The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1909-02-04
GOOD
R DAD
BUILDING
HOW ROADS
ARE PREPARED
KIND Or MATERIAL USED.
Practical Suggestions Offered by
Prominent Citizen Who Has
Investigated RoadMaking

investigated Noao Waxing
OF all the enterprises for lettering
the condition of mankind, the saving
of his farm animals and vehicles, moth
ing as yet has been devised to equal
good roads.
If Washington county possessed
society for prevention of cruelty to ami
mails, majority of our county friends
would have been arraigned before them
during the past few weeks if they had
been caught driving over our county
highways (called roads, with mud
axle deep, with the straining of the an
imals to an empty vehicle. Why is
there any objection to making public
highway for the convenience of the
farmers good road at all seasons of
the year? The building of good roads
is no experiment. 1t has been tested
and tried by many states, and l can
state without fear of contradiction that
wherever such good road has been
built the farmer who uses that good
road would not under any circumstance
go back to his old axle deep mud. Once
the farmers of Washington county
have their own good roads, they will
wonder how they ever lived and did
business in the past.
Now, the question is, how are good
macadam roads to be built, their width,
grade, etc ? There are many different
opinions on this line. For information,
| will take as example Mecklenburg
county, n. c., macadam roads, which
which county is the father of good
roads, and they have them extending
to every county line that adjoins Meek
lenburg county, and there the adjoin-
ing counties take them up and contin-
ue throughtheir own county.
The soil in Mecklenburg county is
very closely allied to Washington
county, namely, red clay. They are
now building 9-foot road, which they
say answers all purposes and lessons
the cost per mile, as compared with a
10-fcot or 12-foot road.
After laying out and grading the
road, the road bed is dug out or scraped
to the depth of six inches, leavin g.
inch wall ON either side, This road
bed is then leveled and packed hard by
running lotion road roller over same,
then comes the first dressing, five inch
es of crushed stone three inches in size,
which, having been spread uniformly
in your 9-foot road bed, is first well
sprinkled With watering cart, then
mashed closely together by lotion
roller, whick packs the stone into 8
solid mass of about three inches thick
The second dressing is three inches Of
crushed stone Of two inches and under
that is uniformly spread on top of the
, first dressing, leaving small crown ir
center Of your 9-foot road Ito shed wa
ter from rains.) This second dressing
is also well sprinked and then pacleC
by~a lotion roller, slight slant from
. top to center of road to the 6-inch wall
of your 9-foot road on each side.
This second dressing packs hard ant
] leaves the walls OF your rock in sam
] height as the 6-inch wall of your clay
The macadam forms solid concret
I body that admits of no clay or mu,
working up through the rock, an,
whatever mud may be deposited b,
J teams coming from side roads that ar
J not macadamized is washed Off by tn
\ first rain.
4 The Mecklenburg county roads ar
built of granite and rocks that farmer
gather from their fields and place i
cubic yards along where roads are (
be built, and they are paid 50 cents pc
cubic yard for same. We have lime
stone in abundance and with the ne,
essary machinery, rock cruSher ca
be moved from place to place and a
ways find material in abundance neeC
ell for the construction of these road
The cost of the Mecklenburg count
road is about 1900 per mile. The co,
of 9-foOt road in Washington count
with the abundant supply of limestor
/ would say would be about g, 500 p,
mile.
The Mecklenburg farmer with h
good roads says "it is not question
how much a mule can pull, but no