Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1875-10-01
@arm ann 0nusebum.
From the Afa SslIErm '
COUNTRYs ROEKNN


The intolerable, and, in. many places
impossible condition of country roads, at
this season of the year particularly, as
much deserves our attention as any pub
lie interest.
Volume upon volume has been written
on this subject, and by writers who
thoroughly understood It; but, if these
valuable guides in this very essential art,
have been read by those having charge OF
the common roads of the country, the in
structlon has not been needed by but few.
We cannot call the attention of those di-
rectly interested to any printed matter
containing more valuable information on
TINS subject, than to an essay contained in
the report of the Commissioner of Agri-
culture for 1868, page $50. 1t contains an
illustrated description of the best "rut
scraper'' and land grading machine that
we have ever seen; it is certainly very far
superior to one recently described in our
priced contemporary, the County Gentle
man: If this single, inexpensive machine,
costing but some $40, was passed over the
earth roads after each heavy rain, which
will not cost more than fifty cents per
mile for the season, common earth roads
might be put, and kept, in much better
condition than they are ordinarily at more
than ten times the cost.
Every road district should have built
for its use one of these road workers; they
are wonderful labor saving machines, and
nothing that we have seen compares with
it for producing a fine smooth road sur
face. In skilled hands it may be made to
fill all ruts, remove all minor elevations,
crown up the bed of the road so that it
will shed rain and leave a smooth oven
surfuce suitable for a race track-by the
by, nothing is equal to it for grading a
track. There are hundreds of them in use
in N. Y. and N. E., and we should have
them in the South, and without delay.
We participated in an effort made by
some of the leading spirits of Prince
Georges Co., Nd, a few years since, to
inaugurate an improvement in our laws
and customs pertaining to making and
maintaining the roads.
The recommendations made by the au-
thor in the report of 1868 were then fully
presented at our meetings and generally
concurred in, as also was the rut scraper
and grading machine, to which we have
alluded, highly approved.
1t the country roads of district are so
formed and maintained that they are pas
sable for heavy loaded vehicles at all times,
the residents of that locality have great
advantage over those living where no
t0aming can be done, only in the dry sea-
son, when a variety of work on the farms
and plantations is pressing and demand
ing all the team force at home
Nothing so thoroughly discourages
Northern men accustomed to good roads,
when they come South to view our farms,
as our horrid ones.
We are confident that one-half the area
would sell for more money than the whole,
ifthe value OF one-half was expended in the
construction of good roads and bridges.
We lsok with hope for the congregated
intelligence of the yeomanry of the coun-
try, under the systematic organization OF
the Changers. to produce, at an early day,
a reformation in road making that alone
would have doubled the value of the land
in many districts