The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1908-05-08

4
| used until the water has dried |:
| up and the mud becomes hard? ::
| Complete directions to time, and ::
| manner of using is wanted. !!
The Free Press does not know of
any better answer to the above query
than the article which Delward King,
the road drag man wrote for The
Saturday evening Post recently:
There is something startling in the
statement that a drag is the imple-
ment that is going to revolutionize the
wagon roads of this country and save
many millions of dollars to the rural
population of the United States. Yet
| make this statement and put upon it
all the emphasis of which / am capa-
bic.
Downright absurd" do you ex-
claim?
| / have had hundreds of road makers
greet with jeers less sweeping state
ment of the case-and then go home
and prove to themselves that | was
and am right. Have you any idea
what it means to change the bad
roads into good roads? Such a revo-
hutton would climb SO high in figures
as to be almost beyond comprehen-
sion. Not long after l had made my
| first complete demonstration of the
drag method, one of the road officers
of my state said that if all of the road
officers of the state could stand there
and see what he saw it would be
worth a hundred thousand dollars a
year to the state.
| 1t is impossible to express in fig
ures the value of such a revolution in
road making as results from the gen
eral use of this new and "absurdly
simple method" In state so long
settled and progressive as Ohio, for
example more than so per cent of the
roads are of earth and the interest
shown by Massachusetts, and New
York and some other eastern states III
the drag methods indicates the inn
portance of team transportation.
| In some of the western states
thousands of miles of wagon roads
| have been reclaimed and made perma
nently good by the drag. 1t is of
value on all kinds of roads, even
gravel roads. Did you ever notice a
hog wallow holding water all sum
mer? That is because the hogs had
| SO plastered the mud as to make a
cement BASIN That's what the drag
does for the road. By it's constant
use after rain, it cements the top
so that the rain will run off like
water off ducks back" To be per-
feet road must be oval, smooth and
hard, All of these indespensables are
acquired by the use of the drag in any
/ soil on earth. !
One day a doctor told me this story I:
81 was driving down your way the 9th
err night to see a patient. You know
how rough all the roads have been
lately-well, L was rafting along
when / was aroused by the buggy
running so smooth-felt like a sleigh
skimming over the snow. Well, l had
4 struck stretch of dragged road"
/ l received a letter from congress
man DeArmund, who said, that in
making his campaign he could tell in
the dark every foot of road that had
Experienced the magic influence of
the drag"
There are few bugaboos that have
| to be met wherever this gospel of
good roads is introduced and one of
them is capillary attraction" This
force is declared by Scientific ex-
perts" to be the thing that will draw
the water up into the dragged road
and make it soft. The answer is sim
ply that it doesn't. -
| Another bugaboo is the calamity
that will come when "the bottom falls
out in the spring" Again the answer
is that the bottom" does not fall out
of dragged road, because the drag
does not put down a lot of mud into
cold storage with the coming of the
first freeze. The thing that plays hob
with roads is midland mud is earth
how wagon wheels cut SO deep until
saw man put rod down into
earth eight feet with his hands by
pouring water in a hole and jabbinS
it down, then it occurred to me that
is digging, by mixing a little water
with dirt, and its precisely what a
wagon wheel does to a muddy road
a road where the water can stand un-
til 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 purposes &C.
ment-to make an oval roof that will
not let the water stand.
At one of our meetings in Nebras-
ka, a road commissioner came to me-.
very much troubled about gumbo
highway under his supervision. 81
suppose" said he, shat if you had
| this road to take care of, as soon as
you saw hollow place in it you
would go and get dirt and fill it in?"
"No," l replied. 81 would fill in be-
fore there was any hollow place
| there"
Apparently he did not understand
so / looked about for an illustration
| by which I could make it clear to him.
Just at that moment I noticed that he
had head of thick wavy hair and
| said: "How often do you comb your
| hair?'
'Why three times a day of course"
| he answered. Then / came back at
him with this question::
| "Why don't you wait until there are
tangles or at least Indications of tan
gles before you begin to drag it with
a comby'' That's the precise plan
upon which traditional road making
| . I,