132 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
she finds that these gratuities, after fertilizing her soil, and improv¬ 
ing the moral condition of her population, flow back to her treasury 
again in increased volume. 
Our remarks upon this subject apply to other states as well as to 
New-York. There never was so auspicious an opportunity, and such 
may never again occur, for the farmers to claim from the legislative 
bodies of our country, that aid, which the interests of agriculture, and 
of the nation, demand, as the present. They have hitherto obtained 
little or no direct aid, because they have not asked for it. If the claim 
is made promptly, and with spirit and unanimitj', it will not, it cannot be 
refused. No time should be lost, therefore; and if our brother jour¬ 
nalists would prompt their readers on the subject, we should hope for 
the best results. 
It was resolved, in the last State Agricultural Convention, that ano¬ 
ther convention should be held at the Capitol, in Albany, on the first 
Thursday in February next, at 4 o’clock P. M. This will afl'ord a fa¬ 
vorable opportunity, which we trust will not be lost, of concentrating 
the public feeling upon this subject; and we hope the importance of 
the subject will induce a full meeting on that occasion. 
CORPORATE ASSOCIATIONS. 
We have observed notices of intended applications to the New-Jer¬ 
sey legislature, and we presume the like will happen in New-York an . 
other states, for charters for cultivating the beet, and manufacturing 
sugar, with banking and trust powers ; for planting mulberry trees and 
fabricating silk, and indeed for almost every purpose that comes with¬ 
in the scope of our national industry. 
At no period of our history, and we believe at no period of the 
world, has the mama for stocK companies been so rife, and we may 
add so alarming, as.at the present day. Hardly a new branch of in¬ 
dustry can be mentioned, however adapted to individual means and en¬ 
terprise, which is not immediately monopolized by mammoth charter¬ 
ed associations. We say monopolized —for when these associations 
come in competition with individual effort, the weaker party must ei¬ 
ther be crushed, or become humiliatingly subservient to the stronger 
power. Nor does the disparity exist alone in the amount of wealth, 
and the weight of influence,—the stronger party has a further advan¬ 
tage in its chartered privileges, which are not only withheld from the 
individual, but which absolutely abstract from his natural rights;—as 
for instance, the individual is amenable to the laws lor his honest debts, 
to the extent of his entire means ; while the chartered associations are 
not amenable for company debts beyond their actual investments , al¬ 
though its members may be worth millions. It is a question worthy of 
highpublic consideration, whether a charter should be granted for any 
object, which an individual, or common partnership, are competent 
and willing to undertake—and whether they should be granted in any 
case, where the public good does not indisputably demand them. Man¬ 
kind are disposed to live rather by their wits than by their labor; and 
when government proffers ready facilities for speculation in stocks, 
without a manifest counterbalancing public benefit, it feeds some of 
the worst human passions, and impairs that equality of rights which 
ever ought to be preserved among the citizens of a free state. 
But the multiplication of chartered companies, for trivial or doubt¬ 
ful objects, has an irresistible tendency to unsettle and derange the 
good order of society-^to bring honest, industry into discredit, and to 
foster a spirit of deceptive desperate speculation, which proves the 
ruin of thousands. Our situation, for the last twenty years, has ena 
bled us to observe the movements, and to scan the moiives, which have 
led to the rapid multiplication of chartered associations among us ; and 
we honestly avow it as our belief, that the moiives have been general¬ 
ly those of speculation, with little or no regard or tendency to the pub¬ 
lic good; and that the means resorted to, to obtain charters, have ge¬ 
nerally been disingenuous, often dishonest, and sometimes infamous, 
We admit that the public interests have been greatly promoted by char- 
ters for objects of magnitude, requiring great capital. But because 
some are beneficial, it does not follow that all are so. Because it re 
quires a concentration of capital, and corporate privileges to dig a ca¬ 
nal, or construct a rail-road, neither of which come in competition 
with individual enterprise, it does not follow, that the like capital and 
privileges are required to plant the mulberry, or cultivate the beet, 
which every farmer and gardener can do without corporate powers. 
The subject addresses itself to the good sense, and dispassionate con¬ 
sideration of every friend to good order and wholesome laws. The 
evil caa only be arrested by the mandate of the public will. 
ROAD MAKING'. 
No branch of public improvement is of more importance to the farm¬ 
er, nor indeed to the community at large, than the bettering of our 
common roads, particularly those which constitute the main avenues 
to market. These are the great arteries which transmit life, and vigor, 
and health, to every part of the business community. Our turnpikes 
have proved a failure, from a mistaken parsimony in their construction, 
and their needless multiplication. Rail-roads will do upon the great 
thoroughfares of commerce and travel; but for the transaction of in¬ 
ternal commerce between the great towns and the country, good pub- 
roads should have precedence over all others: Because they dis¬ 
pense their benefits to all alike, and exempt us from the mortifying im¬ 
positions of chart: red wealth, and the officious impertinence of a host 
of subordinate officers. It is upon these public roads thatthe immense 
products of our farms are transported, and that we mostly receive in 
return the foreign commodities which we consume. If it cost the farm¬ 
er twelve and a half cents per bushel to transport his grain to navigable 
waters, or to market, upon a bad road, the actual expense would be 
diminished more than three-fourths if he could quadruple his lead upon 
a good road; for not only would there be a saving in animal power, 
and other expenses, to this extent, but there would be a further saving 
in the wear and tear of carriages, and in delays and accidents incident 
to bad roads. Roads, like the objects of most other expenditure, are 
cheapest when well made. 
The business of read making has hitherto attracted very little of the 
public attention. Although the construction of roads is as much an 
art as common trades, and as much of a science as other branches of 
civil engineering, where good roads are the order of the day; yet with 
us the superintendence of their construction and repair is entrusted to 
all professions—to farmers, mechanics, lawyers, &c. who seldom un¬ 
derstand much of the art, ana know nothing of the science—and who 
are too often guided by self-interest, or caprice, and often rather mar 
than mend, the work ol their predecessors. 
We have derived many of our improvements from Great Britain: and 
from no country can we draw more useful teachings, in regard to road 
making, than from her. For although, fifty years ago, her roads were 
probably not so good as ours now are, wonderful lrripr Yemenis have 
been made in them during the intervening half century. Her turnpikes, 
which cover, like a net-work, the surface of her island, are construct¬ 
ed upon the true McAdam plan, of preserving the earthy bed of the 
road always dry, by an efficient metal or stone covering, and sufficient 
side drains. Their parish roads are now undergoing a similar improve¬ 
ment. These works, which absorb annually an appropriation of a 
million and a half pounds sterling, or more than six and a half million 
of dollars, give employment to the pauper population, and thus remu¬ 
nerate the public, in a measure, for this heavy national burthen. To 
make our readers acquainted with some of the leading principles which 
govern, in the business of road-making, in Great Britain, we will state 
them, in a summary manner, as we find them laid down in the most 
recent British publications upon this subject, principally from the 
Farmers’ Series of the Library of Useful Knowledge; premising, how- 
ever, that although they apply mainly to metal covered roads, they 
are more or less applicable to the construction of all roads, where uti¬ 
lity, durability and ultimate economy, arr to be studied. 
Foundation.— Eminent men differ upon this point; the one party con¬ 
tending that a pitched foundation is necessary to make a substantial 
and good road; the other, that no pitching is essential. Pitching, as 
here used, is a foundation formed of large stones. The weight of opi¬ 
nion is against their use. The best foundation, the use of large stones 
being dispensed with, is a substratum kept perfectly dry by proper and 
effectual drainage. If one substance in road-making be harder than an¬ 
other, the harder substance should be upon the surface, and not at the 
foundation. To lay the softer upon the harder, must have the effect of 
sacrificing the inferior material. 
Drainage. —All exertion to construct or repair roads is considered 
unavailing until the bed of the road is freed from water, and secured 
against its return. Of what service can metal (stone) be when the 
road is immersed in water? Can it consolidate ? Can it form a com¬ 
pact and hard substance, when water is amongst it, consuming as it 
were its very vitals? To correct and prevent a recurrence of the evil, 
substantial side ditches should be opened, so as to give a slope of one 
inch in twenty-four, between the crowns of the road and bottoms. If 
open drains cannot be made on both sides, owing to the declivity of the 
surface, under drains should be constructed, with outlets, through the 
bed of the road to the lower side. And if springs exist in the site of 
the road, their water must be concentrated, and conducted off by un- 
der drains. When, a particular piece of road is observed to be continu¬ 
ally heavy, and in a bad state, it is either caused by spring water, or 
is situated in a flat, from Which the water cannot escape. These sug¬ 
gestions should not be lost to us. A principle defect in our roads, is 
the want of efficient drainage. Wherever water is permitted to re¬ 
main, either upon the surface or substratum, in wet seasons there will 
be a slough, and the bed of the road will be entirely broken up. 
The substance or thickness of materials. —Without a sufficient depth 
of consolidated materials, there will not be a resistance equal to the 
weight which a highway is subject to. There must be weight to resist 
weight. If the weight of metal forming the substance be of an imper¬ 
fect quality, more will be required than when sound and clean. In pro¬ 
portion to the quantity of deleterious matter contained in the body (as 
earth, small gravel, soft stone, &e.) must the thickness be increased. 
Any matter that is not of a sound nature has no power in read-making, 
