Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1893-07-21
COUNTRY ROADS.
A Plain DOllars-and-Cents Talk.
About Draft.

a
an eXhilarating pace, and his horse slows
up, he is apt to touch him with the lash
and to throw all the blame on the horse.
The driver may not observe that the con
ditons of draft have suddenly changed,
and to a degree far greater than he has
any idea of. He may not know that even
a slight softening of the roadway doubles
the draft; but, if required to make the test
by his own eXerton, he would soon admit it.
To illustrate this, the following tests on
draft, from the work of William Youatt,
recognized authority may be of interest:
"a light four-wheeled cart, weighing with
its load 1000 pounds, was repeatedly drawn
upon different sorts of roads, with the fol-
lowing results:
Turnpike road, hard dry, 3Ol6 lbs
Ditto, dirty, 30 lbs
Hard, compact loam SO lbs
Ordinary by-rOad, 106 lbs
Loose, sandy road, 2O4 lbs
"Here the traction force includes friction
of the axle, which in this case amounted
to about 12t pounds, and which must in
each case be deducted to show the exact
resistance of the road. So that" contin-
ues William Youatt, "the portion of draft
Immediately caused by the state of the
road was 10 times as great as on a good
turnpike road, and 10 times as great as
that which arose from friction on the axle"
These experiments were made with wheels
of ordinary size and upon level roads.
Can any one controvert these data? If
not, then conviction of their truth may lead
to beneficial results.
a Question of Profit and Loss.
When hitching up to go to mill or mar
ket with load of corn, hay, lumber, lime
] hripl Co.
load to the bad places in the road; to that
stretch of muddy or sandy level, or to that
steep pitch where the strain on the team is
tremendous. He may not possess dyna-
mOmeter that would indicate a draft over
that reach of loose sand four times greater
than on that piece of road of compac'
loan, and would rise again 10-fold at the
steep pitch, but he has lively apprecia-
ton that if he puts on what he calls full
load, he would get stuck. The horses are
not at fault, but the road is He has no
practical knowledge of the common high
roads of Europe, even those of Norway
Sweden and Finland, where pair of
horses haul three or four tons, at all sea-
sons as easily as his fine team can haul
one ton under favorable conditions. Sup
pose the proportion to be three to one is
not there a pretty big margin Of loss, be-
tween poor roads and good roads, for the
farmer to take into account?
What IL Costs to Go on ShoveIIng Dirt.
How much do you calculate that your
roads, upon which you can haul at the
best but one-half, and on the average but
one-quarter, of full load, have cost you in
the last 10, 20 or 40 years? Is not the
answer a simple one? Has not every load
] haVa ha lal a e
horse flesh, or both, of 200 to 400 per cent?
Is it not much the same as throwing away
the whole cost of your hauling for 20 or 30
| years out OF the 10? Even 10 years haul
! ing for nothing, besides paying the road
tax or helping to comb down the sods tum-
bled into the road by pillow, is good deal
to pay for an opinion, unless you are very
sure you are right In Union county,
! \. j., where they have just inaugurated
the best system of reads, William Mcbride
calculates that all the main roads in New
Jersey might be laid with macadam pave
ment OF the best quality for what it has
! cost in the past few years to 'simply SHOW
ell dirt into the roads The rise in value
in real estate in that county and elsewhere,
by the introduction of first-class roads, has
been enormous, where no one before wish
ed to visit or reside.
Official government reports show that
the farmers have on their farms over 30,
100000 draft animals, representing a capt.
tai of nearly $1,000, 100000 OF horses
and mules there are more than 10000. 600.
and it is estimated that bad roads cost the
farmer Slj per year on each horse or mule
in his service, or an aggregate of $780,
100000, and that bad roads cause depre-
citation in farm lands of $4,000, 900, 900.
To this last may be added the vast amount
paid in road taxes, mostly wasted by leav.
ing the roads, year after year, as bad as ev.
er. Does not this represent a more serious
and even disastrous matter of annual loss
than you have ever before looked squarely
in the face?