The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1908-03-27
HINTS ON ROAD WORK.
How to Make and Maintain Model
Earth Road

How to Make and Maintain Model
Earth Road
While American road builders are
as capable of constructing good roads
as those Of any country of the old
world, they have not been as loyalty
supported as the men of those coun-
tries in maintaining the highways af-
ter completion, and the deplorable
state of many hundred thousand miles
of road is thus accounted for. County
and township officials may at the out
! set stand the expense of having a road
built, but they strenuously object
when asked to provide funds to re-
build 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 inn
pressed with the need of proper main
tenance of the same, and that road
builders and overseers learn how best
to care for the roads in their charge.
The persistent and powerful enemies
of earth roads are water and narrow
tires, and the constant effort of the
men in charge of the roads should be
to guard against their destructive eff
fects and remedy all damage as quick
ly as possible. The simple implements
which have been found to be Of great
est assistance in this work are the
plow, the drag scraper, the wheel
scraper, the road grader and the split
log drag.
With a sandy soil and a subsoil of
clay, or clay and gravel, deep plowing
SO as to raise and mix the clay with
the surface soil and sand will prove
beneficial. The combination forms a
sand-clay road at trifing expense.
On the other hand, if the road be en-.
tirely of sand, mistake. will be made
If it is ploWed unless clay can be
added. Such blowing would merely
deepen the sand, and at the same time
break up the small amount of hard
surface material which may have
formed. If the subsoil is clay and the
surface scant in sand or gravel, plow-
ing should not be resorted to, as it
would result in clay surface instead
rather than one of sand and gravel A
road foreman must know not only
what to plow and what not to plow, but
how and when to plow. If the road is
Of the kind which according to the
above instructions should be plowed
over its whole width, the best method
is to run the furrow in the middle of
the road and work out to the sides,
thus forming a crown. Results from
such plowing are greatest in the spring
or early summer.
In bitches a plow can be used to
good advantage, but should be fol-
lowed by scraper or grader. To make
wide, deep bitches nothing better
than the ordinary drag scraper has
yet been devised. For hauls under 100
feet, or in making fills" it is espec-
tally serviceable. 1t is mistake,
however, to attempt to handle long
haul material with this scraper, as The
wheel scraper is better adapted to
such work. For hauls of more than
800 feet, a wagon should be used.
The machine most generally used in
road work is the grader, or road ma
chine. This is especially useful in
smoothing and crowning the road and
in opening bitches. A clay subsoil
under thin coating of soil should not
be disturbed with a grader. 1t is also
mistake to use a grader indiscrimi-
nately and to pull material from
bitches upon a sand-clay road. Not
'infrequently turf, soil and silt from
ditch bottoms are piled in the middle
of the road in a ridge, making mud
holes a certainty. It~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
completed at one operation. The
no frequently thinks his road