4888 
THE BUBAL NEW-YORKER 
267 
with large areas nearly level, our roads are 
very bad, except when the ground is dry or 
frozen hard. Just now they are execrable— 
almost impassable for a beast or vehicle of any 
kind. 
They have been improved, in a manner, 
with plow and scraper, and in some places 
with a road grader. Most of the grading was 
done by contract under what is termed the 
“Commissioner law,” which was in force only 
a short time. Since we returned to the old 
“overseer system” these grades have almost 
disappeared, except when they cross low, bad 
places, and have been patched up by the over¬ 
seer, or where the owners of adjoining farms 
have kept them up by scraping out the ditches 
on either side for the purpose of draining their 
lands. This township has voted three or four 
times on the question whether the road tax 
should be paid in money or work, and the 
“workers” have carried it every time by a 
large majority. At present the township is 
divided into nine road districts, and at the 
annual town meeting the legal voters residing 
in each of these districts choose a road overseer. 
Tbe duties of these road overseers are various 
and peculiar. Some time during the summer, 
whenever it is most convenient, they ride over 
their districts and “warn out” all male per¬ 
sons between the ages of 21 and 50 years, and 
inform them as to what tools they shall bring 
and what portion of the highway they shall 
proceed to waste two or three days on. If a 
rain storm happens along and stops farm work 
just at that time ,every man will be on hand, 
and they will tell yarns and muddle about for 
eight hours, get tbeir receipts, then return 
home or go to town, feeling much as though 
they had been to a free-and-easy picnic, and 
had “made something.” 
If, however, the weather is fine for farm 
work the men fail to appear, and the overseer 
tinkers about a few hours, adds $1.50 
to his account against the township, 
and then goes home. I knew of one 
overseer who, having nothing in particu- 
ar to do that summer, warned out one man 
at a time and superintended his labors, a la 
section boss, and thereby made “a real good 
thing out uv the orfis!” A “road and bridge” 
tax is levied on all property in the township, 
and out of. this fund the overseers are paid, 
bridges are erected, etc. 
Under this ridiculous system the township 
annually expends from $400 to $900, and, ex¬ 
cepting a few wooden bridges and culverts, 
we have very little to show for it, and until 
we can get a regular contract system of road 
building and road keeping, we can expect no¬ 
thing better than we now have. 
FRED GRUNDY. 
THE BEST COUNTRY ROADS. 
The best country road,and the only one that 
is really fit to travel on half the time, is one 
that is macadamized or graveled. Such a 
road is the roost satisfactory one that can be 
built on such a soil as ours, and it is easily 
kept in repair. Most of the railroads will haul 
the gravel at bare cost, if the people will agree 
to remove it from the cars immediately upon 
its arrival. f. g. 
Christian Co., Ill. 
Pebble gravel, consisting of small stones 
and sand, is in my opinion the best material 
for roads. The stones furnish the wearing 
material, and the sand packs closely around 
them, holding them in place. This makes a 
hard, dry surface the year round, and this 
material can be put on the roads late in the 
fall and the fall rains pack it. If put on in 
dry weather it will not pack; it has first to be 
wet up; then it sets like cement by travel. It 
should be put on from eight to 12 inches 
thick, rounding a little in the center, making 
it wide enough for two teams to pass. Three 
good two horse loads abreast make a very 
good width for ordinary travel. 
N. e. cook. 
Broken stones covered with gravel are the 
best; but in many cases these can not be had; 
and those who have neither stones nor gi'avel 
have to use such material as they have. In 
that case I think the most economical method 
to pursue is to turnpike with a road-machine, 
using what soil is at hand. It is too expen¬ 
sive and takes too much time to cart stones 
and gravel any great distance. If a swamp 
hole is to be filled up, use stone and gravel. 
One great thing in keeping roads in repair is 
to keep a good ditch at the sides; keep the 
water out of the z’oad by keeping the middle 
of it the highest. a. Harrington. 
HOW IMPROVEMENTS HAVE BEEN 
MADE. 
Our roads have been greatly improved the 
last two years. Formerly a road tax was as¬ 
sessed and each man worked his tax out under a 
surveyor. In the spring of 1886 we turned over 
a new leaf by choosing one man as a road- 
commissioner for the town. I was the man. 
We purchased a road machine and I started 
out with power to hire whom and what we 
wanted. Our roads and bridges had been 
costing us $1,300 to $1,500 each year: in 1884 
$1,326; in 1885, $1,518. I went over 60 miles 
of road in our town, and did more toward 
putting our l'oads in good order than had been 
done for five years at a cost of $708.41. I paid 
$1.50 a day for men and $2 for teams, and 
most of the time six good oxen wei’e used. 
After one year’s experience we found we could 
still improve our method and reduce the cost 
if the town owned the team, so last spring the 
town bought four good oxen and after we had 
finished the work on the roads, we sold them 
and by this method our roads are now in 
splendid condition and cost the town this year 
only $500. We have demonstrated the fact 
that what a mowing machine is in the hay- 
field, a l’oad machine is upon our country 
roads. lyman Roberts. 
Our roads have been very materially im¬ 
proved in the past two years by use of grad¬ 
ers. The estimated cost: 
Two plow teams per day at $2 each, $4 00 
Three “ “ on grades at $2, 6.00 
One overseer, 1.50 
Total, $11.50 
On prairie land the above will make from 
one-quarter to one-half a mile of z’oad. 
Utica, Mo. h. c. c. 
We have as good roads as can be found in 
the State, all things considei’ed. There is but 
one time in the year when our road- bed is not 
as smooth as can be desired, and that is when 
the first thaw takes place in the spring. With 
proper care the road-beds become so solid that 
this does not effect roads much. The general 
surface of the soil is level, with portions roll- 
ing. The soil is a black loam, with here and 
there clay or sand. Before piking our roads 
wei - e almost impassable three-fourths of the 
year,but now the tax-payers would not change 
the present system for four times the cost. 
The first step to be taken to secure good roads 
is to have a township or county i*oad law that 
a levy, not to exceed four mills on the dol¬ 
lar, be placed on the tax duplicates of said 
township or county. Now this money can be 
used to pay interest on borrowed money, or 
be allowed to accumulate, and each year a 
pike should be built, as far as the money goes 
Our township preferred the former plan 
because it secured 40 miles of pike the first 
year. Contracts were let by the trustees to 
the lowest responsible bidder, one mile being 
sold at a time. Parties buying had to give 
bonds for the completion of said allotment. 
The road-bed is fii-st graded eight inches high 
in the center, 12 feet wide, thence sloping to 
the ditch on either side, the earth taken from 
the ditches being sufficient to make the grade. 
The slope must extend to the bottom of the 
ditches. All the woz-k is done with common 
plows and scrapei-s. An eight-foot scraper, 
set at an angle, is also used for leveling. 
Then, when the grading is completed, the 
gravel or crushed stone—whichever is most 
accessible- is hauled and placed on the center of 
grade, 12 inches deep and nine feet wide; so 
one cubic yard of sand or stone makes one 
yard of pike, lineal measure. Our pike cost, 
on an average, $1,000 per mile completed. 
All stumps and logs wez*e removed. Pikes 
made in this manner must be used the year 
round to be fully appreciated. Such a road 
increases the value of farms $10 per acre. This 
is a fact I can prove beyond all contradiction. 
Leipsic, Ohio. d. a. f. 
Our roads have been improved over 100 per 
cent. We employed good, sti’aight men, 
young and willing to improve the roads, not 
the old-fashioned time-killers. We put the 
roads of our town in one man’s hands, with 
the best improved road machinery to work 
with. Most of the material was found by the 
side of the road, carting on gravel where 
needed. The laws of Connecticut give the 
town full power in regard to the woi’king of 
the highways. We elect a man competent for 
this purpose each year, having pay for his 
work, with teams and employing others, all 
being done by the day, and where a thorough 
job is needed it is done. M. e. c. 
Wallingfoi’d, Conn. 
In this town as well as in most of the towns 
in this county, we have all kinds of soil to 
build roads with—gravel, clay, loam and slate. 
In most of our l’oad districts we have im¬ 
proved our roads within the past few years, 
and it has been done by the use of a road ma¬ 
chine. The town owns the machine and it is 
under the supervision of the highway commis¬ 
sioner. Each road district has the privilege 
of using the machine. The expenses of a man 
to manage it are paid by a tax by the town. 
Each disti’ict plows its road and furnishes 
teams to draw the machine. Of any common 
road, if well plowed, with three good teams, 
a mile can be placed in good condition in a 
day. A. HARRINGTON. 
Chenango Co., N. Y. 
Our roads are in a very good condition, the 
soil, which is mostly sandy loam being well 
adapted for roads. Then in most parts of the 
town we have gravel 'convenient to the roads 
and of good quality, and, better still, our peo¬ 
ple are wide-awake on the subject of good 
l’oads. We have several road machines which 
we find of immense value, as with them we 
do much more and better work than can be 
done by the old method, for the same money, 
and we can make good roads in places so rough 
and stony that a plow will not work at all. 
J. H. LORING. 
W heeled scrapei’s ai’e most serviceable for 
grading hills where the earth is moved 80 
rods or less. Over SO rods wagons might be 
most useful with dump boards made of two- 
inch plank six inches wide, 11 or 12 feet long, 
and two inch plank 12 inches wide for sides, 
with ends cut for handles. A plank six feet 
long with a steel edge, and two handles well 
bolted down is very useful for ditching and 
rounding up where there are no stones; after 
the ditches are plowed, this is worked by a 
team and driver and two men to hold it. For 
finishing a road, cleaning out ditches, and 
giving the proper slope, we have found the 
road machine very useful. Last year we 
made over three miles of road at a cost of 
$466. On this piece of road several hills were 
graded and the entire three miles were ditched 
24 feet wide. road builder. 
Eden Prairie Minn. 
— « ♦ » — 
AWAKENING PUBLIC INTEREST. 
11 If you lived in a neighborhood where the 
roads were bad, how would you proceed 
to try and create an interest in better 
roads?'" 
Were I in a section where the roads were 
poor I would subscribe libei’ally myself to- 
wai’ds improving them and get my neighbors 
to do the same thing. 
Two yeai-s ago my neighbors and myself 
needed a better i*oad four miles out of this 
city. I subscribed $100, got others living 
along the route to do what they could afford, 
and now we have a turnpiked and graveled 
road three-fourths of the way, and a good 
road the other fourth. f. p. 
Big Rapids, Mich. 
I wquld persuade the people to buy a ma¬ 
chine, and then I would work to choose the 
very smartest man for z’oad commissioner, 
and have him work bis crew just as if he wei’e 
woi’king upon his own contract. If a man 
did not work he should be discharged, and 
after one year the town would never go back 
to the old method. lyman Roberts. 
In these days farmers have not time for 
road work. Very few men are capable of 
building good roads. Road-building is as 
much of a trade as house-building, and needs 
some apprenticeship to master it. It is a hard 
matter to change an old-settled state of af¬ 
fairs. A good many intelligent communities 
are ready for the improvement of their roads. 
On such, if a piece of road—the worst, or 
most traveled in the township—is thoroughly 
built, it will have a great influence in contin¬ 
uing the work, and on the appropriation of 
money by county officers. If it were allowed 
by law that neighboring townships should ap¬ 
propriate the like sums, it would also have a 
strong influence in making a change for the 
better. W hile road supervisors or overseers 
are entitled to lawful pay, their first consid- 
ation should always be an honest perform¬ 
ance of their duty. ROAD MAKER. 
Eden Prairie, Minn. 
O ur roads are worked by men appointed 
by the selectmen—one man in each school 
district. I think it would be much better to 
have one man—some honest, thoroughly prac¬ 
tical man that has made a success in his pri¬ 
vate business, take charge of all the roads, 
working them as early in the season as possi¬ 
ble, doing all the work possible with a 
machine, using the bulk of the money for 
gravel, thereby giving us the full benefit of 
good roads through the entire summer and 
fall. Machines can be used to good advantage 
in winter, opening the gutters and keeping 
them clear from snow so that the water 
will ruu in them instead of on the road-way. 
Bennington, Vermont. h. m. tuttle. 
I would, if possible, get the co-operation of 
a few neighbors and make apiece of good road, 
no matter how short. I like object lessons. Our 
natural soil cannot be excelled for a road, all 
things considered. a. b. Caldwell. 
Arlington, Kansas. 
I would urge the authorities to lay out or 
improve the roads that would accommodate 
the most people with least space to be gone 
over. I would work first on the shortest routes 
to points of interest. I would make a simple 
road law that all could understand, I would 
make a good share of tax cash, so we could get 
improved materials and implements, w. s. b. 
Palmyra, Iowa. 
The firsUimplements used here have been 
the plow, dump scraper, shovels, and hoes. 
This system has been in vogue so long, and the 
people have become so accustomed to make 
the roads in that way, that they are slow to 
adopt the new system of making roads with 
machines; but during the last year several of 
the best machines have been sold in this 
county; and the roads made with them are a 
pleasure to travel od. In our township, in 
1885, the first road machine was shown and 
operated. Its operation proved that roads 
could be made much smoother and better by 
proper machinery than with dump scrapers, 
and at less than one-fourth the cost. 
Notwithstanding all this, a majority of our 
people, through prejudice objected to the pur¬ 
chase of the machine, claiming that it would 
not work all the roads; but in due time preju¬ 
dice gave way to reason, and in 1887, we 
bought the best reversible machine we could 
get. In the parts of the township where it 
worked, ten rods were worked for every one 
that would have been worked for the same 
money by the old way. 
This method of making roads has created an 
interest in improving the roads and I know of 
no better way of working up an interest in 
this direction than by buying a good road ma. 
chine. My advice to road officers is to purchase 
the best road machine which will be the cheap¬ 
est in the end. sam’l buckwalter. 
Mercer Co., Pa. 
I would try, to get a good road machine 
reversible, if the road is hilly—and get some 
young man with good judgment and teams to 
take hold of the roads, work them for the in¬ 
terest of the town and make a business of it. 
Study the material he has to work with, and 
the wants of the road; in other words, let this 
man take it upon himself, show by his work 
and skill that good roads can be made, and 
after this is done, farmers will not drive on 
poor roads. 
If this man can only start this improvement 
success will follow. m. e. cook. 
I would try to convince the farmers that 
good roads increase the worth of their farms 
by making them more accessible, making it 
easier to get their products to market and se. 
curing for them a good deal of credit for being 
enterprising. 
Show the farmers that when road work 
ought to be done, it is worth more on the farm 
than the allowance for work they get on the 
road; then get the road tax paid in money, 
and have some one to work the roads by the 
job, or day when it ought to be done. a. h. 
Pittsfield, III. 
To get up an interest in good roads people 
have to build some good roads, keep talking 
about better roads and show to farmers that 
good roads in a town will advance the price 
of their farms “which can not be denied.” 
Chenango Co., N. Y. a. Harrington. 
SPECIAL POINTS IN ROAD MAKING. 
In swampy land we excavate with a road-ma¬ 
chine, in the center of the road, a ditch from 
10 to 15 feet wide and from one to three feet 
deep. We then fill the ditch with stones flush 
with or little above surface of the ground,then 
cover with gravel, crowning the road from 12 
to 15 inches in the center, and then we have a 
dry, fine road. On hills, of course, water-bars 
are indispensable, although by keeping the 
road crowned in the center we can do away 
with the immense bars or posts found on many 
hill roads. Still we must have bars to protect 
the roads from washing, as water will follow 
in the track of a wagon however much the 
road may be pounded or crowned. 
H. M. TUTTLE. 
On Steep Hillsides.— First keep the hill 
roads rounded up well, with now and then a 
water-bar to turn off the water at stated 
points. Never allow the water to run the full 
length of tne hill, especially in the center of 
the road. Keep it in the ditches and look to 
the hills often. Allow no one to chain a 
wheel or cause a wheel to slide down a hill, 
unless it has a shoe six inches wide under it. 
Sometimes we adopt this plan in swamps, if 
a new road: Plow or cut through so as to 
drain all you can from the road, giving all 
the fall you can for the water. Turnpike up 
when dry and then gravel. This is good, if 
the ground is not too wet and the water can 
be kept off from the sides of the road. When 
a swamp is in our way of building a road and 
we cannot get around it without leading us 
out of our course, we cart in cobble-stones, fill 
to the desired depth and cart on gravel or 
good soil. This makes a solid road-bed which 
