534 
IHE RURAL NEW-YORKER* 
August V5 
HOW TO USE A ROAD MACHINE! 
wUkn, how and where it is most serviceable 
How to Mend a Country Hoad. 
THE QUESTIONS. 
The use of road machines is becomluK quite xeneral in country 
nelRhborhoods, but we Bnd that they are not always used to the best 
advantBRe. For the benefit of onr readers, we desire to obtain some 
rules that will aid those not familiar with these machines. Will you 
be kind enouRh to help us by answer ng the following questions ? 
1. Does the machine do Its best work In wet or dry weather ? 
2. Do you ever work It in the duet 1 
3. As a general thing, how soon after a rain would you work the 
road ? 
4. llow about ruts In frozen ground 7 
6 . now often should ordinary roads be worked over 7 
(1. Please tell us In detail how you would proceed to put an average 
country road In the best condition, and how you would use the machine 
to keep It so. 
As They Work in Georgia. 
1. Uest when the ground is moist. 2, Yes. 3 As 
soon as the ground will crumble. 4 I don’t think that 
frozen ground can be worked to any advantage. .5. 
We work once a year, but it is better to work twice. 
6 It depends up 3n the condition of the road to start 
with. If lower in the center, I would use a railroad 
plow on either side of the center and draw the earth 
to the center with the machine. If the center of the 
road is high enough, we use small scooter plows only 
for plowing the sides. After the road is once put in 
proper shape, we do no plowing, but use the machine 
only, which does most excellent work and does all the 
plowing necessary. All roads should be worked 
immediately after the spring rains are over, so that 
thpy will harden by the fall season. w. r. 8. 
Eatonton, Ga. 
Must Be Brains in the Hoad. 
1. The machine will do best work when the ground 
is in good condition to plow. 2. I don’t think it is 
well to work roads when dusty. 3. I would work 
roads at once after a rain, if the ground is not too 
sloppy. They cannot be worked successfully if too 
wet. 4. I can do very little to level ruts in frozen 
ground. 5. Roads should be surfaced every time they 
become rutty and uneven. 6 I would put a road in 
good condition, first by cutting a good ditch on each 
side and giving it an oval shape to keep the water 
off ; take out all the so-called breakers afterward. I 
would go over the road every time it got out of order, 
and surface it, but would only scrape it smooth and not 
tear up a lot of earth. This is about all there is of it. 
It takes brains or good jadgment to make roads, just 
the same as it does to farm, practice law, etc. 
Bedford, Pa. D. h. 
Keep Out of Dust and Mud. 
Never work a road machine in dust unless you go 
deep enough to cover it up with fresh earth. It is bad 
policy to work roads when muddy. A road should be 
worked as soon as dry enough to work the soil and 
have it leave the blade of the machine in a pulverized 
state. When the soil is hard, it breaks up in large 
lumps, and that should be avoided, as it leaves the 
road in a bad condition. The general road work 
should be done early in spring, or as soon as the roads 
are dry enough to work. To do this properly, a ma¬ 
chine should be used that will clean out the ditches, 
this being the place to begin work. By cutting out 
and opening the waterways on the sides of the road, 
the first great thing in building or rebuilding a road 
is accomplished. After this is done, cut the bank or 
shoulder off so that enough earth may be obtained to 
crown the road. A road should be worked as often 
as it gets cut up. In other words, it should be kept 
Ci'owning enough and smooth enough to run the water 
into the side ditches as quickly as possible. After a 
road is properly shaped, a five or six-ton roller should 
be used on it until the roadbed is hard. G. N. m. 
Utica, N. Y. 
The Whole Story of a Hoad. 
1. The machine works best in wet weather. 2. It 
doesn’t pay to use a road machine in the dust. 3. As 
soon as the surface is dry enough so that the earth is 
friable and will crumble and fill the ruts. 4. It can¬ 
not be used to fill ruts in frozen ground until the sur¬ 
face is sufficiently thawed and dried to be friable, 
when they can be used to good advantage. 5, Road 
machines should be used on earth roads the whole 
year through, as ruts are formed, and the soil is in 
condition to work, thereafter. The roads should be 
gone over and the ruts be kept filled up. 6. To put a 
load in shape with one of the modern road machines, 
I always commence at the outside of the roadway. I 
first set stakes to which to drive, say seven or eight 
feet from the fence on either side, or two or three 
feet farther from the road fence from where I want 
the ditch. Driving to the stakes brings the front 
wheel where the ditch is to be formed. I then set the 
blade at a very acute angle (nearly endwise), with the 
point of the blade following the front wheel, and the 
rear end of the blade raised high enough to form the 
proper crown of the pike I expect to make, and with 
the machine set in this position I cut a shallow fur¬ 
row. The next cut I set the blade at a little more 
angle, or one notch straighter across and go in the 
same place; the horses straddle the furrow thrown out 
at the first cut, and work this furrow towards the cen¬ 
ter of the road, grading the ditch as nearly as possi¬ 
ble, cutting deep in high and shallow in the low 
places, etc., always keeping the heel of the blade high 
enough to preserve the proper crown of the roadway. 
The third cut, and thereafter, I work this first furrow 
toward the center of the road, with the blade set at 
the proper angle to do the work most effectually and 
leave the smoothest work behind; the point of the 
blade must not dip in and cut deeper than the suc¬ 
ceeding cut, and thus leave rough work behind. After 
this first furrow is brought to the center of the road 
from both sides, I set the blade straight across and 
run over the ridge lightly and level it, carrying the 
earth from the high into the lower places, and level 
or grade the road endwise. In grading up a road in 
this way, the operator should keep his eye ahead of 
the blade, and be ready to cut deep in high places and 
shallow in low places as much as possible, and take 
pride in his work. 
After the road is thus blocked out, I go over it again 
in exactly the same way, or several times until the 
ditches are put to the proper grade or depth, and the 
road is brought to the proper crown, and is as smooth 
as a race track. It is not crowned up so high in tbe 
center, or the ditches so deep but a lady can drive a 
spirited horse on any part of the roadway between the 
ditches, without danger of upsetting or being thrown 
out. After a roadway is put i i proper shape, if 
it can be rolled four or five times with a heavy roller 
of five to seven tons weight, it will form a crust 
from four to six inches thick that is so hard that the 
prints of a horse’s foot or the wheels of a heavily 
loaded wagon will hardly make an impression, and 
will prevent rutting for a long time to any great 
extent. After each rolling, the depressions formed by 
the roller should be filled up with earth or gravel 
and the road rolled again. This plan of rebuilding 
an old road should be carried out as soon as the heavy 
spring rains are over, and the ground is settled and dried 
enough so that the soil is in proper condition to work. 
The road should be gone over after every heavy rain, 
or as soon as the ruts begin to form. Country roads 
should be gone over with these machines as early as 
possible in the spring after the frost is out, to prevent 
deep ruts from forming, and scraped at intervals 
throughout the year whenever they become rutted; but 
no piking up should be done after June 1. 
Great mistakes are made in the use of the modern 
road machines, by not understanding how to use them 
to the best advantage. One of the mistakes is in try¬ 
ing to move too much earth at a time, and in not set¬ 
ting the blade in proper position and at the proper 
angle to do the most effective work. For instance, if 
the blade is set too straight across in moving earth 
from the sides to the center of the road, it makes it 
very hard for the teams. The operator should stop 
and change the machine whenever it is not doing the 
most desirable work. In cutting into banks, and 
widening out hillside roads, the blade should be set at 
a very acute angle, and the operator should not try to 
cut too much at a time. In badly gullied hill roads, 
the blade should be set nearly straight across, with 
the end toward the ditch a little higher, and thus fill 
up the gully until the machine can run in the ditch 
and bring in earth from the bank outside the ditch. 
In working hill roads, the work should always be done 
in going down the hill, which can be done with any of 
the reversible road machines on the market. But those 
which are provided with a pivotal rear axle are prefer¬ 
able, on hill work especially, as the machine can be 
guided to take more or less, by steering it while in 
motion, and it is not liable to stick the teams in cut¬ 
ting into the banks of a hill. 
The reversible road machines can be used to the very 
best advantage in filling up ditches, as well as making 
shallow ditches. Most of them are capable of doing 
their own plowing in any soil that can be handled by 
a common plow ; so that there is no use of using a 
plow ahead of a grader in doing any kind of road 
work. A great mistake is made by going ahead of the 
road machine with the common plow, and plowing five 
or six deep furrows on each side of the road and then 
putting this earth in the road with the machine ; for 
the reason that the plow breaks up soil that should 
not be disturbed. If a plow is used at all, there should 
be but one furrow plowed on the outside of the 
roadway, and this furrow can be cut much easier and 
at an evener depth with the road machine than is pos¬ 
sible with a common plow. 
I have had a great deal of experience in building 
roads with the modern road machine, and my experi¬ 
ence is that a very wide roadway and a comparatively 
level road, with shallow ditches at the sides, with just 
crown enough to carry off the water after heavy rains, 
will keep in shape longer and not rut as badly, as a 
very high crowned, narrow pike. A great mistake in 
building and maintaining earth roads is in putting too 
much earth in the road and disturbing soil that should 
not be disturbed; but very little should be taken from 
the sides to the center to make a good road, and in a 
level country, the driveway should be as wide as pos¬ 
sible after leaving, say, five or six feet outside the 
side ditches next to the fence for a sidewalk. These 
lawns or sidewalks on each side of the roadway, should 
not be wide enough to drive on and rut them in muddy 
weather. If one will notice in driving through the 
country, he will find where earth roads are narrow, 
high-crowned pikes, and the travel is confined to one 
or two tracks only, that they are badly rutted in soft 
weather, and rougA and very unpleasant to drive over 
at any time. 
I have often observed that where a road is laid out 
60 feet wide, there will be 15 or 20 feet next to the 
fences grown up to weeds and brush, and a narrow, 
high-crowned pike in the center about 15 to 20 feet 
wide with very deep ditches at the sides, so deep that 
they stand half full of water which does not drain out 
through the natural water courses. The result with 
such a road is that the water percolates through the 
roadbed, softens it, and causes it to rut deeply. Such 
a road costs much more to build and to maintain than 
a wide and comparatively level road. Where roads 
are built in this way, they should be widened, and the 
side ditches put nearer the fences with the modern 
road machine. The way to do this, is to commence at 
the outside, as I have described, fill up the old ditches, 
and rebuild the road. 
The greatest drawback to our country is our public 
highways. It costs more to haul 1,000 bushels of 
wheat 10 miles over a mud road, than it does to trans¬ 
port the same from Chicago to New York, over the 
most expensive railroad in the country. Our State 
prisons, court houses, jails and infirmaries, our school 
houses and bridges, have been built and maintained ; 
but our country roads have been sadly neglected. 
What we want now is money to improve our public 
highways, and a revision of our existing road laws, 
whereby we can have a superintendent of highways 
whose duty it is to attend to the roads when they 
should be, and proper tools to keep them in shape. 
Every township should be provided with from two to 
four of these reversible road machines, and at least 
one heavy roller. If there is a stone quarry in the 
township, either limestone, granite or sand stone, or 
if there are plenty of bowlders, there should be a rock 
crusher, and a piece of stone road should be built each 
year. J. d. olcott. 
Norwalk, O. 
One Mistake Often Made. 
1, 2 and 3. When a common walking plow will work, 
a road mach ine will also work best in the same soil 
for building up new reads. 4. The best results are 
obtained in southern Michigan by the use of a road 
machine for planing off the top of the roads after a 
freeze, where the roads are in heavy soil. I find that 
the longer machines have been used in a district, the 
more attention is given to this kind of work. 5. The 
center of a highway should be dressed over after the 
frost is out in the spring, just as soon as a machine can 
be used ; for it will prevent, in quite a degree, its 
being cut up during and after the later rains. The 
last of May, it should be worked from center to center 
of ditches. 6. The greatest trouble with the use of 
machines by the farmers is, that alter working up on 
to the crown of the road, they do not carry the heel of 
the blade high enough, and the consequence is a ridge 
in the center in such shape that travel will not be 
started over the center, but on either side. As the 
wheels nearest the center are highest, the greater 
part of the load is on the wheels nearest the outside, 
giving the vehicle a tendency to slew or cut; whereas, 
if the heel of the blade had been raised, and a nicely 
rounded top left, the same travel would not damage 
it nearly so much. c. k. 
VanBuren County, Mich. 
The Way They Do in Maine. 
1. It matters but little whether it is wet or dry 
weather. 2. I work it in dust, mud and stone ; in 
fact, anything but ledge. 3. Immediately. 4. All 
work should be done before the ground freezes. 5. It 
