The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1890-04-04
HOW TO USE THE ROAD scRAPER.
some Useful Hints the Repairing of
Roads.

In a little book on Improvement Of
Highways" prepared under the auspices
of the League of American Wheelmen,
an anonymous writer, who is vouched
for as authority, writes as follows on the
subject of road making as applied to the
care and improvement of the track:
''To provide smooth highway" he
says, sis now very simple and inexpen-
sive work, as labor saving machinery
has recently been introduced which, un-
der ordinary conditions, is very effective.
The road scraper,' or hone, mounted
in a frame on wheels and geared
so that it can be set to any plane
and angle, will smooth off and
round up a dirt road quickly and
cheaply, compared with former methods.
The general practice of the road master
has been to defer the annual repairs till
such time as the farmer has most leis-
ure or inclination to work out the road
tax; this would usually be late in the
summer, or even in the fall when the
road crust is at its hardest stage, and
after being broken up and spread anew
is too dry to harden again readily. Now
that the road hone may be used, work
that took a week in the fall may easily
be done in day in the spring. Thus
the road will be in the right form for
summer travel at the opening of the sea-
son, instead of at it's close. This would
also be making the repairs at the earliest
opportunity after the chief damage is
done. The worst ruts and ridges
are formed early in the spring
when the frost is thawing out,
and the ground, being loose and porous,
absorbs all the rainfall till the road bed
becomes spongy and miry. When the
ground has dried sufficiently to be neither
muddy nor crusty, the rough ridges are
in their most friable condition. They
can then be planed down with the road
hone with much greater ease, and the
material carried into the ruts and holes,
will pack and harden much better than
at any other time, whether the road be
chiefly clay, loan, sand, gravel or small
stones. This medium stage of dryness
gives the best conditions for easy and
effective work. If the work be neglected
for only a few weeks, the crust may
become so hard under the constant pres
sure of traffic and the baking sunshine
that the hone can make no impression
on it, If the work be deferred till
midsummer or later, the crown will
probably be worn off the center of the
road, and instead of shedding rain to
each side it will carry it along like
water course. Heavy thunderstorms
oft lo, xx-ha, rooI
thus becomes flat or hollow in the mid
die. To restore the proper form when
the margins become high and hard is
very laborious work, whether done with
pick and shovel or with plow and scoop.
The material will not pack readily in dry
weather, and the newly repaired road
may for weeks be in worse condition
than before it was worked. Instead of
extensive repairs of this character only
once year, it would be much better to
give timely scraping as soon as practi-
cable after the chief damage is done in
the spring, and also an occasional
honing after heavy rains, or whenever
from any cause the surface becomes
rough. One machine would be sufficient
for a large district, and the times, meth
ods and terms of the work can be ar
ranged on satisfactory and permanent
basis after a few years experience. Un-
der ordinary conditions fair road can
be maintained throughout the season
with simply this occasional passage of
the road hone over it. The cost would
be very small compared with present
methods. OF course these machines are
only suitable where the road is built up
with the ordinary soil or subsoil of the
district, or with perhaps more or less
gravel or small stones in certain sections.
This, however, is the ordinary structure
of all our country roads, and hence this
treatment will be quite generally appli-
cable"
In the same work is printed treatise
by Mr.. Clemens Herschel, which treats
of the kindred subject of road repairs as
follows:
CATER road has been properly rolled,
and the surface made compact and
smooth, it should always be maintained
in that condition, no matter how great is
the amount of travel on it, "A stitch in
time saves nine, here as well as else
where. The tendency is to produce ruts;
these gather water; this soaks into the
road bed and spoils the whole. The
problem can be put in this way: To have
q good road it is necessary that there be
no dust OF mud on the same, and that
there be no ruts; therefore, remove the
dust and mud as fast as they are formed
and fill up the ruts as fast as they are
made. The whole matter is here in
nutshell 1t may be thought, at the first
view, that this is too expensive system.
Its principal beauty lies, however, in
the fact that it costs less per
mile of road kept one year than
the pernicious system of annual or
semi-annual repairs, as can be shown
and proved. The above two rules
sweep off the mud and dust as fast as
they are formed, and fill up the ruts and
bad places with new materials as fast as
they appear-are all that is necessary to
be carried out in order that there be con-
tinualy good road. Without continual
repairs there can be no such thing as a
constantly good road-a proposition that
cannot too often be repeated. By repair
ing road annually, or twice year, it
matters not which, the result is, strictly
speaking, Il good road at no time during
the whole year. The road is wretched
Just after repairs; it becomes passable
after awhile, and deteriorates from that
day forward until it is again made
wretched; and SO on ad infinitum, ac-
cording to the present only too common
ly followed system. BY the other meth
cd is offered us a road as smooth as a
floor, year in and year out, and, let it
not be forgotten, at less eXDense"