The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1911-10-26
GREAT INTEREST
SH0WNlN GOOD ROADS
Commercial Clubs Banquet and Meet
ing Well Attended.

The banquet given at the Presby-
terrain church banquet room and sub
sequent meeting held at the rooms OF
the Commercial Climb last Friday eve
ming were attended by an interested
and enthusiastic audience of represen-
tative citizens of ,Minot and vicinity.
Mr.. B. H. Burrell, the government
expert highway engineer gave very
interesting and highly instructive ad-
dress accompanied by stereopticon
pictures which lucidly illustrated
every opera ton Of the process of con-
structing highways both in country
and city. Mr.. Burrell stated that
while this particular section of the
country being very fortunate in hav-
ing soil which makes a splendid nat
ural road without any efforts, scarce
ly, on the part of the community, and
heretofore, when the ruts became too
deep for comfort there would be
plenty of ground upon which to start
fresh road, yet the time is fas.
approaching when the majority of our
country roads will be fenced and
the land available for road purpose
will become limited to the Lawful!
area and then comes the time wher
construction of real highways &C
cOrdfng to proper principles will be-
come an urgent and economic neces-
sity. 1t has been said by students
OF existing conditions, that it costs
more per bushel, on the average, to
haul our crops from the farms to tho
nearest market than it does to ship
them from there to the great lakes
and all on account of one or more
bad places in the farmers road to
town, which, like the weakest link in
the chain, determines the size of the
load that he can haul.
Eor county roads the speaker laid
special stress upon two points: The
GROWING of the road and proper
bitches to facilitate the running OH
of the rains, and the maintenance
(Which should begin right after the
road was built, by applying, what ID
called the split log drag after every
rain or when the mud Ia in its most
plastic and sticky condition, in fact,
when it IL just right for mud pies, but
never when It. is dry. II this imple'
mont is used at the right time it will
have a tendency to scrape of the
superfluous ridges and smearing them
into hollows. The continued applicA-
lions Of this smearing process az
sisted by the baking action Of the
sun between the rains will, according
to the engineer, in time produce a
very hard road that will require less
and less attention as time goes on
Among other things he warned aainst
using either sod boulders for filling
the larger cavities in the road as we'll
as showing the necessity of removing
the sod to a depth of two or three
inches in building a new road as the
grass and roots in it's process Of de
instead OF a binding effect upon the
road bed. He earnestly urged the
elimination Of the oldfashioned plank
culvert whose life of two or three
years does not compare to one made
of cement which will last from TWEEN
ty-fve to thirty and only cost about
fifty per cent. more. The gaiVan-
lied iron, he said, depended upon the
quality, not upon the thickness or
the iron but also upon the amour,
of tin deposited upon the same that
their use is attended with a good
deal of chance. He also advocated
the creation of the Office of County
Superintendent of Highways who
should be a practical and train
e man and gave it as his opin-
ion that the next twenty years would
develop a great demand for such
engineers as would make a specially
of this work The usual system CT
paying road taxes in work also came
in for a hearty scoring as being
wasteful and inefficient in the e1'
treme In the paving of city streets
he advocated the use of what is
called, the bituminous macadan pro-
cess, which consists of two layers Of
broken stone we'll packed by a roller
upon a smooth and we'll rolled bed
and the last coat of stone chips and
sand as we'll as the second layer Of
broken stone bound firmly together
with one Of the various coal tar pro-