the land, all at the same time and with 
little labor. 
Country Roads. 
The past winter has greatly enlarged the experi¬ 
ence of farmers, especially those in some of the 
western states as to the value of a good road. In 
many places farmers have been practically impris¬ 
oned. The barns and granaries have been full, but 
the farmers’ pockets have been empty, the freight 
cars are idle, and business stagnant because of the 
impossibility of moving a load of grain upon the 
Fig. 1. —DIFFERENT GRADES. 
roads. Without roads a man is reduced almost to 
the condition of an uncivilized savage and is help¬ 
less. Yet it is not for want of money expended 
that the roads are thus useless. Many country 
roads have cost more in repairs the last ten years 
than would have built a good 6olid track passable 
at all seasons. Much of the fault lies in the poor 
material used, but more in the bad form and wrong 
direction given to them. Our whole road system 
is faulty from the foundation. The rectangular di¬ 
vision of the western country has influenced or 
forced the roads to take straight courses without 
Fig. 2.— ROUNDED ROAD-BED. 
respect to the character of the ground, and in other 
places the want of scientific engineering has led to 
the construction of roads without regard to keep¬ 
ing a proper level, and to maintain a direct course, 
they have been taken over hills instead of around 
them, in forgetfulness of the fact that in many 
cases the measured distance over a hill is as great as 
that around its base upon an exact level. The time 
has now arrived when farmers cannot afford in the 
close competition with other industries to disregard 
the necessity of cheap roads, and a road that costs 
nothing, but cannot be used, is dearer than one that 
may cost $10,000 a mile, but permits two horses to 
draw 100 bushels of wheat to market upon any day 
in the year. In considering the question of roads 
Fig. 3.— IMPROVED ROAD-BED. 
there are five principal points involved: these are 
the direction, the slope, the cross-section, the ma¬ 
terial, and the surface. Unfortunately iu most 
cases we have made our road bed, and cannot help 
ourselves, but there are circumstances in which it 
would be cheaper to abandon the present roads and 
make new ones, than to repair the old ones. It is 
here that the help of scientific engineers should be 
sought, and the management of roads taken from 
incompetent and incapable men, and put into those 
of educated engineers. Here is the first and most 
necessary reform. As to the direction, it is not al¬ 
ways as regards roads that a straight line is the 
nearest distance between two points. In a hilly or 
rolling country, it may be actually shorter to go 
around a hill than to go over it, leaving out of view 
the saving in cost of hauling loads up the inclina¬ 
tion to be referred to, hence it is important to give 
such a direction to the road as shall keep it as near- 
Fig. 4.—ROAD ON IIILL-SIDE. 
ly level as possible. A road 10 miles long, which is 
so curved that in no one place more than a quarter 
of a mile can be seen at once, will be only 150 yards 
longer than a perfectly straight one, and yet in such 
a road a hill might be avoided that would reduce 
the usefulness of the road one half, or double the 
cost of transportation over it, by destroying half 
the power of the horse to draw loads upon it. As 
to slope, it has been shown by repeated actual tests, 
that if a horse can draw 2,000 lbs. on a level road, 
he can only draw 1,800 on a rise of 1 foot in 100 ; 
1,620 on One of 1 in 50; 1,440 on one of 1 in 40; 
1,000 on a rise of 1 in 25 ; 800 on one of 1 in 20, and 
500 lbs. on a slope of 1 in 10. Thus, if a road rises 
1 foot in 25—considered a very easy hill, and a very 
frequent slope—one half the power of the horse is 
wasted ; and when the slope is 1 foot in 10—a not 
unusual slope in hilly countries—three-quarters of 
the horse’s usefulness is lost. Let it be remem¬ 
bered that as when a chain has one weak link, its 
whole strength is only equal to that of the weak 
link, so a road which has but one hill of 1 foot rise 
in 25, is reduced in value one-half, or in other words 
renders it necessary to carry half loads, or employ 
double horse power over the whole of it, if that hill 
has to be passed over. Of course the length of the 
hill has something to do with this, for a horse may 
“spurt’’for a short distance so as to double his 
force, but this can only be done on a very smooth 
road, and for less than 500 feet, without the risk of 
disabling or permanently injuring the animal. Few 
people are used to estimate slopes, and it will be 
useful to study the diagram, fig. 1, which gives 
the various slopes 1 in 10, a ; 1 in 15, b ; 1 in 25, c ; 
1 in 40, d. Upon the cross section of a road de¬ 
pends its durability and drainage. If it is too 
rounding, loaded wagons will tend to slide or 
work to the edges, and wear the surface rapidly, or 
the rain, flowing off too rapidly, will wash the sur¬ 
face into the side ditches. A rounded form, fig. 2, 
is bad, because when wagons are crowded from the 
ridge to the sides, where the slope is greater, the 
road is worn away by the sliding of the wheels, and 
as eveiy driver keeps the center when he can, the 
road is worn there the most, ruts are there formed, 
water is held in the ruts, and the road is speedily in 
bad condition. A good cross section is shown at 
figure 3. In this the road slopes from the center 
equally upon each side, and one foot in 24 is abun¬ 
dant slope for a well made road ; this is equal to 1 
foot rise in 48 feet wide, or 6 inches iu one 24 feet 
wide. When the road slopes in length, the side 
slope should be increased, so as to force the water 
towards fhe side ditches, and prevent its running 
down the road. When the hill is steep, and the 
road is upon the hill side, the form of the cross 
section should be as that shown at figure 4. Here 
there is but one slope, towards the hill, and but one 
ditch. This prevents washing, and all danger of 
sliding oil'the road in frosty weather when the sur¬ 
face may be icy. The water is taken from the ditch 
by culverts under the road, as shown by the 
dotted lines. This will do away with the absurd 
and worse than useless water-bars common to our 
unscientific roads. The ditch should be dammed 
so as to turn the current into the culverts, and 
these should be so frequent as to avoid risk from 
overflow. The material is perhaps the most impor¬ 
tant consideration of all. It is in this that the 
Western roads almost wholly fail, and fail where 
there is every other element needed for the best of 
roads. Broken stone, crushed by machinery, and 
assorted by screens, is the best material; trap or 
greenstone are the toughest and best rocks ; lime¬ 
stone comes next, and sandstone last of all. The 
manner of crushing and screening the stone was 
shown in the American Agriculturist, page 260, 1874. 
The breaker there represented is the Blake Stone 
Crusher. This excellent machine is well adapted 
to work a revolution iu the character of our roads 
by cheaply providing the best of material from 
either quarried rock, or the boulders or “hard 
heads ” from the fields. If it were in ordinary use, 
our country roads would be doubled in value at a 
saving of half the yearly cost of making repairs. 
Next in value to broken stone is coarse gravel. 
This material may be procured in many places 
where stone is not at hand, by sinking pits or exca¬ 
vating hill sides. By rolling this material firmly, a 
good solid bed may be made. When earth is the 
only material to be procured, much care iu making 
and draining the road must be exercised, and at the 
best a poor road will result, though the bed may be 
improved by the addition of a heavy coat of sand. 
In no case should sods or the surface vegetable soil 
be used for a road-bed, and this should be removed 
down to the subsoil as the first preliminary opera¬ 
tion towards making a road. Neither should large 
stones be mixed with the material, or they will cer¬ 
tainly work to the surface to its great injury. The 
surface should be maintained in good condition, or 
the road will fail with great rapidity. A level road 
may be made as bad as a hilly one by leaviug the 
surface uneven, or covered with loose stone. A 
Fig. 6.— ASCENT CAUSED BY A HOLLOW. 
hollow in a road, or a loose stone over which a 
wagon wheel is forced to mount, may change the 
level surface into an inclination of one in ten, or 
even one in five. This is seen in figures 5 and 6, 
in which the dotted lines show the amount of rise 
over which the load has to be lifted. This is rare¬ 
ly thought of, or is unknown to those who are in 
charge of country roads, but costs the farmers 
thousands of dollars yearly in the aggregate, which, 
if it came in the shape of a tax, would be vigorous¬ 
ly resisted. Unfortunately we have space enough 
only to hint at the chief points of this subject, and 
to make a few general suggestions. Those who 
would pursue the subject in detail, may do so 
profitably by reading “A Manual of Road Making, 
by Dr. W. M. Gillespie,” which costs $2.50, and in 
which the whole subject is treated of at length. 
