The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1881-06-10
Country Roads.

The Baltimore Sun, in an article on road
making and road-mending in Maryland, adj
vocates the use of more common sense and
engineering skill in laying out and repairing
country roads. 1t says:
The custom is, as all our country readers know.
TO mend the road by throwing dirt upon IL from
the sides to the middle. This work is often done
just before heavy rains set in, or it may be late
In the autumn, when the frost has fair chance
at II. In the one case the dirt is resolved into
its native mud in the other the road is broken
up into ruts and ridges. The condition of n
road so treated, or rather we might say NAL
treated, is worse in most cases than il was be-
fore. Unless road is made of good material,
patching will not mend 1t. It would be fur bet
Ter TO spend the money set apart annually for
the roads of given district in stoning or gray
cling them by degrees, from year to year, or by
sections, if ii cannot be done otherwise instead
of flingng dirt upon them, to find it perpetually
washing away-cloggng the wheels of vehf-
clcs when fresh, and when wetted with rains
soitening the soldier road-bed bencathit Roads
are not for day, but for all time, and the pro.
cess of making them with the sums annually
distributed for this purpose must necessarily
be slow, yet year by year they would be getting
better, and when once well metaed the cost OF
keeping them in repair would be comparatively
small.
There is nothing that would advance the pros.
perity of country districts, outside of the lines
of rail, like an efficient system of good roads.
10 spend money freely on such a system would
be putting it to good use. The saving in the
wear and tear ofVehicles would of itself be quite
considerable. 1t would add greatly to the com
fort and convenience of travel The extra
horses now employed in dragging heavy loads
over what at times are almost impracticable
highways could be dispensed with Above all
good roads would effect material saving in dis.
tances, measured by time give easier access to
markets and from place to place, and would add
TO the salabe value of all farm property. Where
country roads are established, their grades un
der good management, may often be improved
and their terrible water breaks either gotten rid
OF entirely or reduced In number. 1t is in these
things the skill of the engineer may properly bt
called into requisition or, at least, the eXpe
| ricnce of a man who knows something about lay
ing off, surveying, rounding, draining and me
| falling, besides Il multitude of smaller things
which come within the scope of tcclnica
| knowledge. We apprehcnd that there ale moi
many of the ordinary road supervisors, ant
| fewer still county commissioners, either in New
York or Maryland, or many other States, who
know much more of the science of oad.mak inl
| than to fill up ruts and dump in stone where III,
| ground is soggy, and finally to throw dirt from
the sides to the middle of of the road five ar,
| ever to have good roads we must rcvolutionzt
the present wastetul system of spending none,
| on them. We must begin TO make roads thai
will last. 1t cannot be done well at once, bu
| it may be done gradually year by year, so thai
| ultimately the roads most subject to travel ant
| traflc may become permanent highways Fu
such work there must be Il responsible head -
As it is at present, the responsibility for la,
roads is lodged nowhere.