PRACTICAL PAPERS—COUNTRY ROADS. 
285 
be carried across the road in culverts, one hundred to one 
hundred and fifty feet apart. The best and cheapest common 
road culvert may be made of hard-burned terra cotta pipes. 
On hilly roads they are rarely required of more than eight to 
ten inches caliber. These pipes need no sleeves, or bells, nor 
any cementing at the joints; and are less expensive than the 
common stone culvert, even where stones are at hand. The 
capacity of the pipes, owing to the smoothness of their interior 
surface, is much greater than that of a stone culvert of the 
same area of cross section. The pipes should be burned like 
hard, red brick, and are then as durable as granite. The pipe 
culvert should receive the water from a shallow well, walled 
up with stones or bricks. This well should be in the line of 
the gutter on the upper side of the road. The water from the 
gutter should fall into the well over a flag on the wall of the 
well, and l^etween two side walls, carried up with the other 
walls to a height sufficient for a proper opening, when the well 
and the opening in the upper side should be covered with a 
strong flag. This flag should overlap the inner'face of the 
wall of the well at the opening, at least one foot, that animals 
may not step into the well. This arrangement makes the upper 
end of the culvert sightly, secure, and free from all danger¬ 
ous effects. The trench in which the pipes are laid should have 
a fall, so that the water from the culvert may be discharged 
upon a natural surface, as it will be less liable to gully it than 
an artificial bank. 
STONES ON EARTH AND GRAVEL ROADS. 
In preparing earth and gravel road-beds, all small stones, 
down to half the size of a hen’s egg, should be removed from 
the surface soil, as the tendency is for them constantly to work 
up to the surface, where they are injurious to the feet of 
horses and to vehicles, wear and break the lading, and destroy 
the road. The wheel of a loaded vehicle, falling from a stone 
over which it has rolled, even if it is not more than two inches 
in height, will injure a road surface more than the natural 
rolling wear on a smooth surface in running a mile. The same 
