276 
STATE AGEICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
practical men will of course understand that the term is figur- 
urative, and that the metal must of necessity be more or less 
irregular, and vary in size considerably. The broken stone 
for a new road should be applied to the depth of twelve inches 
and twenty feet in width to produce a first-class road. The 
lateral slope either way from the center of the road should cor¬ 
respond with that of the surface of the foundation ; this slope 
should be about one-quarter of an inch to a foot. There 
should be an earth side track on either side of the macadam¬ 
ized portion of the road. The earth road, when dry and in 
good order, is more desirable than the Macadam, and materi¬ 
ally saves the wear upon it. The foregoing specification, al¬ 
though referring more particularly to a road nearly level lon¬ 
gitudinally, is equally applicable as a direction for macadam¬ 
izing any road, of the width mentioned. 
The preparation and application of. broken stone in road¬ 
making have hitherto been very expensive, thus presenting 
great discouragement to those desiring to improve roads upon 
this system, which we have no hesitation in pronouncing the 
best of all things considered, as ygt discovered. The cost, 
'however, has of late been greatly reduced by the introduction 
of the “ Blake stone-breaker/’ a machine of great strength and 
efiiciency, which has been satisfactorily tested in practical use. 
Thirty perches (twenty-five cubic feet to a perch) of the hardest 
trap boulders can be broken into the best road metal in ten 
hours by this machine. It requires about nine horse power to 
'perform this amount of work in the time given. In a single 
hour it'has been known to break four perches, or one hundred 
cubic feet, of stone of the foregoing character. With this ma¬ 
chine the cost of breaking is reduced to thirty cents per perch, 
using coal at $5.50 per ton, and labor at $1.50 per diem, and 
an engineer at $2.50 per diem, who assists the two laborers em¬ 
ployed in feeding the machine. The average day’s work for a 
good hand in the spring, summer, or autumn is less than one 
perch, and in winter still less. The average price of such labor 
is about $1.50 per day at present, so that the reduction of ex¬ 
pense by themse of the machine is not less than eighty per cent 
