Amador ledger., 1908-04-03
HINTS ON ROAD WORK.
U. s. Tells How to Make and
Maintain a Model Earth Road.

maintain a 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 countries in maintaining the
highways after completion, and the
deplorable state of many hundred
thousand miles of road is thus &C.
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 90 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 pro-
per 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 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
effects and remedy all damage as
quickly as possible. The simple i'm
plements which have been found to
be of greatest assistance In this work
are the pillow, the drag scraper, the
wheel scraper, the road grader, and
the split-log drag.
With sandy soil and subsoIl of
clay, or clay and gravel, deep plow-
ing so as to raise and mix the clay
with the surface sol and sand will
prove beneficial. The com biuation
for ms a sandclay road at a trifiing
expense. On the other hand, If the
road be entirely OF sand mistake
will be made it it is plowed unless
clay can be added. Such blowing
would merely deepen the sand, and at
the Esame time break up the small
amount of hard surface material
which may have 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 a
clay surface rather than one of sand
or gravel. road foreman must
know not only what to plow and what
not to pillow, hut how aud when to
pillow. IT the road is of the kind
which according to the above IN.
structions 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 forming a crown. Results from
such blowing are greatest in the
spI ing or early summer.
In bitches pillow can be used to
good advantage, but should be follow
ed by scraper or grader. 10 make
wide, deep bitches nothing better
than the ordinary drag scraper has
yet been devised. For hauls under
100 feet, or in making ILLS" 1t is
especially serviceable. 1t is mis-
take, 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
machine. This machine is especially
useful in smoothing and GROWING
the road and in opening bitches. A
clay subsoil under a thin coating of
soil should not be distuT bed with
grader. 1t is also a mistake to use
q ader indiscriminately and to pull
material from bitches upon sand
clay road. Not infrequently turf,
SUI anu OIlb lEUul uIbCu OObLOho dIO
piled in the middle of the road in a
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 it completed at one
operation. The foreman frequently
thinks his road mus: no high in the
first instance. lie piles up material
from 10 inches to a foot in depth
only to learn, with the arrival of the
first rain, that he has furni shed the
material for as many inches OF mud.
All material should ba brought up in
thin layers, each layer we'll puddled
and firmly packed by roller or traffic
before the next is added. A common
no istake is to crown too high with the
road machine on narrow road.
The split-log drag shonld be used
to fiji in ruts and smooth the road
when not too badly washed. The
drag possesses great merit and is SO
simple in construction and operation
that every farmer should have one
special article will lie published
later telling how TO make and use the
drag