The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1908-04-17
HINTS ON ROAD WORK.
u. s. Office of Public Roads on Max.
ing and Maintaining Earth
Roads.

as capable of constructing good roads
as those of any country of the
world, they have not been as loyalty
supported as the men of those coun-
| tries in maintaining the highways
after completion, and the deplorable
state of many hundred thousand of
miles of road is thus accounted for.
County and township officials may
at the outset stand the expense of
having a road built, but they strenu-
ously object when asked to provide
funds to rebuild the road that has
been allowed to go to ruin.
1t is important that farmers learn
of the benefits to be derived from
good earth roads; that county boards
be impressed with the need of a
proper maintenance of the same, and
that road builders and overseers
learn how best to care for the roads
in their charge.
The persistent and powerful enc
mics of earth roads are water and
narrow tires, and the constant eff
fort of the men in charge of the
roads should be to guard against
their destructive effects and remedy
all damage as quickly as possible.
The simplest implements which have
been found to be Of greatest assist
ance in this work are the pillow, the
drag scraper, the wheel scraper, the
road grader, and the split-log drag.
With a sandy soil and a sub-soil
of clay, or clay and gravel, deep
blowing so as to raise and mix the
clay with the surface soil and sand
will prove beneficial. The combina-
ton forms sand-clay road at a tri-
fling expense. On the other hand, If
If the road be entirely of sand a mis-
take will be made If 1t is plowed un-
les clay can be added. Such plow-
ing would merely deepen the sand,
and at the same time break up the
small amount of hard surface mater
ial which may be formed. If the
sub-soil is clay and the surface scant
In sand or gravel, blowing should not
be resorted to, as it would result in
clay surface rather than one Of
sand or gravel. A road foreman
must know not only what to pillow
and what not to pillow, but how and
when to plow. IL the road is of the
kind which according to the above
instructions should be plowed over
it's whole width, the best method is
to run the first furrow in the mid
die of the road and work out to the
sides, thus forming a crown. Re-
suits from such blowing are great
est in the early spring or summer.
In bitches a pillow can be used to
good advantage, but should be fol-
lowed by scraper or grader. To
make wide deep bitches nothing bet
ter than the ordinary drag scraper
has yet been devised. For hauls un-
der 100 feet, or In making fills"
1t is especially serviceable. 1t Is a
mistake, however, to attempt to ham
die long haul material with this
scraper, as the wheel scraper is bet
ter adapted to such work. For hauls
of more than 500 feet, wagon
should be used.
The machine most generally used
in road work is the grader, or road
machine. This machine Is especially
useful in smoothing and browning
the road and in opening bitches. A
clay subsoil under a thin coating of
soil should not be disturbed with a
grader. 1t is a mistake to use
a grader Unfortunately and to pull
material from bitches upon a sand
clay road. Not infrequently turf,
soil and slit from ditch bottoms are
piled in the middle of the road in
ridge, making mudholes a certainty.
1t is important In using grader to
avoid building up the road too much
at one time. A road gradually built
up by frequent use of the grader will
last better than II completed at one
operation. The foreman frequently
thinks this road must be high in the
first instance. He piles up the ma
terial from 10 inches to a foot in
depth only to learn, with the arrival
of the first rain, that he has furn-
ished the material for as many
inches of mud. All material should
be brought up in thin layers, each
layer we'll puddled and firmly packed
by roller or traffic before the next
is added. A common mistake is to
crown too high with the road ma
chine on narrow road.
The split log drag should be used
to fill In ruts and smooth the road
when not too badly washed. The
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