St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1899-08-23

Farmers and often a statement which
seems to Offset his knowledge of road
building.
Some time ago he was attending n
meeting OF farmers who were invited
by officials Of tne League Of American
Wheelmen to hear General Harrison
and to learn from him what he pro-
posed to do with the experimental
roads he was to build in the township.
On this occasion one of the audience
spoke up and asked:
How deep do you propose to build
your road?"
Eight inches" was the reply.
why, man, that won't be any use
In this country! Why, sir, the frost
goes eight feet into the groundv
The rest Of the farmers sided in with
this remark and for some time had a
little fun at the generals expense. But
he Is always ready for such things,
and 1t did not take him long to turn
the tables on them.
You farmers have sheds on your
premises, of course" he replied, "and
you have often in the spring Of the
year, when the frost was coming out
Of the ground, been obliged to lay
planks to enable you to reach those
sheds without getting in the mud?"
They gave their assent to this state
ment, and he continued:
when you reached the shed, you
found the ground hard, firm and dry
under the roof, and yet the frost had
nearly an equal chance to get into the
ground there as it did outside" The
farmers saw the point.
"rhe whole philosophy of road build
ing" continued the general, lis to
build a roof over your road through
which the water cannot penetrate, and
the frost will amount to little. Now,
gentlemen, what l propose to do is to
put roof over your road. OF course
1t is impracticable to place this roof
up so that you can drive under it, but
! shall place the roof on the road so
that you may drive over it."
On another of the occasions when
the L. A. w. gave him a chance to adj
dress a similar meeting he was asked
the value of and the application Of
drains TO dirt roads.
"Have you as boy going barefoot
ed, as all boys should, noticed that by
working a piece of moist ground with
your feet you create mud? OF course
you have, and so has every boy that
ever lived. In that little act you have
the secret of bad roads. The moisture
in the ground, aided by constant trav-
ell, creates the mud holes and ruins
them. Now take sponge and soak it
full of water. You will find that the
big holes do not fill, but the fine pores
are the ones that hold the fluid. Place
the sponge in sieve over basin, and
you will find that it will become dry
in a short time, the water seeking the
basin below. That is just the principle
involved in making good dirt roads.
We place the drain through the center
of the roadway, and the earth above
holds the moisture, which, like the wa
ter from the sponge, seeps down to
fill the vacancy below in the drain and
is carried Off"
Building Material.
Every stone road unless properly
built with small stones and just
enough binding material to fill the
voids presents honeycombed appear
ance. In fact, measure containing
two cubic feet of broken stone will
hold in addition one cubic foot of wa
ter, and cubic yard of broken macad-
am will weigh just about one-half as
much as solid cubic yard of the same
kind of stone.
To insure solid roadway and to fill