The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1880-07-23
Rooted Country Roads.

To large extent in the South and
Southwest the highways are of two dis
tinct sorts-in local parlance, turnpikeS
and mud roads.
Y'he former title covers the main State
roads, often constructed with great care
and cost, and usually macadamized. The
latter includes the great majority OF
country roads and for nine months or
more every year the name is exactly de-
scriptive of their character. They are
deep and tenacious.
Plank roads are sometimes tried where
lumber is cheap; but they rest under the
disadvantage OF being expensive, and
they are neither durable nor easily kept
i'll repair. Accordingly mud roads pre-
dominate, and communities possessing
them are little given to social or COM
mercial intercourse with their neighbors
save during the brief periods when the
mud is dry and the wheeling passibly
good.
An exception to this rule appears in
Bosier Parish, Louisiana, where an at
tempt has been made to keep an import
ant earth road dry and disable by the
novel device of roofing it, so as to keep
off the rain. The first stretch of covered
road on this plan runs from Red Chute
Bridge, Louisiana four miles across Red
River bottom, near Shreveport The
idea originated with Judge j. ID. Wat
kins OF Shreveport, and, as is the usual
fate of new ideas, it aroused no little
ridicule. Judge Watkins was not man
to be laughed down. Obtaining a State
ol,o g., Il; 30. he 10
build the road. His opponents COM
planned that he was obstructing the
parish road, and attempted to stop the
work; but ample and lawful room having
been given for the parish road their OPP
position came to nothing 1t is now four
years since the work was begun, and Mr..
John 5. Williams, of Shreveport, who
has been connected with the enterprise
from the beginning, informs us that the
road is a complete success. At the time
of his writing, while the uncovered roads
were axle deep III some places with stiff
mud, the shed road was firm and dry
In building the road, the bed, Is feet
wide, was thrown up just enough to keep
out the surface water and over 1t was
put roof of plank five-eights inch thick,
the planks being II inches wide and 20
feet long. Cypress from the neighboring
swamp is used for posts, and roughly
sawed timber for frame work. BY means
of an ingenious platform mounted on a
common two-horse wagon and supporting
a light framework, four men easily put
up 20 sections, of twenty feet each, a day.
The cost of the road was about 50, 800
n mile, with lumber at 81 n hundred feet,
labor 81 day, posts u! cents each,
earthwork 20 cents n cubic yard, and
nails 5 cents n pound. The advantages
of the road arise from its cheapness
as compared with any other style of road
possible there, its durability and its I'M
varying serviceableness The native clay
soil, when kept dry, makes a better road
than either wood or stone, and the road
is easily kept i'll repair. The wagons dc
not touch the woodwork, and the rooi
will last five times as long as planks laid
upon the damp earth. Though the sides
are not enclosed the rain does not drive
i'll enough to make the roads muddy,
much less wash it. In short the practical
test of the road, on the score OF
cheapness and efficiency, has beer
so satisfactory that the ridicule and
opposition it first awakened have been
overcome, and other roads on the same
plan are about to be constructed -
Scientific american.