Village Improvements and Farm Villages

by George E. Waring

In the island of Jersey, there are many excellent roads only six feet wide. These are provided with frequent little bays or turn-outs to allow teams to pass each other. Although such extremely narrow roads are not to be recommended, the difference in comfort and economy of teampower between these and the average American dirt road is enormously in their favor. The widest roads in Jersey, leading from a busy town of thirty thousand inhabitants into a thickly settled farming region where business and pleasure travel is very active, and where "excursion cars" carrying thirty or forty persons are constantly passing, are only twenty-four feet wide; often only of this width between the hedge-rows, the road itself being an excellent footpath for its whole width. Nowhere else in the world is the rural charm more perfectly developed than in Jersey, and no element of its great beauty is so conspicuous and so constantly satisfactory as its narrow and embowered lanes and roadways.

This, however, by the way, and only as a suggestion, for the sake of variety. As a rule, we may at least accept much less width than is now usual for our country and village roads. Wherever it is intended to build expensive stone roads, those having the work in charge will naturally employ a competent engineer, or will at least appeal to Prof. Gillespie's work on road-making, or to some other authority. Space need not be given here to engineering details, which would require a lengthy elucidation. There is, however, a sort of road-making materially more costly at the outset than that now in vogue, but much less costly in the long-run, if we consider the element of practical value and the cost of maintenance. It depends more on fundamental principles of construction than on special processes of finishing, and will be more or less satisfactory according to the character of the soil and of the covering material available.

The great enemy of all roads is excessive moisture; and the chief purpose of all methods of improvement is to get rid of this, or to counteract its effect. As in the case of foot-paths, wherever the porous character of the subsoil, and the absence of higher-lying wet lands, is such that no accumulation of water upon or under the roadway need be feared, the greatest difficulty is at once set aside. Roads lying on such a soil may be over-dusty in dry weather. When the subsoil is temporarily impervious because of its frozen condition, they may become unduly muddy, or, when the situation is such as to lead hill-water upon them, they may be badly washed; but they are free from the great difficulties that beset all roads which for a large part of the year are underlaid by an over-saturated, compact subsoil. Where such natural drainage is secured, no artificial under-drainage will be needed. In many more instances, all that will be required in the way of draining will be to lead away the sources of wet-weather springs, which break through the road-bed and cause deep sloughs. Where incomplete or partial artificial under-draining is needed, the need is absolute; and whether we consider the durability of the road, or the degree to which its traffic is interfered with by its wet condition, we may be confident that every dollar spent in well-directed under-draining will be invested to the very best advantage. The varying conditions of wetness, and the different sources of surplus water, must be regarded in deciding precisely how much of this work is needed, and how it should be done. Details cannot be fully considered here; but as a general rule it may be said, that where the subsoil generally is of an impervious character, and where the road is more or less wet and weeping after long rains, a continuous system of under-drains is required. If the trouble is local, here and there in spots, and is obviously caused by the breaking up of springs from the road-bed, such partial work may be adopted as will tap the sources of these springs, and lead their water harmlessly away. Gisborne, one of the best agricultural writers of England, put the case tersely and well when—objecting to the system of circumventing springs—he said, "Hit him straight in the eye, is as good a maxim in draining as in pugilism." It is best not to pass up at the side of a spring, and so creep around behind it to head off its water; but to drive the drain straight through it, and far enough beyond it to tap and lead away at a lower level the water which causes it. These drains, as well as all others intended simply to remove subsoil water, and not to cut off a weeping stream, are best made with common drain-tiles laid as before directed, and covered immediately with well-packed earth. Water enters an under-drain, not from above, but from below; that is to say, as water, from whatever source, fills the subsoil, it rises therein until it reaches the floor of the drain, when it enters and is led away, just as water falling into a cask which stands on end flows off at the under side of the bung-hole when it reaches its level. Even if the cask be filled to the top with earth, the rain falling upon it will descend perpendicularly to the bottom, and will flow off at the bung only when the soil to that level has become saturated. It will descend through the soil by the straightest course, and will raise the general level. It will not violate the laws of gravitation, and run diagonally toward the point of outlet, as seems to be the general supposition when the perplexing question, "How does water get into the drain?" is first considered. When we drive a drain through a spring and into the water-bearing stratum which feeds it, we simply make it easier for the water to escape by the drain than to keep on at the higher level, and break out at the surface of the ground.

As in the case of the sidewalk illustrated in Figure 1, in cutting off a continuous weeping or ooze from higher land, it is best to introduce a vertical filling of porous material through which the water will descend and enter the drain; but, excepting this single instance, all that we need to do, so far as subterranean work is concerned, is to furnish an easy and sufficient channel for the removal of subsoil water.

What constitutes a sufficient drain is something very much less than what is generally supposed. In ordinary agricultural drainage, where the lines of tiles are forty feet apart, a well-laid tile an inch and a quarter in diameter is sufficient for a length of one thousand feet—that is, it is sufficient to remove the water of filtration from an acre of land. If laid with only an inclination of six inches in one hundred feet, its delivery will be so rapid as to amount to more than a heavy continuous rain-fall upon this area. In road drainage, the same rule would hold true; but, as the soil offers a certain resistance to the rapid descent of water, it is best to give a means of outlet at smaller intervals; and for the best work in roads thirty feet wide or more, three drains could be used with advantage. In no case, however, need the size of pipes be larger than above indicated, if the form of the tiles is true, and if they are well joined together at their ends. Tiles of less perfect form had better be an inch and a half or even two inches in diameter; but, as a rule, they should not be of a larger size, for the reason that the amount of water that they may be expected to carry will not be sufficient to keep them prop erly freed from silt unless the flow is concentrated within a narrow channel.

FIG. 2.

Figure 2 shows the cross section of a country road thirty feet wide, with three lines of tile-drain laid at a depth of about three feet below it. Except in case of necessity, these drains should have an inclination of not less than six inches in one hundred feet. There is no objection to their having more than this wherever the lay of the land permits or requires it. They may often have considerably less in case of need; but, the smaller the rate of inclination, the greater the care needed in securing a true grade. The water of these drains should be collected into a single drain, and led away at intervals of from five hundred to one thousand feet. It may be delivered into a roadside gutter, or into a collecting under-drain, according to the requirements of the situation.

It is now possible to procure drain-tiles at reasonable cost in almost all parts of the country; and these are not only very much better than any form of stone drain, but they are also much cheaper in construction,—the labor of preparing and handling the stone, and of excavating the wider trench that stone requires, amounting to more than the cost of the tile, even with a high charge of transportation added. Incidentally it is proper to say that where tiles cannot be had, a mass of gravel or fine cinders, six inches wide and six inches deep, placed at the bottom of the drain, and covered with well-packed soil, is preferable even to broken stone or any other form of channel that would permit of the rapid running of water and the washing into the drains of even a slight amount of silt.

The removal of excessive subsoil moisture being secured, attention should next be given to the surface of the road, which should be finished with the firmest material at hand,—with the common earth of the subsoil where nothing better can be afforded,—and which should be brought to a true grade, with a very slight slope from the centre to the edge. For a road thirty feet wide, the elevation of the centre above the level of the edges should not be more than four to six inches, and the grade should be made on a straight line rather than on a curve. If the road is made as flat as the turning-off of surface-water will permit, it will be travelled upon in all its parts; while if it is crowned to a high arch, as is often the case, it will soon be found that the best place to drive is in the middle of the road, and foot-tracks and wheel-tracks will soon form slight channels or ruts which will lead water lengthwise along the road, and which will cause an undue amount of wear and washing. A road may be actually flat to the eye, and equally convenient for travel at every part of its width, and still have enough lateral slope to cause water to run off from it.