Willmar tribune., 1901-07-03
BLACK EARTH ROADS.
When Properly Constructed and
Cared For This Sort of Highway
Ii Not to BE Despised,

For several years I was an earn-
est advocate of hard roads, and be-
lieved that the best interests of the
farmer demanded them, but have to
considerable extent changed nv
mind. For over year I have been
watching real up-to-date "road-
keeper" care for about eight miles of
common black-earth road, and to say
he has done good work would be
putting it. mildly. am now we'll
satisfied that if our common earth
roads are properly and thoroughly
cared for-if they are we'll built at
the right time and repairs are made
promptly-there is no necessity
whatever for going to the enormous
expense of building hard roads ex-
cept in limited districts. In due time
the trolley will come into the west, as
it already has into many portions of
the east, and in most sections dong
hauls of farm produce will soon be
a thing of the past. Where the ma
terials for making hard roads are
cheap and near by they can be
built at reasonable cost; but when
they are distant and must be freight
ed it is nonsense to talk about build
ing them. 1t would be far better to
adopt the method of the ''road-keep-
er" mentioned above.
His district lies in a black-soil Sec
tion where rain quickly converts soil
into mud. He has learned that where
the grade is tile-drained and rounded
so that the water quickly flows off,
the road is easily kept in good condi-
ton. The first thing done was to pro-
vide good drainage; after that to
keep the grade we'll rounded and the
ruts filled by the use of the road
hone. AS soon after a rain as the
grade is dry enough the hone is run
over it and the surface made perfect
ly smooth. At the edges of bridges
and culverts, where are often found
ugly ''drop-offs" and deep ruts when
the roads are not properly cared for,
he dug out the soil to a depth of
about 19 inches and filled in with
broken brick and tile, covering them
with cinders, and there the road is as
solid as rock. To place one man
in charge of the roads of a town.
ship or district would remove the
burden and bother of mountaineering
off the farmers, and most of them
could, by attending to their crops at
the season when road work should
be done, make many times more than
they could save by tinkerlng on the
road. The idea of working a road
into fair condition one week and let
ting it go to- ruin the rest of the
year is utter foolishness, and the
sooner a change is made the better.
The reading, thinking farmer knows
this, and he is patiently waiting for
the leaven to work among his neigh
bors. Agitation for costly hard roads
and a great burden of debt has served
to intensity the opposition to reason
able schemes for road improvement.
The best thing we can do till the troll
ley comes, and after it comes, is to
adopt the ''road-keeper's" system
pay steady, skilled men a salary to
build our roads in the best manner
with the material at hand, and then
keep them up the year round. If this
is done we will have, even in the
blaclz-soil districts, very good roads
nine of ten months of the year, and
they would be passable the other two
months, while the cost of living would
in the end be much less than the
present overseer -poll-tax-everybody-
work foolishness. - Fred Grundy, in
Farm and Fireside.