The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-06-07
PRACTICALLY PROGRESS I'm ROAD IMPROVE
MENT.
MENT,

of the many sensible utterances of his, we have
found none more striking than that ON the good
roads problem as contained in his recent st.
Louis address. Of all the books and bulletins and
speeches on good roads that have been made and
published, none get nearer the heart of the matter
than this paragraph of his:
Before we take up the consideration of making
appropriations for building roads we must under
stand the nature of the work to be done. Road
building is a backward science. No striking ad-
vance has been made in it since Macadam, the
Scotch engineer, crushed rock. Road building is
one of the sciences of agriculture which must be
studied. 1t must be taught by men who know
their business, and then intelligently applied.
This country now has roads as good as the intelli-
gence and ability of the people enable them to
build. We will have better roads when our people
know more about materials and their application.
But the study of soils and the methods of making
roads from them is first necessary. How can the
people of the Mississippi Valley, for instance, be
expected to build rock roads when they have no
rocks? My own farm in Iowa is perhaps one
thousand miles from a quarry, and one hundred
and fifty miles from a gravel pit. How am I go
ing to build economical roads with those materi-
ais? The Department of Agriculture must edu-
cate the people to build roads out of soils of
their localities without the use of rock. When
they know how to do this it will be time enough
to consider the financial part of it."
This is indeed the right philosophy. We ought
to preach the Importance of macadamized high
ways where it is possible to have them, but the
next step forward is to have the Department of
Agriculture educate the people to build roads
out of soils of their localities without the use of
rock" And while we have once before reprinted
II ua tbiplr If worth while inst hero to eonr AGAIN
to this utterance of DR.. J. III. Pratts in the ar
ticle on good roads which he wrote for The Pro-
g~ressive Farmer some weeks ago:
"The best and only permanent road to make is,
of course, a graded stone road; but where this is
impracticable, the road should be improved by
grading, draining, and, where necessary, changing
the location of the old road. Where possible,
m~acadamized roads should be made, even if only
a mile a year can be constructed. In the western
counties of North Carolina there is an ample
supply of stone for this purpose, but in the east
ern counties where the surface of the country is
nearly level, stone for macadamzing purposes is
scarce, or entirely lacking. These counties, how
ever, do have means at hand, with which they can
improve their roads with a small expenditure of
money. Many of the sandy roads can be greatly
improved by the mixture of clay, which is often
to be found directly alongside of the road. In
a number of these counties limestone and shell
rock can be obtained at intervals and they make
a very serviceable and permanent road. Such
roads have been made at New Bern and Goldsboro.
Oyster and other shells readily lend themselves to
road building, and after being driven over for a
short time make a very hard, smooth and per
manent road which is very easily kept in repair,
as has been shown in the case of the shell road
between Wilmington and Wrightsville, New Han
over County. Where the road-bed is of a clayey
nature, it can often be improved by the admixture
of sand and gravel; and wherever such roads are