The Arizona sentinel., 1908-04-01
HINTS ON ROAD WORK.
II 6. Office of Public Roads Tells How
to Make and Maintain rlodel
Earth Road.

EdTtu NOdus
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 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 road
built, but they strenuously object when
asked to provide funds 10 rebuild the
road that has been allowed TO go to
ruin.
It is important that the farmers learn
of the benefits to he derived from good
earth roads; that the county boards
be impressed with the need of proper
maintenance of the same, and that road
builders and overseers learn how to
best 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 quickly
rs possible. The simple implements
which have been found to be of great
est assistance in this work are the
pillow, the drag scraper, the wheel
scraper. the road grader and the split
log drag.
With a sandy soil and subsoil of
clay, on clay and gravel, deep blowing
so as to raise and mix the clay with the
surface soil and sand will prove bene-
fetal The combination forms a sand
clay road at a trifling expense. On the
other hand. if the road be entirely 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 sub
soil is clay and tho surface scant in
sand or gravel, blowing should not be
resorted to, as it would result in 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 instructions should be
plcwed 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 crown. Results
from such blowing are greatest in the
spring or early summer.
In bitches pillow can be used to a
good advantage, but should be followed
by a scraper or grader. To make wide,
deep bitches nothing better than the
ordinary drag scraper has been de-
vised. For hauls under 100 feet, or in
making fills" it is especially service
able. 1t is mistake, however, to at
tempt to handle long haul material
with this scrape, as the wheel scraper
is better adapted to such work. For
hauls of more than 800 feet, wagon
should be used.
The machine most generally used in
road work is the grader, or road ma
chine. This machine is especially use
full in smoothing and browning the road
and in opening bitches. A clay subsoil
under thin coating of soil should not
be disturbed with grader. 1t is also
a mistake to use grader indiscrimin-
ately and to phil material from bitches
upon a sand-clay road. Not infrequent
turf, soil and 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 tC
avoid building up the road too much al
one time. a road gradually built W
by the frequent use of the grader will
last better than if completed at "ne
operation. The foreman frequently
thinks his road must'be high in the frs
instance. He piles up material from
10 inches to foot only to learn, with
the arrival of the first rain, that he ha!
furnished the material for as many
inches of mud. All material should bt
brought up in thin layers, each layer
well puddled and firmly pac&ed by roll
e. or traffic before the next is added
a common mistake is to crown tot
high with the road machine on mar
row road.
The split-Ior drag should be used t,
fill in ruts and smooth the road whel
not too badly washed. The drag pos
sesses great merit and is so simple il
construction and operation that ever.
farmer should have one. a specia
article will be published later telliD!
how to make and use the drag.
James Stewart has been pardonet
from the penitentiary by Gov. Kibbey
He was sentenced at Tombston in 100
on charge of Burglary. The MAJ
L