laborious and plebeian occupation of digging is required to extract them. It must, however, in justice, be admitted that in many cases where simple ditching would be better and cheaper than the corduroy, the latter can be done while the former can not, for want of tools or of time, at the proper season of the year. Where the foundation is a morass the corduroy is a ready and efficient mode of constructing a road; and, though most disagreeable to the traveler, and perhaps destructive to his vehicle, it is often impossible for the scattered settlers to do more. The captious visitor from older districts may grumble at the roads over which he is obliged to travel, but a liberal mind will acknowledge the formidable obstacles which the early settler must contend with, and not expect that, in addition to the war waged on the wilderness to obtain bread for his family, he can devote much of his labor to the common benefit. If, therefore, perhaps after years without any summer road at all, he can procure a passable one only, it is natural he should wait for assistance before attempting more. The great objection to the indiscriminate resort to corduroy is that many roads are kept in the worst state many years longer than they would be had they been left without this questionable improvement. As the settlement increases in numbers and wealth, and the evils of corduroy are appreciated, an attempt is made to cover the logs with earth, by ditching from the sides when practicable, or by the more expensive process of hauling the material from the extreme ends. But where there is not a morass beneath the logs, the frost penetrates and throws them up through their scanty covering, and there can be no rest for these ghosts of the murdered trees until they are wholly removed or buried the "full fathom" deep.

THE COMMON OR GRADED ROAD.

This is that stage which has emerged from the bridle, winter, or corduroy to the condition of a highway marked

out by fences in the clearings or by wide openings through the woodland,-formed, drained, and bridged, with logs extracted or effectually buried, and hills graded down within reasonable limits; but without any other road-bed than that afforded by the underlying or adjacent soil. These roads are excellent in midsummer and midwinter, and (except when broken up by frost in spring and autumn) are seldom surpassed, even by the turnpike, except for the heaviest traffic. The common road as it becomes consolidated is better for the horse and more agreeable to the traveler than any other, and, except where in loose sand, affords facilities for travel and transport during the summer months only inferior to those of the winter ones. Their chief defect is in their Roman straightness, following the concessions or side-lines of the original survey arbitrarily, and encountering obstacles which might easily be avoided. Land-owners attach importance to straight and rectangular boundaries as more easily ascertained and maintained, and therefore oppose propositions to have their fields encroached upon to improve the road. Although the bail of the pot is no longer when on the fire than when off-when upright than when horizontal,-it does not seem to be conceded that it may often be as short to go around the hill, upon the level, as to climb over it. The value of level roads is demonstrated in the highest degree by the locomotive, which, upon an ascent of only one in one hundred, can not draw more than onefourth the load which can be taken on the level. The act of parliament only requires hills to be reduced to one in twenty on toll roads and railway crossings, and we often see them one in ten or less on other roads. If the principles of transportation were more thoroughly appreciated, all our main routes would be improved by abandoning locations which can never give a good road, and by avoiding, as far as possible, all hills, particularly those which are to be ascended in the direction of the heaviest traffic, thus making

the road towards the market as far as possible, down hill. The reflection that millions in number and in value must, until the end of time, travel over the roads, perhaps as we lay them out, should secure the utmost carefulness and conscientiousness in the location of all our highways, railways included, so as to avoid the unnecessary loss of time and waste of horse-power and steam-power now going on daily over all this continent.

TURNPIKE ROADS.

Gravel Roads.-The existence of large deposits of gravel at many points, and the fact that the natural roads upon a gravel formation were the best, led to its being used extensively for metalling graded roads. For light traffic it makes a smooth and hard road; but it is not, as usually applied, capable of resisting the heaviest traffic. If sufficiently clean, and laid on to a proper depth, it will form a road fit for any purpose; but so formed, it, in the majority of cases, will be more expensive than broken stone.

Plank Roads.-These were introduced after the union, and were extensively used at first; but as a class they may be said to have proved failures, except as a temporary expedient. In many districts where there is neither stone nor gravel, and where plank abounds, they have been the only means of accommodating a heavy traffic, and are particu larly valuable where the natural road-bed is sand. Sand, except when frozen or covered with snow, is almost as great an obstacle to traffic as swamps; and plank, although a perishable, is an expeditious and generally economical mode of overcoming it. In many cases it will pay to lay down plank in order to cheapen the cost of putting metal on the same road; and, as the plank will last several years, the tolls collected in that time may reimburse the cost. Where lumber is cheap and where stone can not be obtained near the road, it will be policy to make the first covering

of the graded turnpike with planks. Many plans have been devised for laying the planks, but it is unnecessary to notice these, as their duration does not depend on this. If there is little traffic they warp and rot without reference to their form; and if there is much traffic the horses' feet wear them down: and when thus weakened they are broken through and soon become a nuisance. When stone or gravel is within reach, plank should never be laid the second time, unless the tolls replace them as fast as worn out, and unless there be a lack of means to make the more durable road.

Macadam Roads.-This system, after about forty years' experience in Europe and America, has proved its superiority over any other; but its value in this country has been very much impaired by inattention to details in construction and repairs, and by the want of a sufficiently heavy traffic rapidly to consolidate the new road. The metal, often of improper size and inferior quality, unless "blinded" with sand (and thereby deteriorated) or covered with snow, is avoided except for a short time in spring and autumn; and thus two or more seasons are passed before it becomes "bound." The repairs are then postponed until the road is worn out, when it is again renewed en masse; and thus years are consumed in the infancy and old age of this system, with scarcely an intermediate period of efficiency. The only properly constructed and managed macadamized roads in the province, with perhaps one or two exceptions, are the turnpike trusts outside of Montreal and Quebec. These roads are in the hands of commissioners, and as the tolls are freely expended on them, they are never allowed to wear out, but by constant repairs with clean metal are kept in good order. In Upper Canada, on the other hand, the roads are generally in the hands of lessees or stock companies whose practice it is to lay out nothing upon them

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which can be avoided. There is no stronger instance of the patience and law-abiding disposition of the people than in their toleration of so great an imposition as most of the toll-roads of Upper Canada. It matters not whether a company has purchased the right of way, cleared the forest, fenced, "graveled," and bridged a road, or whether it has thrown down stones or plank upon an old highway made ready for them at the cost of the public, the traveler (who has perhaps exerted all his skill in driving between the loose stones and broken planks and the ditches, or in "straddling" the ruts) is arrested every four or five miles by a toll-gate. In winter toll is exacted even if sleighs are used, which can only be defended on the ground that some revenue must be had; but in summer there is not this relief, although it would be safe to say that, for the greater part of that season at least, the roads would be much more efficient in their natural state than they are as "improved." Such roads have no resemblance to the turnpike trusts of Lower Canada, except at the toll-gates; and the continuance of so great a nuisance as barriers on even the best of roads must be regarded as evidences of a preference on the part of the most intelligent population of Upper Canada for direct taxation. It may be argued that those who wear out the road should pay for keeping it in order; but this might be met by an annual assessment on hoofs and wheels without the intervention of toll-gates. If the cities and markettowns assumed the tolled roads, they have it in their power, by fees, market-rates, &c., to levy the amount required; and there would thus be bodies interested by their mutual competition in keeping the roads permanently in good order. This, however, is one of those reforms which we can not hope to attain until we are far enough advanced to think of fencing our animals in instead of fencing them out.