The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1905-07-27


gone wrong with the running gear o.
the buggy. But the trouble was with
the road! had simply struck your
little stretch of dragged road, and
| the buggy skinned oyerit as smooth.
ly as sleigh runs over packed snow
There are a few bugaboos that have
to be met wherever this new gospel is
| introduced. One of these is capillary
attraction. This force is declared by
scientific experts to be the thing
that will draw water into the dragged
| road and make it soft. The only an.
swer to this is simply, that it doesn't.
Another popular bugaboo is the
calamity that will surely swallow up
the dragged road when the bottom
falls out in the spring." Again, the
answer is that the bottom does not
fall out OF the road that has been
dragged with a split-log, because the
dragged road. unlike the other kind,
does not put down a lot of mud into
cold storage with the coming of the
first deep freeze. The thing that plays
hob with the roads is midland mud
is earth and water mixed. | never
realized how it is that wagon wheels
can cut down SO deep into al ordi-
nary road until | had a certain ex-
perience with a lightning-rod man. l
drew the contract myself and, know
ing that the rod should be grounded
in soil that would always be in a
moist condition, specified that the
rod must be sunk at least eight feet
into the ground.
When the workman came to put up
the rod the foreman asked for a buck
ct of water, a dipper and spade. I
could see where there would be plenty
of exercise for the spade but the other
things puzzled me. With the spade
the man took out just enough earth
to get down under the crust. Then
he took hold OF a length OF rod and
damned the end down in the center
of the hole he had made with his
spade. 1t didn't sink more than
three or four inches. / was just about
concluding that the man was an igno-
ramus for trying to sink the rod that
way, when he took it out and poured
a dipperful of water into the little
hole. Again he inserted the end of
rod and began to chug it down. The
way it sank through the moistened
soil made my eyes open. A little more
water and a little more chugging. and
in few minutes he had put that rod
down eight feet into the earth with
out removing more than half a
shovelful of dirt. Then it came to
me-that's digging by mixing little
water with dirt, and it's precisely
what wagon wheel does to muddy
rOad-a road where the water can
stand until something comes along
to mix it with the earth; while on the
other hand, the dragged road uses a
coat OF mud-to all practical pur-
poses cement-tO make an oval
roof that will not let the water stand.
At one OF our meetings in Nebraska
a road commissioner came to me
very much troubled about stretch
OF gumbo highway under his SUPER
vision. 81 suppose" said he. "that
if you had this road to take care of,
as soon as you saw a hollow place in
it you would go and get dirt and fill
1t in?"
No." replied, 81 would fill it in
before there was any hollow place
there"
Apparently this statement was a
little beyond his grasp, and so l tried
to think ofsome illustration bv which
| could make it entirely clear to him.
just ut that moment l happened to
notice that he had head of thick,
wavy hair. This gave me the inspir-
alton | needed, and said:
Glow often do you comb your
hair?"
"Why, three times day, of course"
he answered, flushing sli ghtly.
Then | came back at him with the
question:
'Why don't you wait until there
are tangles, or at least indications OF
tangles in it before you begin to drag
it with comb? That's precisely the
plan upon which traditional road
making is conducted. You have been
in the habit of waiting until the
tangles were there, and, consequent
ly you had to use much heavier i'm
plement, with the result that YOU
moved a great deal more-earth!"
Everywhere the rallying-cry OF this
movement is: "From your own front
gate to your neighbours front gate
toward town." Thus, the thing al
ways starts with the farmers own
self-interest, but leads him directly
beyond his own line-fence to the place
where he finds himself working for the
general good of the community.
There are three considerations that