The side slopes must be cut to a slope of 45, with berms, as a minimum; and as low as 60 wherever it is practicable.
Wherever earth is required for a filling to make good the side roads, require that it be taken from some near side slope or other point that will improve such part of the road. The minimum side road is to be five feet; wherever the natural ground will permit, cause it to be increased to admit of summer roads, placing the ditches outside of such increased side road.
The second alteration is, to have the whole work done by contract, instead of job work and day labor, as was practiced last year.
To effect this, the greatest precaution is necessary to specify what work has to be done on each chain of four rods of the road, the particular grade for such portion, the depth and size of the ditches, the side roads and slopes, and from whence the required earth is to be taken to restore the grade, and where the surplus earth is to be taken from the ditches, drains, side slopes, &c.
In the delivery of stone for the metal, the contract must provide that the stone be delivered and broken on the side roads in rectangular piles or strings of such dimensions as you require on the several parts of the road, and the measurement made of the cubic contents of the stone thus prepared; from which measurement you will ascertain the number of perches, by previously having a mass, containing five perches of stone, as it comes from the quarry, as compactly piled as can be without the use of a hammer, taking large and small indiscriminately. Have this mass broken to the size of four ounces; ascertain the cubic contents of the bulk it shall produce, the fifth part of which you will take as a perch, and the unit of measurement for paying for the number of perches to be delivered.
The metal is to be thrown on the road at such favorable periods as you shall designate, after it has been measured, and not until the contractor has prepared the required quantity for half a mile at a time.
You will require the contractor to commence the grade at one end of the piece he is to repair, and continue regularly through, not permitting him to seek the parts requiring least work to execute first; and when delivering stone, to commence the delivery at a point giving a mean distance for hauling from the quarry; a mean rate of payment is then equitable, otherwise it would not be.
The work on your section may be divided into two distinct classes: the one, where nothing has as yet been done; and the other, the part graded and stone prepared for the metal during the past season.
On the first class, you will make contracts to grade, deliver, and put on three perches of limestone where the old bed remains firm, and four perches where the old bed has disappeared, requiring the grade to be finished by the 15th of October; and if the metal is all prepared by that date, to be put on by the 1st of November, the contractor continuing to rake the road, change the travel, and preserve the whole work in order, until the succeeding 1st of April. Should the contractor, however, not be able to prepare the metal to put it on the road by the 1st of November, then he is to preserve the grade of the road in order until the first favorable state of the weather after the 15th of March ensuing, when he is to put on the metal, raking and smoothing the surface for twenty days after the whole metal shall have been put on the road.
You will observe that the contract is to call for preserving the road in either case during the winter; in one case, by adding metal, raking, &c., and in the other, by breaking with a sledge stone to fill the ruts, covering such stone in the spring lightly before putting on the metal.