Wide tires should be used on all heavy vehicles which traverse stone roads. A four or five inch stone or gravel road will last longer without repair when wide tires are used than an eight or ten inch road of the same material on which narrow tires are used.
Not only should brush and weeds be removed from the roadside, but grass should be sown, trees planted, and a side path or walk be prepared for the use of pedestrians, especially women and children, going to and coming from church, school, and places of business and amusement. Country roads can be made far more useful and attractive than they usually are, and this may be secured by the expenditure of only a small amount of labor and money. Although such improvements are not necessary, they make the surroundings attractive and inviting and add to the value of property and the pleasure of the traveler.
If trees are planted alongside the road they should be far enough back to admit the wind and sun. Most strong growing trees are apt to extend their roots under the gutters and even beneath the roadway if they are planted too close to the roadside. Even if they be planted at a safe distance those varieties should be selected which send their roots downward rather than horizontally. The most useful and beautiful tree corresponding with these requirements is the chestnut, while certain varieties of the pear, cherry, and mulberry answer the same purpose. Where there is no danger of roots damaging the subdrainage or the substructure of the road, some other favorite varieties would be elms, rock maples, horse-chestnuts, beeches, pines, and cedars. Climate, variety of species selected, and good judgment will determine the distance between such trees. Elms should be thirty feet apart, while the less spreading varieties need not be so far. The trunks should be trimmed to a considerable height, so as to admit the sun and air. Fruit trees are planted along the roadsides in Germany and Switzerland, while mulberry trees may be seen along the roads in France, serving the twofold purpose of food for silkworms and shade. If some of our many varieties of useful, fruitful, and beautiful trees were planted along the roads in this country, and if some means could be devised for protecting the product, enough revenue could be derived therefrom to pay for the maintenance of the road along which they throw their grateful shade.
The improvement of country roads is chiefly an economical question, relating principally to the waste of effort in hauling over bad roads, the saving in money, time, and energy in hauling over good ones, the initial cost of improving roads, and the difference in the cost of maintaining good and bad ones. It is not necessary to enlarge on this subject in order to convince the average reader that good roads reduce the resistance to traffic, and consequently the cost of transportation of products and goods to and from farms and markets is reduced to a minimum.
The initial cost of a road depends upon the cost of materials, labor, machinery, the width and depth to which the material is to be spread on, and the method of construction. All these things vary so much in the different states that it is impossible to name the exact amount for which a mile of a certain kind of road can be built.
The introduction in recent years of improved road-building machinery has enabled the authorities in some of the states to build improved stone and gravel roads quite cheaply. First-class single-track stone roads, nine feet wide, have been built near Canandaigua, New York, for $900 to $1,000 per mile. Many excellent gravel roads have been built in New Jersey for $1,000 to $1,300 per mile. The material of which they were constructed was placed on in two layers, each being raked and thoroughly rolled, and the whole mass consolidated to a thickness of eight inches. In the same state macadam roads have been built, for $2,000 to $5,000 per mile, varying in width from nine to twenty feet and in thickness of material from four to twelve inches. Telford roads fourteen feet wide and ten to twelve inches thick have been built in New Jersey for $4,000 to $6,000 per mile. Macadam roads have been built at Bridgeport and Fairfield, Connecticut, eighteen to twenty feet wide, for $3,000 to $5,000 per mile. A telford road sixteen feet wide and twelve inches thick was built at Fanwood, New Jersey, for $9,500 per mile. Macadam roads have been built in Rhode Island, sixteen to twenty feet wide, for $4,000 to $5,000 per mile.
Massachusetts roads are costing all the way from $6,000 to $25,000 per mile. A mile of broken stone road, fifteen feet wide, costs in the state of Massachusetts about $5,700 per mile, while a mile of the same width and kind of road costs in the state of New Jersey only $4,700. This is due partly to the fact that the topography of Massachusetts is somewhat rougher than that of New Jersey, necessitating the reduction of many steep grades and the building of expensive retaining walls and bridges, and partly to the difference in methods of construction and the difference in prices of materials, labor, etc.
Doubtless the state of New Jersey is building more roads and better roads for less money per mile than any other state in the Union. Its roads are now costing from twenty to seventy cents per square yard. Where the telford construction is used they sometimes cost as much as seventy-three cents per square yard. The average cost of all classes of the roads of that state during the last season was about fifty cents per square yard. The stone was, as a rule, spread on to a depth of nine inches, which, after rolling, gave a depth of about eight inches. At this rate a single-track road eight feet wide costs about $2,346 per mile, while a double-track road fourteen feet wide costs about $4,106 per mile, and one eighteen feet wide costs about $5,280 per mile. Where the material is spread on so as to consolidate to a four-inch layer the eight-foot road will cost about $1,173 per mile, the fourteen-foot road about $2,053 per mile, while the one eighteen feet wide will cost about $2,640 per mile.