1874.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
259 
ing the pasture of brush and coarse weeds, and 
in enriching it with their manure. There was 
no brush of any considerable size, and very 
few weeds. And we learned from the pro¬ 
prietor that sheep were the only agents em¬ 
ployed in keeping the field clean. They had 
nibbled the young shoots every year as they 
-started, and what they had not killed outright 
by this cropping they had kept even with the 
grass. There was good feed in every part of 
this pasture, even late in the fall, and the 
owner of this farm used this contrast between 
these adjoining pastures as a standing argu¬ 
ment in favor of sheep husbandry. It was 
very much to the point. If it is true, as 
George Geddes asserts, that sheep in certain 
proportion to cattle pay their way in a pasture 
naturally clean, they must pay much better in 
pastures inclined to produce brush and weeds. 
We have had occasion to notice the beneficial 
effects of the grazing of sheep upon another 
farm that has been under observation several 
years. They have not only subdued sweet 
fern, briars, and thistles, but have greatly im¬ 
proved the grasses. The sod is much thicker 
and heavier, and the white clover has come in 
where once it made no show at all. In pas¬ 
tures where the brush is already strong, and 
higher than the sheep can reach, it can not be 
expected that they will conquer. But if the 
brush be cut for a season or two, and the sheep 
turned in sufficient numbers upon the young 
growth, they will keep it under and eventually 
destroy it. This is much cheaper than the 
■use of the scythe and plow perpetually. 
Sale of Shorthorns. 
"The popularity of Shorthorn stock is well 
sustained. Although we can not expect to 
see the excitement which attended the sale of 
Mr. Campbell’s Duchesses repeated within a 
generation, yet the recent sale of Mr. Coffin’s 
herd at Muirkirk, near Baltimore, shows that, 
as a matter of mere business, a sale of excel¬ 
lent stock will attract buyers from all parts of 
the country, and that good stock retains its 
full value. The herd consisted of forty-two 
cows and heifers and twelve bulls, which were 
descended from the best families of both the 
Booth and Bates’ strains. The average of 
the sale was $640 per head. $1,425 was 
the highest price paid for a cow, Muirkirk 
Gwynne, a three-year old roan, which goes to 
Kentucky, as do also eleven others of the best 
animals. The sale of part of the Glen Flora 
herd at Waukegan, Ill., on May 20th, was also 
well attended. Seventy-eight head were dis¬ 
posed of for $55,000. The highest price for a 
cow, $2,500, was paid by Mrs. Dunlop, of 
Jacksonville, for Jubilee Gwynne. Eight cows 
of this favorite family of the Gwynnes brought 
$8,300. The average price per cow at this 
sale was $900. Mr. C. C. Parks, the owner of 
the Glen Flora herd, still retains sixty head of 
the choicest animals. At the sale of General 
Meredith’s stock at Cambridge city, Indiana, 
on May 22d, fifty head brought $25,000. The 
highest price paid for cows was $2,000, by T. 
C. Jones, of Delaware, Ohio, for Royal Duch¬ 
ess, and Avery and Murphy, of Detroit, Mich., 
for Joan of Arc. 
On May 21st, the Lyndale herd of Mr. W. 
S. King, of Minneapolis, Minn., was disposed 
of. There were fifty-eight cows and heifers 
and twenty-one bulls, sold for a total amount 
of $101,615 for the cows and heifers, and 
$25,375 for the bulls. The average prices 
were thus $1,752 and $1,200 respectively. The 
highest prices were for a pair of twin heifers, 
Lady Mary 7th and 8th, $11,000, and for a 
bull, 2d Duke of Hillhurst, $14,000. This last 
price is the highest ever yet paid for a bull; 
and thus those who fancied that the prices 
paid at Mr. Campbell’s sale would never again 
be reached, have proved to be mistaken. In¬ 
deed, considering the well-deserved popularity 
of the best families of Shorthorns, and the 
high excellence and intrinsic value of this class 
of stock generally, it is unsafe to predict that 
present prices may not be far outreached in 
the future. 
Herd-Books. —Of making many herd-books 
.there is no end. For every breed of horned 
stock we have a herd-book, and the fact that 
this is necessary only goes to show that stock¬ 
breeders are very much like others, herd- 
books being neither more nor less than a 
method of guaranteeing the purchaser, to some 
extent, against imposition. But when herd- 
books for swine, for sheep, and now for poul¬ 
try are proposed, it is time to ask for what 
good purpose are they needed. For cattle, 
which do not very rapidly increase, and whose 
identity is easily determined, it is desirable to 
have the safeguard of a herd-book, provided it 
be only thoroughly well and honestly managed. 
But for animals which reproduce so rapidly 
and the identity of which it is so impossible to 
preserve as that of pigs, sheep, or fowls, herd- 
books seem to us not only useless but impracti¬ 
cable and absurd. 
-— -—o » —- 
Roads and Road-Making. 
It has been said that the civilization of a peo¬ 
ple is measured by the condition of their roads. 
If we should judge ourselves by this test, at 
least so far as our wagon roads are concerned, 
we must admit that we are somewhat behind 
the general standard of civilization. But the 
prevalence of railroads has greatly diminished 
the importance of other roads, and made them 
but secondary means of communication instead 
of primary ones, as they formerly were. Never¬ 
theless we can not ignore the fact that the 
usual bad condition of our country wagon 
roads is a serious tax upon the agricultural in¬ 
terest. A badly-made road is expensive to keep 
in repair, and one which costs only $1,000 a 
mile to construct at the outset will have cost in 
the course of ten years a sum which would 
have paid for an excellent road upon which 
very few repairs would have been necessary. 
Again, a bad road, built for $1,000 a mile, 
is more costly to use than one on which three 
or four times as much has been expended 
in making it, because a farmer who draws 
loads to market upon the one can only carry 
a third or a quarter as much as upon the 
other, and to move this reduced load requires 
double the time that the larger load would on a 
good road. There is hardly a question that 
any community can better afford to build a 
level, solid, smooth, stone road at a cost of 
$6,000 or $8,000 a mile, and maintain it in good 
order at a merely nominal annual cost for forty 
or fifty years, than to build an uneven, rough, 
soft, earth road at a cost of $1,000 a mile, and 
keep it in barely passable condition for the 
same number of years at the necessary high 
annual cost. This leaves out of calculation the 
loss of time, team power, and wear of wagons, 
horse-shoes, and harness which is inflicted 
upon every traveler who uses the road. 
All this shows the importance of laying out 
roads of easy grades, and passing around hills 
instead of over them, and of making the sur¬ 
face hard, smooth, and durable. Probably one 
of the best county roads in the country is one 
now in course of building by the Telford 
Pavement Company of Orange, N. J. Some 
time ago we had an opportunity of inspecting 
this method of road-making, and here describe 
it, with the machinery used both in preparing 
the material and finishing the road-bed. The 
road-bed is first excavated, graded, and properly 
formed to a depth of fourteen inches from the 
level of the gutters; this cross section is made 
to conform in every respect to the cross section 
of the pavement when finished. It is then 
thoroughly and repeatedly rolled with the 
steam roller, all depressions which may appear 
being carefully filled and rolled before the 
stone is put on. On the road-bed thus formed 
and consolidated a bottom course or layer of 
stones of an average depth of eight inches is 
set by hand, in the form of a close, firm pave¬ 
ment, and thoroughly rammed or settled in 
place with sledge-hammers, all irregularities of 
surface being broken off and the interstices 
carefully wedged with pieces of stone. An 
intermediate layer of broken stone, of a size 
not exceeding three inches in diameter, is then 
evenly spread thereon, to the depth of four 
inches, and thoroughly rolled, after which a 
half an inch of sand is applied and rolled in. 
The surface layer of broken stone, of a size 
not exceeding two and a half inches in diam¬ 
eter, is then put on to a depth of four inches, 
thoroughly rolled, and a half an inch of sand 
applied and rolled in as before. Care is taken 
to so spread the stones that the total depth 
when finished shall be uniformly not less than 
fourteen inches, and that the grade and cross 
section of the pavement may be perfect when 
thoroughly consolidated. A binding composed 
of clean sharp sand, or of the screenings of the 
broken stone, is then applied, well saturated 
with water, and thoroughly and repeatedly 
rolled with the steam roller until the surface 
becomes firm, compact, and smooth, when all 
superfluous binding material is swept off and 
removed. 
The steam roller weighs not less than fifteen 
gross tons, and is so constructed that its com¬ 
pressive force on the roadway being rolled 
shall not be less than 450 lbs. per inch run. 
The cost of a road thus prepared is $1.00 
per square yard for nine inches in depth of 
stone, and $1.50 per square yard for twelve 
inches in depth. A road five yards wide, of 
the former description, would thus cost $8,800 
per mile. A road like this would be of such a 
permanent character as to require very little 
repair for many years, and could be kept in 
good order at a very small annual expense. In 
some parts of the country the citizens have 
already found it a measure of economy to raise 
money by bonds to make roads of this charac¬ 
ter, the annual saving in cost of repairs being 
sufficient to pay the interest upon and provide a 
sinking fund for the final payment of the bonds, 
when the road will practically have cost the 
township nothing as compared with the former 
poor roads. 
The road material is rock. The best rock is 
hard trap; the next best is crystalline lime¬ 
stone ; but the ordinary “ hard-heads” or boul> 
ders, so common in many places,when broken, 
furnish one of the best materials. The s»ft 
