Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1882-07-12
The Boss Road Grader,


den the hearts of despots and disgrace
us in the eyes of the world.
The Boss Road Grader.
The article in our last on roads has
met with so favorable a reception, that
we decided to continue the subject by
publishing copious extracts from cor
respondent of the Prarie Farmer of
July 20, 1878:
l wish to thank you for the good you
are doing in agitating the matter of road
making. have noticed in your paper
many articles on this subject, also State
ments relative to the cost of making good
graded turnpikes, and to an inexperi-
enced man many Of these statements
seem eXtravagant, and have established
in my mind the conclusion that if they
could be depended upon, road making
had been brought to a science, and
machinery developed for cheapening
road making as we'll as everything else.
Learning that there was to be trial
of a road grader in a town where found
myself few days since, determined to
witness it and learn the facts. The
manufacturer, Mr.. w. J. Edwards, of
Chicago, had agreed to demonstrate that
he could build fine turnpike at cost
completed OF 10 cents per rod, or $48 per
mile! The road commissioners of the
town stated that their experience for
twenty years past was their roads built
by plows and scraper cost them an aver
age of 81 per rod, so that with heavy
taxes each year they were unable to
build but little good road, and to get
around on all their roads, took so many
years, the earlier made roads were worn
out so as to need rebuilding, and, so they
were always in the mud. Mr.. Edwards
offered to bring them a machine on trial
and test it in their presence at his own
expense, to prove that with six teams at
the rate of So per day each, or $1a, he
could grade turnpike sixteen inches
high in the center, sixteen feet wide, on
a twentyfour feet road bed, with bitches
on each side eight feet wide, and sloping
to sixteen inches deep next to the fences,
at the rate of eighty rods in ten hours
The commissioners having assigned him a
piece of road to work upon which had
been worked some before, having old
bitches to FILL culverts to cross, and quite
a sticky muck where scrapers could not
work at all, Mr.. Edwards accepted. Co.
ing over the ground he found he could
make better job by working through
and beyond certain low gummy hole
and added some twelve rods to his allot-
ted task on one end, and by working
over certain rise and filling up washed
out road, added about twenty five rods at
the other end making, in all III rods,
which was nicely graded, rounded and
smoothed down in seven and one-fourth
hours working time, proving this machine
capable of doing one half mile of road in
hn1,rc 10,,h1o hot ;+o
claimed for it, building his road at cost
of y cents per rod. The commissioners
bought the machine, and paying the
cash on the spot.
Now just look at it. Ifgood roads can
be built for 10 cents per rod, or $32 per
mile, every town can afford to have good
roads, and ought to be prosecuted if they
neglect having them. Every township
six miles square has seventy-two miles
of section lines requiring full roads.
Seventy-two miles at $32 per mile is
$2,3O4.
If town has poll tax list of 100, and
employs it running a grader, it would
lessen the cost of building the roads $500
per year, or 5000 in three years, so that
80, 700 would in three years buy machine
and build all the roads in the township
with tax of 5000 a year. Few towns
raise so small sum. The roads in town
all built in so short time would enable
the poll tax thereafter to keep them in ex-
cellent repair without any further taxes
Now let us look at the old method in
comparison. At 81 per rod, to grade "
miles would cost SCI, 1000. The interest
alone ON this amount would grade by
machinery in one year.
10 raise this amount, at $500 year,
would take twenty-six years including
the delinquent tax money, by which time
the early made roads would require to be
built anew, as there would be no end to
the work and taxes. Any town where
the land averages $40 per acre has only
to raise the tax of 40 cents on 800 for
three years to accomplish the building of
| their roads. Now let us consider the
advantages a moment.
During the past winter l have known
many men who have lost hundreds of
dollars by being prevented by bad roads
from marketing their crops. Good roads
would certainly have paid for themselves
in such case. This spring, owing to the
wet season, many towns without drain
age have been very late in planting, and
crops thereby injured to an extent not
readily estimated, but unquestionable
Good roads mean good drainage as much
Is sooo oialnase means goo0 roads
Any man wishing to buy farm would
pay IS an acre more for land in a town
where the roads were we'll graded than 81
where they were not. So you can see
the actual value of town of e, 900 acres
is increased $115, 600 by three years use
of GRADER.
These things are real, they are true.
Can any man lay claim to common sense
or common honesty who fills the office of
road commissioner and neglects to secure
for his town the advantages of a New
Era.