VOL. XL VII. NO. 1995. 
NEW YORK, APRIL 21, 1888. 
PRICE FIVE CENTS. 
*2.00 PER YEAR. 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year, 1888, by the Rural New-Yorker, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
ROAD 
SPECIAL 
COUNTRY ROADS. 
Travelers tell us that the country roads 
in America are in every way inferior to those 
found in any other civilized country. This is 
a strong statement, but many of us who have 
had occasion to haul heavy loads over neglect¬ 
ed roads in spring, will readily agree that 
roads in other countries could be about im¬ 
passable, and still excel ours. The more com¬ 
mon faults found with our roads are those of 
direction, slope, shape and surface. Many of 
■our present country roads follow the foot¬ 
paths laid out between houses when the coun¬ 
try was newly settled, or the trails and rough 
roadways cut through the forest in the old 
days of pioneer life. They go up and down 
hills, through low places and sand, without 
much regard for the comfort of teams or rap¬ 
idity of travel. It is folly to think of laying 
out new roads or straightening courses while 
the surface of the roads we have are in their 
present condition. The main object of this 
Special Number is to direct attention to the 
best plans for preparing a smooth, hard and 
durable road-bed. Let that be once supplied, 
and public enterprise will see to it that the 
hills are cut down and the long curves 
straightened. 
IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
It is a little surprising that there are still 
farmers who insist that our country roads are 
good enough, or as good as .can be had, while 
they know that the deep mud of every spring 
cuts off one-half of the load their horses could 
haul on a smooth surface. What the railroad 
is between States or counties, the good road is 
between townships and neighborhoods. A 
smooth, hard road-bed has a moral as well as 
a business influence upon any community it 
passes through. When a people emerge from 
a savage state they start at once to build a 
road that shall open up new fields for trade or 
pleasure. As the people gain in intelligence 
and prosperity the roads are bettered—in fact, 
the roads lead intelligence and prosperity in¬ 
to any c.mmunity. Railroads have brought 
the West within 24 hours of the East. This 
has revolutionized tiade, and the only way 
for the farmer to keep up with this revolu¬ 
tion is to improve his own transportation fa¬ 
cilities. Wagons have been improved so that 
a heavier load can be hauled than was possi¬ 
ble in the wagons of 30 years ago. Breeding 
and training have improved our farm horses. 
The ordinary road has not been improved cor- 
respondingly, so that many neighborhoods 
have destroyed the advantages which invent¬ 
ive skill has produced by retaining the rough, 
muddy and poorly-designed roads which 
properly belong to an age destitute of the tel¬ 
egraph, the railroad or the telephone. 
GOOD ROADS AND BAD ROADS. 
When roads are rough and muddy com¬ 
fortable riding from place to place is impos¬ 
sible. The church, the school, the farmers’ 
institute and all other meetings for profit or 
pleasure are poorly attended. Every farmer 
knows this as well as the fact that a load 
which his team could draw with comparative 
ease on hard, smooth ground, must be cut 
down from one-fourth to one-third when the 
triii is to be made in the mud. No one can 
deny this fact. Careful experiments have 
absolutely proved that the average horse can 
draw upon a wagon over an ordinary dirt 
road three times as much as he can carry on 
his back. Over a macadamized road he can 
draw in the same wagon and with the same 
expenditure of power three times as much as 
he could draw over the dirt road. These ex¬ 
periments were made in dry dirt. How much 
greater must be the difference when the dire 
road is covered with mud? There is every 
argument then in favor of a hard, smooth road. 
It brings more people into the neighborhood, 
because it presents the best driving place. 
The country is, therefore, advertised to the 
best advantage. A good road cheapens the 
cost of transporting produce, by enabling a 
team of horses to pull a heavier load and to 
make better speed than they could accomplish 
over a poorer road. The opinion of the man 
who says our roads are “good enough,” or 
who says a good road will not be of advan¬ 
tage to the community, is not worth consider¬ 
ing. The object of these articles is to try and 
determine the best and cheapest methods of 
starting the work of road reform. The ideas 
that are presented are those of practical men 
who have actually succeeded in making good 
roads. Reports are given from all sectiens of 
the country. 
WHAT IS A GOOD ROAD? 
As before stated, we propose to confine our 
remarks mainly to the road-bed. The improv- 
ment of road directions, the cutting down of 
hills and the filling of valleys are, as we be¬ 
lieve, matters of secondary importance at 
present. Let the level road-bed be made what 
it should be and the evils of steep slopes and 
windings will be so apparent that public sen¬ 
timent will force a reform. The surface of a 
road should be as hard and smooth as possible. 
Rough roads wear out the patience of passen¬ 
gers the fastenings of wagons and the shoulders 
of horses. An elastic road-bed, which gives 
way beneath the wheels, is poor. A. road sur¬ 
face of rubber would be smooth enough, but 
its elasticity would spoil it. For this reason 
the foundation for the road should be solid 
and unyielding. As regards friction on the 
Fig. 100. 
wheels, the two extremes maybe seen in abed 
of sand or gravel and a railroad. Whenever 
a wheel sinks into mud or sand the friction is 
increased, because more space is brought in 
contact with the obstructing material. A ball 
will roll further over a sheet of ice than it 
will over a piece of carpet, though driven by 
the same force in each case. Equal forces ap¬ 
plied to equal loads on a dirt road and on a 
macadamized road will show like comparative 
results in work performed. 
A mistake is often made in making country 
roads too wide. It is better to have a nar¬ 
rower road-bed well made than to half work 
a wider space. The shape of the road is fre¬ 
quently defective. The shape generally re¬ 
cognized by engineers as most durable is 
Fig. 101. 
shown at Fig. 101. The slope of the planes of 
this road is generally about half an inch to the 
foot. A poor shape, but one often seen, is 
shown at Fig. 103. On a road of this shape all 
wagons run at the center, consequently, deep 
ruts are formed in which the water is sure to 
stand. We frequently find roads that are 
“dishing,” or lower in the center than at the 
sides. These roads were almost without ex¬ 
ception originally shaped as at Fig. 103. 
EARTH AND GRAVEL ROADS. 
The great proportion of our country roads 
are formed from the earth close by them. It 
may be said that an earth road without the 
aid of stone or gravel will always be deficient 
in smoothness and hardness and will be almost 
impassable in spring. It is as impossible to 
make a first-class road out of earth alone as it 
Fig. 103. 
is to make a first-class house out of rotten 
timber. Yet in some localities an earth road 
is the only road possible and the utmost care 
should be taken to cut down its grades and re¬ 
move the water from its surface. Drainage 
becomes more and more important as the sur¬ 
face of the road is softened. Drains and 
ditches should be kept in the best of order,and 
trees which obstruct the free action of sun and 
air should be removed. In sandy localities a 
Fig. 102. 
coating of six inches of clay will prove a 
cheap improvement and sand placed on the 
clayey portions of the road will be useful. In 
many localities a thick coating of straw put 
on the sand has been found useful. Broad 
wagon tires should be encouraged in all sec¬ 
tions where earthf and gravel roads are em¬ 
ployed On soft surfaces, narrow wheels, 
supporting heavy weights cut and plow in a 
destructive manner. This diminishes as the 
width of the felloe increases. On many turn¬ 
pikes the toll on wagons with tires six inches 
wide is reduced one-half, with yet greater re¬ 
ductions for wider tires. It has been calcu¬ 
lated that a set of ordinary wagon tires will 
run for 2,700 miles in average weather and 
that a set of horses’ shoes will bear about 270 
miles of travel. Gravel is the material most 
commonly used in road improving because it 
generally happens to be handiest and cheap¬ 
est. The pebbles which form the chief part of 
gravel are too round to make a perfectly com¬ 
pact road-bed, yet gravel is a great improve¬ 
ment over our common earth. Most of the 
gravel dug from pits contains too much earth. 
It should be sifted before use. Two sieves, 
one with spaces one and a half inch apart and 
the other three-fourths of an inch apart, will 
sort the gravel into excellent sizes. The dirt 
that passes through the smaller size should not 
be use for road making. Good engineers say 
that this sifting pays as well as any road op¬ 
eration. After the road-bed has been shaped 
a coating of four inches of gravel is spread 
over it. If it can be well rolled, good; if not, 
vehicles may be allowed to run over it till it 
becomes fairly firm. A second and then a 
third coating of three to four inches of gravel 
may be added. It is better to put the larger 
stones at the top. Wet weather is the best 
time to add the gravel. 
BROKEN STONE AND PLANK ROADS. 
Beyond all question broken stone makes the 
best country road. Small, angular stones are 
the requisites of a successful stone road. 
Round stones will not answer at all. Any 
tough stone that can be broken into cubes 
weighing six ounces or under will answer. 
The road-bed is well drained and shaped as 
shown at Fig. 101. Three inches of broken 
stone are then spread evenly over the surface. 
This is rolled or packed by passing teams, care 
being taken to rake in the ruts as soon as 
formed. Second, third, and—if needed- 
fourth coatings are then added. The first coat¬ 
ing should be placed in a dry day, the others 
in wet weather. A road made in this way will 
enable a horse to pull three times as much as 
he can over an earth road. It must be kept 
in constant repair. Along European roads 
will be found piles of broken stone ready for 
use in road repairing. In old times the plank 
road was a very serviceable institution and 
even now there are swamps and low places 
where plank roads will give the best of satis¬ 
faction. The “corduroy” road is still found 
in many sections of the West. This is built of 
logs as straight and uniform in size as possible 
placed side by side across the road at right 
angles to its length. Sometimes the upper 
surface of the logs is hewn fiat or finished 
with an adze. When kept in repair such 
roads do very fair work and frequently in 
new countries are the only effective means of 
crossing swamps. In good farming sections, 
where there is any considerable amount of 
travel there is no excuse for them. We have 
seen several charcoal roads that were fairly 
useful in swampy ground. To make them, 
great piles of timber were placed where the 
road was desired, covered with straw and 
earth like charcoal pits, and burned. When 
burned the coal was raked down to a width of 
15 feet. 
Fifty years ago there were hundreds of 
miles of plank road in New York State alone. 
They were mostly built by placing sleepers 
about twice the length of our present railroad 
ties, lengthwise of the road and imbedded in 
it. Planks eight or more feet long and three 
or four inches thick were spiked to the sleep¬ 
ers at right angles to their direction. A side 
track of earth, to turn out upon, was care¬ 
fully graded, and deep ditches were dug on 
either side to insure perfect drainage. Before 
the present railroad age, these roads did 
wonders for inland traffic. Many of them 
were toll roads, and paid a handsome profit. 
There are to-day hundreds of small towns in 
the West and South where a plank road on 
the main street would double the winter busi¬ 
ness. 
HOW SHALL OUR ROADS BE IMPROVED? 
It has never been claimed that Americans 
do not spend money enough on their roads. 
The fault lies in the method of spending this 
money. There may be a few neighborhoods 
where the popular system of “working out the 
tax” gives fair results, but the most frequent 
results are absurdly ridiculous. We let our 
correspondents tell in their own words of the 
methods employed in their respective locali¬ 
ties. The contract system seems most effec¬ 
tive. The proper fixing of the main roads 
first, the purchase by the town of road ma¬ 
chines and stone-crushers are all points worthy 
of consideration by intelligent farmers. It is 
to be hoped that these articles will at least set 
farmers to thinking the subject over. 
THE DUTY OF ROADMASTERS AND 
OVERSEERS OF HIGHWAYS; ALSO 
OF THE PUBLIC. 
HENRY STEWART. 
I am convinced that the condition of the 
roads is the measure by which the character 
of a people is to be measured, and I would as 
soon wear rags as have a wretched road past 
my house and along my fields; and I would 
recommend this example to others, who may 
spend a day now and then repairing the road 
through their farms as a voluntary gift to the 
public and an indication of their own public 
spirit, enterprise and respectability. The best 
road is most easily kept in order and is soonest 
repaired. Only hard and solid materials 
should be used in making roads and these 
should be homogeneous. When stones are 
mixed with earth they will always work to 
the top and become loose on the surface, 
forming the most troublesome obstacles of 
travel. Loose stones should be carefully re¬ 
moved from the roads as often as they work 
to the surface. A few stone hammers by which 
these stones may be broken, will form a valu¬ 
able addition to a road- master’s outfit. A few 
