hills to average. finished as one work. This includes the making of a permanent grade for the roadway and bringing the side slopes of cuts and filis to such an angle that they will not slip and wash out every spring. 233. On very hilly roads, the slope of the steepest hill should Reduce steepest be reduced as far as practicable to the grade of the average hill. One steep hill may reduce the size of load that can be drawn over the road by one-half. If possible, hills should not exceed a rise of eight feet in 100, or about one in twelve. sharply on 234. Hill roads should be more sharply crowned than on level Crown roads ground. The crown should be sharper than the slope of the hill, hills. otherwise the water will follow the wheel tracks, instead of being turned to the side ditches. water long 235. Dispose of as much water as possible in natural water Do not carry courses back of the hills. If practicable, allow no water to pass distance over the hill, except that which naturally falls on the surface of to hill. the slope. causes wash 236. The practice of carrying water long distances in open Above practice drains, and finally pouring it over the hills, on the road allowance, outs. is very objectionable and costly, causing bad washouts during spring freshets especially. Crown road of hill. 237. The road should not only be crowned sharply on the hill, sharply back but also back of the hill. A flat condition at the top of the hill leads water into the wheel tracks in such a way as to make deep channels in a short time. Crown the roads sharply at the base, Crown sharply and between hills, otherwise water following the wheel tracks will lie in pools on the road. at foot of hill. wet hills. 238. When hills are very wet in the spring, and the mud very Under-drain deep, the only cure is under-drainage. Lay tile up the side of the road, with laterals leading into the heart of the springs. If the soil is a stiff clay, cover the tile with gravel, cinders, or other porous material. On hills do not lay the tile under the open drains, as they are liable to be washed out, but place them inside the shoulders. roads on sid 239. Where roads, passing along the sides of hills, are softened Under-drain and kept wet by soakage from the high lands, lay tile along the hills. upper side of the road to intercept the soakage. treatment 240. Summarizing, give most careful attention to the drain- General age of hills. Finish the earthwork as one work, bring the road of hills. to a permanent grade, giving the sides of cuts and fills a slope that will last. Crown the road sharply, not overlooking the top and bottom. Use tile to underdrain springy places or soakage from high lands. Do not carry any more water over the hill than is absolutely necessary. Swamp Roads. bad because 241. Roads through swamps are difficult to make and main- Swamp roads tain because of water under the road-a lack of drainage and wet. because the soil is usually a vegetable mould, which becomes soft and yielding when wet. Water soaking under the road is drawn up into the entire grade, keeping the roads in a constantly soft, damp and yielding condition. It ruts readily, the coating of metal placed on the road is cut through, and a complete breaking up of the road then results. Drainage the cure. Corduroy. Wagons for gravel or stone. A wagon train. Prevent drifting. How drifts are caused. Two methods of preventing drifts. (1) A high close fence or a hedge. (2) Use wire fences. 242. Every opportunity should be taken to carry the water away. If this can be perfectly done, it will cease to be a swampy road, in spite of any difference in the quality of the soil. It is too often expected that by throwing up a sufficiently high grade, and piling on a great quantity of gravel, a permanent road must result. This will succeed only where the soil is of a firm quality. 243. When sufficient drainage canot be had, lay a corduroy foundation, on this place a covering of earth, and a surface coat of gravel or broken stone. Rather than use the black vegetable mould, which becomes mucky when wet, cover the corduroy with clay loam, a gravelly loam, sand or clay. Sand, when slightly moist, makes a good foundation. If the road passes over extremely boggy ground, a bottom can be made by throwing in a thick matting of shrubs and branches, on which to place the covering of earth, then gravel or stone. Wagons for Gravel and Stone. 244. Wagons are now built specially for gravel and broken stone. These have a hopper-shaped opening between the front and rear axles for distributing the metal over the road. The opening' of the hopper is controlled by a lever beside the driver. The metal can be distributed to any required depth, after a little experience, by regulating the extent to which the hopper is opened. For screenings especially, in distributing them evenly over the stone, these wagons are particularly useful. 245. A number of these wagons, coupled together, and drawn by a traction engine, affords one of the cheapest methods of hauling gravel or stone for a considerable distance, under certain conditions. Each wagon holds about 1 cubic yards of metal. Snow Roads. 246. Good snow roads should be provided, as far as practicable, by means to prevent drifting. 247. Snow drifts occur in an open country, where the snow 18 swept from a large area, and deposited at sheltered points, or where the current of the wind is broken. Roads most subject to obstruction are those running in a northerly and southerly direction, this being at an angle with the direction of the prevailing winds, which are often from the west and north-west. While all roads are more or less liable to obstruction, those running east and west are not so frequently blocked by snow drifts. 248. There are two methods of preventing snow drifts on roads. One is to interpose an obstacle, neither through nor over which the wind can carry snow. This method is commonly adopted by railways at deep cuts where close board fences are built about eight feet in height. By this means, the snow is deposited, and the drift occurs, on the side of the fence away from the railway. Without such an obstruction the wind-swept snow would subside into the cut, where it would be sheltered from the wind. A similar purpose can be secured by planting a close hedge of cedar, spruce or other suitable evergreen, parallel to the road. This is an effective means of preventing the roads from becoming blocked. 249. The other method of preventing drifts is to remove all obstacles, so that there is no hindrance to the sweeping snow. A rail or open board fence permits the snow to pass through and over it. but the force of the wind being checked by the fence, the snow subsides in the roadway. If instead of open rail and board fences, wire fences are used along the highways there is no obstruction to the wind, and the snow is swept along with little more occasion to drift than in the centre of an open field. Numerous townships pay a bonus for the construction of wire fences. 250. Snow plows of considerable merit are manufactured, and Snow plows. can be used to advantage. The objection made to them is that the track as cut out, very quickly drifts full of snow-yet the same is true of roads shovelled out by hand. Plows have the advantage that they do the work much more cheaply than can hand labour. Rollers have been used to press down the snow. Some townships use road graders placed on a sleigh, in opening snow roads. A disk harrow is useful in cutting down roads which have become too high through the filling of sleigh tracks. The Split-Log Drag. earth roads. a drag. 251. When earth roads have been graded (but not metalled Use only on with gravel or stone) keep them in repair with a split-log drag. 252. Split-log drags are very easily and cheaply made. A How to make log from five to seven feet long is split or sawn in half. The halves are placed parallel to one another, the edges down and flat face to the front. They are firmly braced together in this position with three cross-bars wedged into 2-inch holes bored through the log. A chain-hitch is attached in such a manner as to incline the drag at the desired angle, say forty-five degrees, the forward corner being at the outer edge of the road, and the rear corner at the centre. dragging. 253. By dragging this implement up one side of the road and Effect of down the other, making a number of circuits, using two or three horses, the edges of the log plane off the tops of ridges and rough places, drawing the material sideways and forward to fill hollows and ruts, crowning it at the centre of the road. This drag, used eight or ten times during the year on an earth road, while the earth is in a moist condition after a rain, will keep an earth road in the best condition that an earth road can be made to reach. dragging. 254. Councils should establish a plan of dragging the earth Systematic roads systematically. It will not be done properly when left to statute labour or to individual effort. Sections should be let by tender, one or two miles in length, and the work inspected by the road. superintendent. Counties having a system of county roads should follow the same plan on earth roads until their permanent construction has been reached. drag. 255. Use a light drag-preferably of cedar, pine or basswood, Use a light such as can be readily managed by one team of horses and use it often. Fasten strips of steel along the lower face edges of the drag from 2 inches to 4 inches wide, and inches thick. A straightened wagon wheel, or sleigh runner is ordinarily used. 256. Instead of making the drag with square ends, give the Make ends of rear slab a set-back, so that, when the chain is hitched at the drag parallel ordinary angle, the ends of the drag will be parallel with the sides of the road. with road. 257. Use the drag as early in the spring as possible, and as Use the drag frequently thereafter as is needed to keep the road smooth and early in free from wheel tracks. Spring. When to use after rain, Puddled clay. Drag often. Round the road. Attaching chain. Length of chain. Cross bars near top. Reversing of drag. Stand on the drag. Trim edges, remove boulders. Straighten the road. Filling holes. Grading. Handles Drag before a freeze-up. 258. Use the drag when the road is very wet and slushy, either when raining or immediately after; or use the drag when the road has become somewhat dry, and the soil loose and friable. There is an intermediate stage in which the earth is sticky and rolls up in lumps, instead of spreading out smoothly. 259. If a clay road is dragged in the wet stage, a tough rubber-like surface is produced; but the road is very apt to be cut up by traffic before it becomes dry. 260. Use the drag so frequently that the road is never really out of repair, and draw only a little earth to the centre at each operation. If the road is dragged only when very rough and flat, so that a great ridge if earth is piled at the centre, the best results are not reached. 261. Give the road a round contour-not two flat planes meeting at a sharp angle in the centre of the road. In doing this a short, light drag is most serviceable. 262. Attach the end of the chain at the outer side of the drag to the cross-bar; and the end at the centre, to a ring in front, or pass through a hole in the front of the drag. If both ends of the chain are fastened to the cross-bars, there is a downward bearing on the front of the drag liable to upset it in a manner dangerous to the operator. 263. Length of chain changes the line of draft in such a way as to regulate the hold taken on the earth. To lengthen the chain is equivalent to putting a weight on the drag. If the drag is too heavy shorten the chain. To move more earth, lengthen the chain. 264. The cross-bars should be nearer the top than the bottom, to allow the earth to pass underneath them. 265. In certain sticky conditions of the road the drag can be reversed, drawing the round face forward. 266. Place a couple of planks over the cross-bars for the operator to stand on. The operator can then regulate the work of the drag by moving from one end to the other. 267. The operator should have a shovel with him to trim the drains and edges of the road: or a crow-bar to pry out boulders, logs and stones. He can use these when the horses are resting. 268. To straighten the road, or deepen the drains, or cut down high shoulders, plow the sides, and cut up the loosened earth with a disk harrow. It can then be drawn in gradually with the drag. Turn over only one or two furrows at a time, and drag in a little at each operation. 269. If the drag becomes clogged with mud, weeds or sod, stand as far as possible from the ditch end. To fill a low spot or mud hole, step quickly from the ditch-end of the drag to the end at the centre of the road. 270. By means of the drag, together with the plow and harrow. much can be done to grade a new road, particularly if the land is moderately level and the soil not a heavy clay. But this work is apt to be extravagant of labour, and should be done with a grading machine. 271. Handles on the drag are a decided advantage. 272. Watch for the last freeze-up in the fall, and drag the road just before it, so as to get a smooth base for the snow road. Very little snow will then make good sleighing. 273. The nature of the soil, varying from a stiff clay to a Study the soil. light sand, influences the use of the drag. Study the results produced by the drag under all conditions of soil, season, and material. 274. Skill born of careful observation and practice is needed. Experience is Do not expect the best results at first. Maintenance and Repair. needed. 275. Maintenance is as important as construction. Roads Maintenance deteriorate very rapidly if neglected. Rain, frost, freshet, drought, important. wagon traffic, the steel shod feet of horses, narrow tires, combine powerful forces to flatten, rut and destroy roads. continuously. 276. Roads should be maintained by not allowing them to Repair get out of repair. Neglect to keep roads in repair, failure to repair them when repair is first needed, adds very much to the cost of roads. A good road which is not kept in repair, very quickly becomes a bad road, and the object of the original expenditure is thus lost. To allow roads to degenerate for want of repair, means án immense waste of labour, material and money, which has to be made up in their reconstruction. Wherever good roads are built, arrangements should be made for a careful attention to their repair. of sections 277. Public highways should be kept in repair by a system Railway system similar to that adopted by railways. Where a council, as is com- applicable. monly the case, provides materials, gravel, tile, etc., for road maintenance, out of the general funds, one section-man with horse and cart, and help when required, can keep in repair ten miles of gravel or stone road, at a cost not exceeding the statute labor along the road, commuted at one dollar a day. year after 278. A road as commonly built for country traffic should Repair first receive as much attention the first year after construction as it would construction. require in the following two years. This is especially necessary if gravel or stone is placed loosely on the road and left for traffic to consolidate. tion reduces 279. A large part of the repair of roads is necessitated Good construcby defective construction. A poorly-made road will wear out cost of mainmuch more rapidly than one which has been well built. To con- tenance. struct roads properly may be greater in first cost, but this is compensated by the reduction in the outlay for maintenance in addition to the benefits of better roads. smooth. 280. Roads should be kept smooth. Smooth roads shed water Keep roads more readily than do rough roads. It is not the even roll of a wheel over a smooth road that causes injury. It is the jarring action of wheels dropping from loose stones, from protruding stones, or sinking into holes and ruts. wagon track. 281. When a road is newly built, drive a wagon up and down Make the first a number of times, and make a track where vehicles are wanted to go. This is especially necessary if the gravel or stone is not rolled or if there is a tendency to drive on the earth shoulders. Teams are very like sheep-they follow the leader. culverts 282. Hollows and pitch-holes should not be allowed to form Ends of at the ends of culverts and bridges projecting above the surface and bridges. of the road. These pitch-holes form because every vehicle crossing the bridge drops down with a heavy jolt. Shallow at first, the deeper the holes become the more rapidly they increase in size and |