The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1868-08-28

The season is at hand when the
greater portion of the work upon the
public highway will be performed.
All are more or less interested IN
having good roads, and every citizen
should feel a responsibility upon him.
self TO such an extent as to lend IN
fiuence and means to make them so.
a community keeping their pubic
roads In fine condition, do not re-
ceive their return wholly In having
"A good carriage track to ride upon,
but an advance is made in the price
OF real estate. Good roads denote
thrift and enterprise, and any intel
liqent man seeking q home will never
locate in a community where good
roads. good churches, and school
houses are not found, let the quality
of the soil be as good as it may.
The main thing in making good
roads is to shape them so as to keep
the water from tho track, and to do
this the center must be elevated suffi-
ciently to shed rain, and the bitches
properly constructed to carry off the
water If the bed of the road is mar
row and water is allowed to stand in
the bitches, capillary attraction keeps
tnG VII lAOAols anu rus Will II. .rss
Siuiceways are not generally plenty
enough, nor are conducting drains,
for pools of water may be seen along
the sides of many country roads dur
ing nearly the whole year, and II the
water ever disappears, it Is by evap-i
grafton. -.71tie
Que of the worst features In the
management of our roads Is working
L. &xErs aranM
accounts for the water pools on the
wayside; the bitches not being kept
open after they are constructed. An
other bad feature is the plan of filing
rut holes with cobble. heads, for az
soon as the earth around the stones
settles, or washes away, an annoying
prominence is left to jog every one
who rides over it, and italso obstructs
the working Of the scraper. Stone or
gravel should never be put upon the.
highway, unless enough is used to-
macadamize, for a certain extent, the
whole width of the track. l v. rs.4.
A leyeling scraper will do more
work 10 repairing roads than dozen
men with shovels and other tools,
where it is not necessary to turnpike,
and one should be kept in every
neighborhood A good one may be
made as follows: Take two planks-
twelve or fourteen inches wide and
two inches thick; saw one end of
each beveling about two inches, .i.e.,
so that one edge will be shorter than
the opposite; this is to make the top
fare out when the planks are put to-
gether. One of these planks should
be eight feet long, and the other two
inches shorter. Put them together in
V shape, the short edge down, and
frame in a cross-beam of 4 by 4 scant-
ling, little above the centre, up and
down, and about two feet from the
ends, so as to spread them eight feet
apart. The cross-beam should be
framed in with shoulders, and the
lemons allowed to run through six or
eight inches, so that the key pins may
be nut in on the outsides. -
When all is fitted, bolt a saw mill
plate onto the inside of each wing, so
that the back edge Of the saw will
come even with the lower edge of the
plank. The point or narrow end of
the scraper should be secured by iron
clasps, as d good deal of strain comes
upon this part. The scraper is drawn
open end forward by staples or
clevices attached near the ends, or
from the shoulders of the cross bar.
A q implement of this kind makes
a sweep of eight feet, gathering In all
the hubs and unnatural prominences,
and deposits them In the rut holes
and all interstices, making the road
level aud nice. IF the leveliug scra-
per should be passed over our coun-
Try roads once or twice q month,
when the condition of the earth
would admit of it, road mending
would be comparatively easy to what
it is now, and the condition of the
public highway hundred fold better.