Panama City pilot. (Panama City, Washington County, Fla.) 1907-19??, 1908-04-02
Hints On Good Roads.

roads gives out the following inter-
esting information:
While American road builders are
as capable of constructing as good
roads as those of any country of the
old world, they have not been as
Loyalty supported as the men ofthose
countries in maintaining the high
ways after completion, and the de-
plorable state of many hundred
thousand miles of road is thus ac-
counted for. County and township
officials may at the outset stand the
expense of having a road built, but
they strenuously 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 country boards
be impressed with the need of
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 en-
emieS of earth roads are water and
narrow tires, and constant effort of
the men in charge Ofthe roads should
be to guard against their destructive
effects and remedy all damage as
quickly as possible. The simple inn
plements which have been found to
be of greatest assistance in this work
are the pillow, the drag scrapper, the
wheel scraper, the road grader and
the split-lOng drag.
With sandy soil and a subsOil of
clay, or clay and gravel, deep plOW-
ing 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 a trifling
expense. On the other hand, if the
road be entirely of sand a mistake
will be made if it is plOWed, unless
clay can be added. Such blowing
would merely deepen the sand, and
the same time break up the small
amount of hard material which
may have formed. If the subsoil is
clay and the surface scant in sand
or gravel, blowing should not be re-
sorted to, as it would result in a clay
surface, rather than one of sand or
gravel. A road foreman must know
not only what to Esow and what not
to pillow, but how and when to plOW
If the road is of the kind which, ac-
cOrding to the above instructions,
should be plOWed over its whole
width, the best method is to run the
first furrow in the middle of the road
and work out to the sides, thus form
ing a crown. Results from such plOw-
ing are greatest in the spring or ear
ly summer.
In bitches 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" it
is especially serviceable. 1t is a mis-
take, however, to attempt to handle
lOng-haul material with this scraper,
as the wheel scraper is better adopt
ed to such work. For hauls of more
than 500 feet a 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. \
clay subsoil under a thin coating of
soil should not be disturbed with a
grader. 1t is also mistake to use
gradar indiscriminately and to pull
material from bitches upon a sand
clay road. Not infrequently turf, soil
ana silt from ditch bottoms are piled
in the middle of the road in a ridge,
making mudhOles a certainty. 1t is
important in using a grader to avoid
building up the road too much at one
time. \ road gradually built up by
frequent use of the the grader will
last better than if completed at one
operation. The foreman frequently
thinks his road must be high in the
first instance. He piles up material
from ten inches to a foot in depth
only TO learn, with the arrival of the
first rain, that he has furnished the
material for as many inches of mud.
All material should be brought up in