PRACTICAL PAPERS—COUNTRY ROADS. 
273 
COUNTRY ROADS. 
From Report of Department of Agricaltnre for 1868. 
THE MACADAMIZED OR BROKEN STONE ROAD. 
The mode of preparing the foundation of a Yacadam road 
should be modified according to the character of the soil of 
which it is to be made. It may, however, be premised that 
one essential condition to be secured in the use of every charac¬ 
ter of material is that of dryness. This secured, almost every 
variety of soil will form a suitable substructure for a macada¬ 
mized road. It would be difficult to furnish specifications for 
the great variety of cases that may be presented, but we shall 
endeavor to give such general instructions as will meet all 
probable cases intelligibly, and will commence with the most 
difficult circumstances likely to be presented, viz: an extensive 
plain, level, or nearly so, with a tenacious clay soil. 
To effect drainage under such circumstances there are but 
two modes known to the writer : First, bv surface drainao-e, 
by the use of open ditches, or gutters, excavated on both sides 
of the road in the manner described. If practicable, the fall should 
be made both ways, from a point as nearly central as may be, 
and each gutter be extended to a point of discharge lower than 
the plane. The advantage of draining both ways is, that with 
the same depth at their discharge end, the fall will be doubled. 
In case the distance is great, and the labor of producing suffi- 
cent fall in the ditches is considered too expensive, it will then 
be judicious to test the practicability of the other method. 
This consists in what we call pit-drainage. Its practicability 
can always be ascertained by digging a well, or by boring 
Ag. Tn.—18. 
