The suburban citizen., 1902-08-02
Bad HLghways Mean Porerty.

delivered an address recently
before the Beech Island
Farmers Club, of South Carolina. He
said, in part;
The value of good roads receives new
/ light from the statement of authen-
ticated traction tests. on asphalt 1t
takes force of only seventeen pounds
to move a ton; on macadamized, 100
pounds on hard clay. 112 pounds; on
ordinary dirt, ,224 pounds while on sand
it takes 44S pounds! OF all possible
reads, sand roads are the worst. Not
aven the morass of red mud which
racks the nerves and kills the stock of
the up.country South Carolina way.
farer, for three months in midwinter,
is worse than all-the-year-round Aiken
sand! Moreover there is something to
| stimulate herosm in tackling an up
country hill, or an up-country road
full of mudhOles. There is an attrac.
tive novelty in the sheer uncertainty
rs to whether the next slough of mud
and water will completely engulf you,
and there is a stimulating uncertainty
as to just how hard it will be to sur
mount that thirty-five per cent. grade
ON the next hill But the dead-level.
mountainous, debilitating, always hard
grind of q sand bed is unwholesome for
4 mans feelings, killing to his stock
and paralyzing to his purse. A sand
bed to me represents despair. 1t never
oh : i1 ok oil
demands a tax of 400 per cent. of sur
plus energy needed for something else.
1t is the climax Of dscouragement to
a traveller, and Of profit-destroying ex-
penses TO a farmer
l said loose sand was the worst possi-
bic road and offered statistics to show
that it is four times as hard to draw
a load over sand as over hard clay.
However, there is one thing worse
than sand bed it is a sand hill Ex-
periments show that it takes something
more than six times the power to draw
a load up a five and one-half per cent.
grade on any sort Of road than it takes
to draw the same load on level roads
Now, if it is four times as hard to
draw a road on level sandy roads as
on level hard clay it will take twenty
four times the power 10 draw a load
up a sand hill Of five and one-half
per cent. that it would take to draw the
same load on good level roads. SO the
climax of traction impossibility is
reached on a sand hill. If these figures
seem fanciful to you, suppose you re-
fresh your own memory, which points
to their truth, by some experimental
ton. A man who lives in the sand hills
twelve miles from the market is practi-
cally out of the race with his fellow
farmers in trying to put produce on
the market in competition with them.
If you do not believe it look at the
run down condition of, for instance,
certain sections Of Edgefield and Aiken
counties which are handicapped by a
long haul and bad roads to market.
Sand roads are such an incubus in the
county in which we reside that some
special attention to their improvement
will be fit. The standard local and also
the governmental experimental treat
ment of sand roads is simply layer of
clay. Comparatively speaking, sand
roads require no drainage, they are
consttutionally too dry, il they We're
damper they would be better The
only drainage requisite is that there
be some bitches so constructed at
threatened points that they will take
off any dehge of water resultant ON
hard rains so that the bed of the road
may not be washed down into a great
gully, something very easy for a sand
road TO DO.
Local road experts tell me II will not
cost more than 500 per mile to put a
layer Of clay seven inches thick across
space eight feet wide on a road.
In this community clay can always
be had within a half mile Of the point
where it is needed.
If good clay roads can be constructed
for 500 or even $3.50 per mile it would
be magnificent investment for any
community with sand roads. Figures
given above show that sand is four
times as hard to haul over as good
clay. But say it is only twice as hard, !
over good clay roads twice the load |
could be carried, so that it would take
but half the time and labor at half the
expense If twelve tons are hauled TO
a one-horse farm at cost of 50 per ton
and there are 200 horse farms in the
township. it would take $4S00 10 do !
the hauling for that township. On
good clay roads it would cost not over
$4,000 a saving Of $2400, which would
clay twenty-four miles Of road.