Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1891-02-06
BUILDING COUNTRY ROADS.
An Instructive and Interesting Address.
Wider Wagon Tires.

Mr.. William A. Sweet, president OF
the association for the improvement of
the highways of the state of New York,
recently delivered an address upon road
building before the supervisors of Onon-
daga county and Others
Mr.. Sweet said that any good engineer
could make a macadamized road and
added that 80 per cent. of the roads in
this state should be made of the material
right at hand He added
eff you will observe next spring. as
soon as the ground begins to dry off,
where the good pieces of road are, you
will find that it is on the little knobs
here and there that divide the level
spaces. Now, if it is good road, there
is a reason for it. Let us stop and see
what the reason is. With all my OBJ
servation-and have been quite an OBJ
serving man and boy for fifty years.
never could yet see any reason why that
| little piece of road was better than the
other, except because it was dry have
never found any man that could give me
any reason why little knoll was bet
ter piece of road than the hollow each
side of it, but because it was dry. Now, if
we put in ditch and absolutely drain the
level off so it is just as dry as the knoll.
we will have all the road just as dry and
good as the knoll.
THE first place to commence spend
ing your time and money, if you have a
piece of road that is fairly level and bad
ly rutted, is to begin at the lowest point
in this level and ditch up toward the
knobs and put in good drain of tile
right in the middle of the road. will
now illustrate on the blackboard why
you want it there. See that you have a
thorough open outlet to take this water
out and make that road dry, and make
it so that when it rains it will become
dry quickly again. If it is convenient
for you to fill that with cobblestones or
gravel, and not at too great cost, of
course, do so, or with any earth that is
more porous than clay. If you do not
have to draw the material too far fill it
with something that is gravelly, or of
gravelly nature, if you can"
The road being in a condition where it
can be kept dry, the question of the care
of it was presented, and the first step
was to keep it free from ruts in which
dust would form and water settle, disin-
tegrating the roadbed. On this point
Mr. Sweet said:
Il have observed, ever since I was q
boy, way to prevent ruts, and have
been talking it for thirty years. In turn
ing around the corners of country road
where the roads come together, or what
I
seen a rut. | have never seen arut with
in so or 100 feet of corner of either
one of the roads. Here is fact that is
before your eyes every day of the year,
and has been ever since you We're able to
drive a horse: That the roads around
these four corners are comparatively
smooth always. summer and winter,
spring ard fall. Now, there must be
some reason for it. The only reason |
can see is this: The wheels do not track.
Every wheel that does not track rolls
down and makes the road harder, but
when the wheels do track and have gone
over the road the first time, the first
wheel makes a mark; it rolls down the
road, in fact: the hind wheel following
it rolls it little deeper, and so on in
proportion. But when your neighbor
comes along and drives exactly in the
same track and makes it little deeper,
and the other neighbor follows along and
it is made still little deeper, and by
the time six people have driven over the
road with six loads of produce you have
got some ruts, and if it rains in the after
noon when you come back over that road
you will find that those little ruts are
holding little water and that water,
gentlemen, is the devil. That little rut
with that little water is the devil You
don't notice it until it gets to be great
big rut, and great big rut full of mud
dy water: and that, you observe, is the
devil And it is the little rut that you
made that is the devil, not the big one.
1t is the seed, the acorn, that grows into
the oak tree, and so it is the little rut
makes your road impossible.
"Now, | am coming to the point of
how to keep from having ruts upon this
road 1t is simply that only wagons
should be made with the tires at least
one-third wider than they are now, and
that the hind wheels of every four
wheeled vehicle should be made the
width of the tires that are on the wheels,
and one inch besides wider than the
forward axles, so that the hind wheels
shall not track in the width of their own
tires, and an inch space between the
tracking of the wheels, provided the
man was driving perfectly straight. /
would let the carriage maker make his
fore wheels of the wagons any width he
chose to, but the hind wheels should al
ways be the width of the tires and one
inch wider than the fore wheels on each
side. would also, if l could, make a
law stating how wide these tires should
be, SO that every wheel that passed over
that road should become roller down
instead of cutter up. as your wheels
are today.
Now you may take what is known as
the ordinary three-quarter buggy and
put on it, as they do now, a three quar-
ter tire. l would make that tire, by
law, an inch wide at least. if not II
inches, and so on through all the wagons.