PRACTICAL PAPlSRS—COUNTRY ROADS. 
289 
years; hence they are not adapted for that use. A shell sur¬ 
face is inclined to rut, and work to the margins, and the shells 
are very difficult to move so as to repair the road by any hand 
process; while by the use of the grader, they may be readily 
and rapidly leveled in the construction of a new road, or re¬ 
graded when displaced by water. An active man with a pair 
of horses, with this implement, will repair two or three miles 
of shell road' in a da}^, which would require the labor of at 
least twenty-five men to perform in the same time. 
ROAD GUTTERS. 
So much depends on the proper condition of the side gut¬ 
ters for the thorough maintenance and protection of the road, 
that the writer has been induced to give this branch of the 
subject special attention, and to test a variety of plans, in the 
hope of arriving at valuable and permanent impovernent. 
Having ^realized his fullest hopes in one direction, a detailed 
description of the aim and its results may be given. Finding 
that the gutters, from the perpetual moisture ‘maintained in 
them, were inclined to clog with rank, aquatic grasses, he 
sought to devise a plan to prevent the difficulty. The course 
pursued was to pave the gutters with boulders, set in about 
eight inches of washed gravel, and when they were all rammed 
in place, the gravel was.swept from the interstices between 
the stones, to the depth of an inch, and its place supplied with 
heated, clean sand, which was saturated as it was applied, wdth 
a hot mixture of coal-tar and coal-tar pitch, two parts of the 
former and one of the latter, filling the interstices level with 
the surface of the pavement, producing a smooth uniform sur¬ 
face. The first experiment was made about twelve years ago, 
and has proved a perfect success, the effect being to prevent 
the growth of all vegetation, while the surface being smooth 
prevents any clogging with leaves, dead wmod, and the like. 
Another valuable result attained was that the pavement, being 
made w^ater-proof, is hardly effected at all by frost, keeping its 
place much better than when the stones are set in gravel alone, 
in the ordinary manner. This concrete dressing is not adapted 
