The central record. (Lancaster, Ky.) 18??-current, 1911-03-03
Good Roads.


public on the above subject, and as
usual thing the discussion referred to
turnpikes and their construction and
maintainence. This article is intended to
deal solely with county roads, dirt roads,
or as they are usually found this time
of year mud roads,
First let us have look at the law
governing them, as applies in Gar
rard county. The Kentucky Statutes
say
The judge of each county court
shall divide his county into road pre-
cincts, shall fix boundaries for same,
and shall allot all the able bodied male
citizens between the ages of eighteen
and fifty years to work on the roads
in their respective precinct, and shall
appoint an overseer for the precinct,
the said overseer shall be exempt from
jury service and poll tax for road pur-
poses, and for failure to perform the
duties herein provided shall be fined
not less than $500 and not more than
$500. He shall summon the hands to
work the road in their precinct, shall
superintend them in their work, and
shall keep the road in good condition
for travel. The hands will be required
to work the road not exceeding two
days in each week, or six days in each
year, and in cases of emergency the
overseer may require hands to work a
greater number of days in the week or
year, each day to consist of eight
hours"
The above is copied from the KY.
road laws. Overseers, how many of
you have complied with any clause of
the above law? How many even keep
your roads in proper shape for travel?
Very few we will venture to say. The
average overseer and the hands in his
precinct look upon the working of a
county road very much as they would
npon an aching tooth that must be
pulled, a disagreable duty to be per-
formed, the sooner over with the bet
ter.
The majority of the roads are worked
in the following manner: choosing the
day when the farmers have least to do,
they are summond to work the road
on certain day, they begin to stray
gle in on that day about seven O'Clock,
and by ten most of them are there,
they scratch around with pick and
shovel, throw a little loose dirt here
and there into the middle of the road,
there to be converted into mud hole
by the first rain, probably, if it is
handy, throw on few loose rocks,
and along toward the middle of the
afternoon call it day. No ditching,
no filling of ruts or mud holes left from
last winter, nothing but put in the
time. Sometimes this is repeated the
second day, but never more than two
days of the year.
The consequence of this careless put
ting in of the time on the roads, for it
cannot be called working them, is that
these same people, when they haul their
crops to market, get stalled or mired in
their road, then you will witness some
tall swearing and abuse of county
roads in general and this one in particu-
lar, but the road is worked the follow
ing year in the very same manner.
Now this could be very easily re-
medied, and no one would reap a great
er benefit from the proper working of
the roads than these very people who
work them, or should work them.
0verseers should summon their men
TO appear at 2 o'clock and see to it
that they are there, then look after
them carefully, see that culverts are
fixed, bitches dug and the road proper
ly drained, underlay the loose dirt
thrown up from the bitches with rock,
nearly always sufficient rock can be
gathered along the road for this pur-
pose, overhaul that old last winter
mud hole and obviate the chance of it
recurring the following winter. The
districts are not so large in this county
but what the road can be put in first
class condition without consuming six
days, and as a usual thing, two days
Il the proper number of hands put in