Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1908-04-06
HINTS ON ROAD WORK.

THE u. S. OFFICE OF PUBLIC
ROADS HERE TELLS HOW TO
MAKE AND MAINTAIN A MODEL
EARTH ROAD. THE PLOW, THE
DRAG SCRAPER, THE ROAD
AND THE SPLIT LOG
DRAG ARE THE CONSTANT
OF THE ROAD OVER
SEER.
While American road builders are as
constructing good roads as
those of any country of the old world,
they have not been as Loyalty support
ed as the men of those countries in
maintaining the highways after COM
pletion, and the deplorable state of
many hundred thousand miles of road
is thus accounted 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 the farmers
learn of the benefits to be derived
from good earth roads; that county
boards be impressed with the need of
a 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 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 plow, the drag scraper, the wheel
scraper, the road grader, and the split
log drag.
With sandy soil and a subsoil of
clay, or clay and gravel, deep blowing
so as to raise and mix the clay with
the surface soil and sand will prove
beneficial. The combination forms
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 We uld merely deepen the
sand, and at the same time break up
the small amount Of hard surface ma
terial which may have formed. If
the subsoil is clay and the surface
scanty 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. A road foreman
must know not only what to pillow and
what not to pillow, but how and when
to pillow. If the road is Of the kind
which according to the above instruc-
tons 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
blowing are greatest in the spring or
early summer.
In bitches a pillow can be used to
good advantage, but should be fol-
lowed by a scraper or grader. To
make wide, deep bitches nothing
better than the ordinary drag scraper
has yet been devised. For hauls IN
der 100 feet, or in making" fills" it is
especially serviceable. 1t is mistake,
however, to attempt to handle long
h aul 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
uesful in smoothing and browning the
road and in opening bitches. A clay
subsoil under a thin coating of soil
should not be disturbed with a grader.
1t is also mistake to use a grader
Unfortunately and to pull material
from bitches upon sand clay road.
Not infrequently turf, soil and silt
from ditch bottoms are piled in the
middle of the road in a ridge, making
mudholes certainty. it is important
in using a 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 if
completed at one operation. The fore
man frequently thinks his road must
be high in the first instance. He piles
up material from 10 inches to 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
thin layers, each layer we'll puddled
and firmly packed by roller or traffic
before the next is added. A common