The Huttig news., 1908-01-25

TO MAINTAIN EARTH ROADS.
First of Series of Good Roads Articles tc
 be Published

lres of road building and maintain
 .nce. which will be published iron l time to time. Our su oscribers art lrged to give this matter car,fu consideration, and are requested te onward to this office for transmits. sion to the office of public road
 my practical question which they lesire answered relating to raae
 ontruction and maintainance Questions and answers will be pub- ished by this paper at suitable in
 ,ervals. The following is article No. l, Series A.
 We may recognize the value of lard and durable roads in all part; f the country but still the fac remains that for a long time te come the majority of the roads will be composed of earth. Furth- ermore. in about nine months oul of the year. the earth road, proper ly cared for, is reasonably satifac- 5ory. For many agricultural dis tricts, it is the cnly road at present available. Hence, these commit tees should set themselves serious ly to work to learn the best meth ods of maintaining earth roads and of getting the maximum service from them. Prosperity comes te the country to a great exten through the prosperity of the farm CTS. This fect strongly suggest the importance of giving the eartl road every possible care and at tention in it's loca ton, drainage. reconstruction and rnaintainance ce.
 An earth road composed of wat CT holding soil should be expose
 to the sun and air as freely as pos sible, as comparison between the shaded and sunny portions of sucl a road will easily indicate. This should be accomplished by clearing sufficient amount of trees and undergrowth away from the road. It must be remembered, however that sandy and gravelly roads re- quire moisture, and in these eases some shade should be retained. Furthermore, trees are beneficial along river ban an on steep grades subject to washing.
 Drainage is one of the most im- porta1t points to consider in con- nection with an earth road. The majority of earth reads in all mountainous and hilly districts have too much drainage. Occas- ionly 3 road is found with five ditches, three in the middle made by the horses hoofs and by wheels of the vehicles, and two on the sides. All we'll cons tructed earth roads are supposed to have re m ore than two ditches: one on each side of the travelled roadway Keep the water out the middle of the road oY giving it crown or elevation in the center of z 12 inch es above the top of the inner slope of the ditch for 2C-feet road, and w lere the hills are a little steep make the crown 10 inches. With a crown of about 1 inch to the foot from the center to the sides, the d.tches which are often built across the.road on steep grades to defect the will not be needed. h. stead of carrying water across the road in open ditches, tile or con- crete drains should. if possible, be provided. They should have suf- fcient capacity and fall to carry the maximum amount of water that is expectei to flew through them at any one time. The ca paoity is increased in proportion to the fall or gra le; for instance. 12- inch pipe laid on a one per cent grade will carry ,8O0 gallon per minute, while the same pipe laid on a 2 per cent g;,ade will arry D. 500 gal oas per minute. Further more, a c1lYert laid fiat will soon