The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1904-02-12

exception, is regarded as Legitimate
prey to most who have to do with 1t,
and the effort always is to render as
small an equivalent as possible.
Sill. so long as politics control, such
men will continue TO be elected to ham
die the street fund, and so long--
though our taxes are no less-we shall
continue without decent streets.
And again | would say, that when |
took Off in the spring l determined
to see if the street fund could not pos
sibly, be made TO cover greater sur
face in better way than was usual.
have been told by a good many
good citiz.ns who watched the work
with intelligent interest that we made
the fund do double the duty it has
done in recent years, which goes 10
show that, such being the case, fully
fifty percent of the street fund has
hitherto been wasted utterly. | believe
this to he true.
The board OF trustees agreed early in
heir term OF office that not withstand
ing the fact that the village meeting,
wi HESS than fifty voters present, direct
ed that the stone crusher should be
left ol the river bank and quartzite
hariheads only b. crushed a1d used
on the public streets. o 60 as far as
g. leave the crushrr there, but not to
crush quartzie. They found upon in-
vestigation that in the year previous
sufficient stone could not he found in
the river bed aud that hundreds of
loads of old stone walls were drawnfr m
long distances tot the crusher; that If the
supply in the river we're found sufficient
it would hardly pay TO expend 3}s a
week on crusher jaws alone, to say
nothing of the sma Ter output from the
crusher plant and the inferior quality
of tn product
They believed that they were chosen
To Office to administer the all airs Of the
village in judicious, economical and
busile-slike manuer, and this they
dete' mined TO do, and have done to
he best of their ability. They found
that the chief difficulty with men
who advocate the use of hardheadS for
road construction lay in the cireum-
stance that other cities and even states
have used them or are using them to
some extent, but were unable TO dis
criminate between one hardhead aud
anorhpr Since there are as m my
kinds OF harih4ad as there are kinds
OF rock in the world, the word "hard-
head" signifies nothing.
But there being seemingly a vast
quantity OF hardheads in the Roaring
Branch that ought to be out OF it,
they we're pounced upon as being the
most available. But the hardheads
of that river are of quartzite, which
is compressed sand, and entirely
destitute of cementing qualities, and
therefore useless for roads. They are
case hardened, aud difficult to crush,
but when crushed readily disintegrate
and resolve readily into their original
element-sand.
And so the board bought back the
old stone crusher for few dollars
and set it up in gravel pit, and all
summer long crushed hardheads -
screenings from the gravel pit But,
then, these hardheads were not quart |
zite, | should say that fifty per cent
OF them we're lime stons, aud so better !
work was done with them than could !
possibly have been done with quart.
zite alone, Still, this was only tenn
porisldg aud irittering away time,
money and opportunity.
II could have had my way | would
have bought steam drill-costing /
$780, and doing the work OF thirty-six
men moved the crushing plant into
good lime stone quarry-and the whole
of Booth hill is the finest quality OF
lime stone and therefore the hnesi
road material ever dug out OF the
ground-and gone to work in busi-
ness-like way. I'll guarantee that
such material could be spread on our
thoroughfares anywhere for less than
fifty cents q ton.
l earnestly hope that the coming
village meeting will profit by these
suggestions, J. Il. Livingston.