The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1880-08-27
RoorEp COUNTRY RoADs.

TO large extent in the South and
Southwest the highways are OF two dis
tinct sorts-in local parlanue. turnpikes
and mud roads.
The former title covers the main state
roads, often constructed with great care
and cost. AID usually macadGmiZed.
The latter includes the great majority
of country roads and for nine months
or more every year the name is exactly
descriptive Of their character. They
are emphatically mud roads, and the
mud deep and tenacious.
Plank roads are not unfrequently tried
where lumber is cheap buC they rest
under the disadvantage of being eXpen-
sive. and they are neither durable nor
easily kept in repair. Accordingly mud
roads predominant and communities pos
sessing them are little given to social or
commercial intercourse with their neigh
bOTs. save during the brief periods when
the mud is dry and the wheeling passi-
bly, good.
An exception to this rule appears in
BOsier parish, Louisiana, where an at
tempt has been made to keep an impOr-
tant earth road dry and usable by the
novel device of roofing it so as to keep
off the rain. The first stretch of cover
ed road on this plan runs from Red
Chute bridge, Louisiana, four miles
across Red river bottom, near Shreve-
port, and, as is the usual fate of new
ideas it reused 20 little ridicule. Judge
Watkins was not a man 20 be laughed
down. Obtaining State charter fOTh his
enterprise, he began to build the road.
His opponents complained that he was
obstructing the parish road, and at
tempted to stop the work but ample
and lawful room having been given for
the parish road. their opposition came
to nothing. It is now four years since
the work was begun, and Mr.. John :
Williams, of Shreveport, who has been
connected with the enterprise from the
beginning. informs me that the road is
a complete success. At the time Of his
writing, while the uncovered roads were
axle deep in some places with stiff mud,
the shed road was firm and dry.
In building the road. the bed, eigh-
teen feet wide, was thrown up just
enough 90 keep out the surface water
aud over 10 was put a roof Of plank five
eighths inch thick, the planks being
twelve inches wide and twenty feet long.
Cypress from the Heighboring swamp
is used FOR posts, and roughly sawed
timber Tor framework. BY means of
an ingenious platform mounted on
common tWO-horse wagon and support
ing u IigEt framework. four nen easily
put up twenty sections, or twenty feet
each, a day.
The cost of the road was about 5, 800
a mile, with lumber at 81 a hundred feet,
labor 81 n day, posts twelve and a half
cents each, earthwOrk twenty cents a
cubic yard, and nails five cents pound.
The advantage of the road aIise from
its cheapHess, as compared with any
other style of road possible there, its
durability and its unyarying service
ableness. The native clay soil, when
kept dry, makes a better road than eith-
er wood or stone, and the road is easily
kept in repair. The wagons do Lot
touch the wood work. and the roof VIII
last five times as long as piauks laid ND
on the damp earth. Though the,sides
are not inClosed the rain does not drive
In enough 10 make the roads muddy.
much less wash it, In short the pact
ical test of the road, on the score Of
CheapnesS and efficiency. has been so
satisfactory that the ridicu.e and oppo-
sitiUn ut first awakened have been over
come, and other roads on The same plan
are about TO be coustructed.-Scj
AHtCTjcUa.