The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1892-04-08

ly established that a good road roller
is the most valuable piece of machin-
cry employed in the road-maker's art;
and indeed, without it, neither can
the foundation or subsOil of the road
way be made uniformly hard and re-
liable, nor the surface-layer be given
that uniform compactness and solidity
which give excellence to the road and
insure a perpetual economy in the
cost of maintenance and repairs. To
one who has seen a heavy rOad-roller
used in cOmpacting the soil of new
roadway these facts will be very evil
dent. If a length of one thousand
yards in an ordinary earth road be
cut to an exact and uniform grade one
foot below the original surface of the
road, it will be found in most cases
that the new surface thus exposed
will present an appearance which, to
the ordinary observer, is of a uniform
material and even hardness from end
to end but the passage of roller
weighing from ten to fifteen tons over
this new surface will soon disclose de
fects and soft spots located at irregular
intervals throughout the length of the
work; and as the process of rolling
continues, the uniformity of the grade
will disappear, and what at first APP
peared to be tolerably satisfactory
surface will develop into a succession
of humps, holes and undulations. In
the using of the roller in actual work
these depressions and soft spots are
carefully filled and brought to the
line of the required grade, while the
successive passing of the heavy roller
over the filling gives to the entire road
that form and consistency which are
so essential to every good highway.
1t is true that heavy rollers are rarely
used in the construction or improve
ment of dirt roads but this is owing
as much to a lack of knowledge of the
real value of a good roller as to the
| apparently formidable outlay involv-
ed in it's first cost. All dirt roads be-
come hard and passable by the use of
a roller. Every wagon wheel acts as a
roller upon the road-surface, and the
value of its rolling qualities depends
upon the width of the wheel-tires and
the load which the wheel sustains;
but the wagon-wheel is generally
made SO narrow as to create ruts in
many cases, and its use always tends
to develop the weak spots, humps,
holes and undulations which are so
quickly revealed in the use of the reg
ular roller. Moreover, the rolling
qualities exerted by the wheels of
passing traffic are never bestowed uni
formly upon the entire width of the
roadway, but are confined throughout
the length of most country roads to
the two narrow lines of travel which
marked the tracks of the wheels of the
first passing vehicle, and which seems
to have been followed with scrupulous
care by all the vehicles which came
after. The result is that the roadway
on both sides of these beaten tracks is
often left in soft, muddy, or rutty
condition, and when two heavily load
ed vehicles are compelled to pass each
other, the necessity of turning out re-
suits in a breakdown, or in the delay
and difficulty which are familiar to
every farmer just in proportion to the
number of times that he has been
stuck in the mud by reason of the con-
ditions here described. The writer
has made mention here of the value
and use of a road-roller in connection
with the maintenance of the ordinary
dirt road, not with the belief that ex-
pensive road-rollers will be purchased
for use solely upon the dirt roads in
our country districts, but rather be-
cause it is believed that in the near
future every progressive county will
make use of the road-roller in the MAX
ing and keeping of its important roads
and streets, and that a hint given here
may serve to instruct the county road
authorities in the fact that good
road-roller, when not profitably en-
ployed upon the higher-class Macadam
and Telford roads, may often be made
to serve with value and economy in
the improvement of adjacent dirt
| roads. In the grading of a dirt road
the work may generally be cheapened
and improved by employing one of
the various forms of road machines
which have come into use within the
last few years. In it's common form
this machine is provided with an adj
Unstable steel-shod blade which cuts,
scrapes and forms the earth to the de-
sired grade, and, when drawn by one
or two teams, generally performs it's
work in a commendable and satisfac-
tory way.