The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1894-05-03
re About Good Roads.

Much has been said and written
throughout the United States, in the
last year or two, of road reform,
and great deal of progress has been
made in that direction, the best
proof OF which is the interest mani
tested by the people on this subject.
The public, in most localities, is de.
better roads, and in what
ever community this demand is made
the means will be provided for
the roads as good rs it is
possible TO make them with the ma
terial at Hand.
The inventor and manufacturer
have come, as usual, to supply the
long felt want, Just as the interest
in this question has reached the point
which gives them hope of just re-
ward for the product of mind and
hand The Road Machines which
are offered to the public now are as
much Of an improvement over scrap.
ers and shovels as the modern binder
is over Me old fashioned cradle.
The Road Machines now offered
the public for plowing and smoothing
the roads, and the Wheeled Scrapcrs
for grading down the hills and filling
the hollows enable road officers to
make good and easy roads for the
greater part of the year with ordinary
soil, and 10 make permanent Gravel
aud Mecadam roads mt greatly reduc-
ed cost.
The object of this treatise is to
give the public the consolidated
ideas and conclusions of large mum.
Der Of practical and experienced
workers as TO how the best roads
noss he made usir.g the soil
found Ia the various States.
GRADING AND DRAINAGE.
The first point to work at then is
drainage. Open bitches will afford
sufficient drainage where the fall is
sufficient to carry the water out of
the bitches quickly. If the country
over which the road leads is too level
toafford sufficient fall, the tile drains
are of great importance. In the
Western States, where the highways
have been established forty feet wide
and more, the mistake may be made
OF grading the roadway too wide.
Twenty-four feet should be the eX-
treme width between bitches. which
should be twelve inches deep mt the
lowest point on the outside unless it
is desired to slope the ditch toward
the outer edge of the road.
CAUSE OF BAD ROADS.
One of the chef causes of bad
roads has been the impossibility of
carrying the dirt from the bitches to-
ward the centre of the road aud dis.
tributing it with uniformity and in
such form as to shed the water quick
ly before and after settling. which is
essential in an earth road.
Earth carried in by drag scraper,
even if carefully smoothed with the
shovel after being deposited in the
roadway, will settle unevenly, leaving
places in the form of basins which
hold the water when the rains and
SHOWS come. Travel quickly develops
these into mud or chuck holes of the
worst character. As the earth is us.
ually deposited by the drag scraper
however, that is to say in humps and
pits, the roads are made simply ex
ecrable from the moment the damage
is done. The word damage" is used
advisedly. The roads made by Road
Machines, by which is meant the i'm
proved machines which plow the
roads by means of u diagonal stee
blade suspended from frame, are
left in a perfectly smooth condition
by the machine, and the work is SC
quickly and cheaply done and the
work so durable that all will agree
that the making and repairing o.
earth roads should be done by one
of this class of machines, There
fore, the first thing to do is to Sc
lect a grader best adapted to the
work.
REPAIRING ROADS.
Those charged with the repair o.
the Highways should frequently in
spect them carefully note where the
water does not flow freely on account
of too shallow or obstructed bitches
where culverts are needed, wher'
they are too small or are obstructed