Too closely creep."
It ought therefore to be an accepted maxim in road-making that the road-bed should be so constructed as to induce vehicles to travel it equally in every part.
For our climate and soil, no doubt, a macadamized road is the cheapest and best for general travel. This is made by covering the bottom of the road-bed with stones broken into angular pieces to a depth of from four to twelve inches. The bottom of the road-bed should be solid earth, and crowned sufficiently to carry off all water that may reach it. The depth of the stone coating may properly vary from four to twelve inches, as required by the nature of the soil, the climate, and the travel on it; and the size of the broken stones may also be varied to meet the requirements of the road. If there is to be heavy travel on the road, the stone coating should be thicker than on a road over which only lightly loaded teams are expected to pass; and in the former case the broken stones should be larger than in the latter case. In any event, the top of the stone coating should be composed of stones broken into small fragments. A coating, from four to six inches in depth, of broken stones from one to two inches in diameter is ordinarily sufficient to make a hard, dry, and beautiful country-road, if kept up at all seasons of the year. Flat or round stones should never be used, because they will not unite and consolidate into a mass, as small angular stones will do. When travel is first admitted upon the stone coating, the ruts should be filled up as soon as formed; or what is better, a heavy roller should be used until the stones have become well consolidated.
Sometimes in wet or clayey soil it is well to put at the bottom of the stone coating a layer of large stones, set on their broadest edges and lengthwise across the road in the form of a pavement. This is called a Telford road, and has advantages over the McAdam road in a soil retentive of moisture, as the layer of large stones operates as an under drain to the stone coating above it.
It is undoubtedly true that the McAdam or Telford road is the best road for all practical purposes in this country, and will be the country road of the future; yet it is also true that the most of our highways are mere earth-roads, and will probably remain such for many years, and it is therefore desirable that they should be constructed as well as they can be made. It is an admitted canon of the road-making art, that a road ought to be so hard and smooth that wheels will roll easily over it and not sink into it, so dry and compact that rain will not affect it beyond making it dirty, and its component parts so firmly moulded together that the sun cannot convert them into deep dust. Therefore the travelled part of an earth-road should not be composed of loam fertile enough for a corn-field, nor of sand deep enough for a beach. If the road runs through sandy land, it can be greatly and cheaply improved by covering it with a few inches of clayish soil; and if it runs through clayey land, a similar application of sand will be beneficial. A gravelly soil is usually the best material for an earth-road, and when practicable every such road should be covered with a coating of it. The larger gravel, however, should never be placed at the bottom and the smaller at the top, as the frost and the vehicles will cause the large gravel to rise and the small to descend, like the materials in a shaken sieve, and the road will never become smooth and hard.
CHAPTER IV.
REPAIRS.
After a road is located and constructed, economy as well as public convenience demands that it be kept in good condition the year round. If a road is allowed to go for several months at a time without repairs, ruts and holes are likely to form on its surface, and frequently the middle becomes lower than the sides. Then, in order to put it in good condition again, a great deal of work and expense are necessary, whereas if every break is repaired immediately, much less labor and expense are required to keep up the road for the same length of time, besides the increased advantage and convenience of a good road from day to day.
No doubt our roads could be kept in better condition than at present without any additional expense, by the application of good sense and business principles in their management. The present system in nearly all our country towns consists in dividing up the roads into districts, and appointing a highway surveyor for each district, with a stated allowance of money to expend on repairs; and sometimes the tax-payer residing in the district has a right to work out his road tax. This surveyor is usually a farmer, who is very busy during planting-time in the spring, and during the haying and harvesting seasons; and consequently he works upon the roads between the planting and the haying seasons, or in the autumn after he has finished the fall work upon his farm. It sometimes happens that he works out all the money allowed him in early summer, and then nothing more is done for a year.