Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1908-10-10
DAY OF MACADAM ROAD
SAID TO BE PAST.
Elastic Surface Needed to Withstand
Extra Wear.

Elastic Surface Needed to Withstand
Extra Wear.
New York, October There is
growing sentiment in favor of the
belief that the present building OF
country roads with macadam will
sooner or latter be done away with.
One of the principal speakers at the
Atlantic City Good Roads Convention,
Engineer James E. Owen, former
county engineer of Essex, N. j.. as
serted that, in his opinion, the road
of the future would not be con-
structed of stone. but of dirt with
some added binder. The speaker said
that an elastic surface was needed to
Withstand the combined action of
automobile and wagon traffic, and he
was convinced that the macadam
roadbed was doomed.
It is we'll known that the macadam
road is possibly the most dusty in dry
weather of any type of road, and the
wearing of the surface of the more or
less imperfect stone provided the dust,
which is blown away by the wind,
leaving a very ragged surface when
the top dressing has been removedll
A New jersey firm recently, offered
to build a cartain number miles of
road for county, using other
material than macadam, and agreed
to Keep the road in perfect condition
for term of three years, which
1 showed their faith ia the new
material, whatever it is, but which
seems to De a secret at the present
| time.
1t has been said that a material
known as Stag, produced from blast
furnaces and other iron producing
plants, would make good road, pro-
vided binder was used that would
prevent any ragged edges of the Stag
cutting tires and injuring the hoofs
/ of horses.
EXPERIMENTS IN MASSACHU-
SETS.
In Massachusetts, the town of New
ton is experimenting with an entire
new idea, and building half mile
of road, the foundation of which is to
be macadam, but the surface is a
combination of pulverized stone and
thick refuse Of sugar reineries, a
sort of molasses resembling tar as
much as anything. In preliminary
experiment this molasses was found to
be as good binder for road surface
as coal tar, and has been used in
many different ways for the same
purpose, but the sweet stuff is not
destructive on tires or clothes
This new road has been called the
candy road. Florida is discussing it,,
and the people there believe it may be
possible that the old Spanish sugar
mill that utilized SO much sugar cane
may again be started up, and in that
case the refuse could be mixed with
the plentiful soft limestone found in
Dade County, and other parts of
Florida, and perfect system of roads
result.
Of course Cuba and other sugar pro :
Quoting countries will be right in it,
as the Cuban refneries have used the
refuse in the past as fertilizer, and of
late have been making cheap alcohol
form it. A short time ago it was
thought that the automobile engine
would eventually be driven by alcohol,
and that low priced fuel would be
had in consequence, but up to now
not much has been done in that direc
tion.
California has experimental a good
deal with a natural oil of a low
specific gravity, which the oil wells
of Lower California provide in
plenty.
One thing is certain, the future
road will be built of something other
than macadam, as it is too expensive
to maintain IN good condition ard it
will be up to the engineers and road
builders to develop new material.