The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-11-06

formation which had been wrought. In answer to inquiries MT. Buck said that the transformation of one of these roads cost only $500 per mile. This seemed hardly possible but the figures were official and authentic. Another road which cost $500 per mile looked to be as good as Connecticut jobs costing ~$5,000 and $6,000 per mile. AS MT Buck explained, however, the cost was in large measure deter mined by the natural conditions and the nearness to hand of proper con- struction materials. Methods and tools, more especially the latter, also had a good deal to do with it. The towns had learned that the traction engine, either in combination with a road roller Or without, was wonder fully economical as compared with team power for both road repair and new construction work. Towns which found the use of road machines pro- hibitive when horses were used now kept their highways in good trim by utilizing steam roller to operate the road machines. One picture showed such a road roller pulling two road machines and a levelling drag. Three men operated the outfit whereas the other method would have required at least five teams and as many men. A traction engine drawing the road machines would make from ten to twelve miles of highway per day in repair work With horses from a mile to a mile and a half day is about the rule in Bedding. The speaker ex- plained that another implement which had been found very useful was a drag known as the King, a tool of cheap and easy construction. It should beSused only when the ground had been softened by rain and was then wonderfully useful in filling de- pressions and maintaining the road s right contour. Some towns used hard ly anything else for road repair and thereby kept their highways in good shape at an outlay of only $10 per mile per year Crushed stone had been used to considerable extent in making over New York roads of the third class Some towns owned their own crushers and others hired them. Where blasting was required for deep much more economical than the use of hand labor By the latter the holes were usually not made deep enough to give the best results in blasting.
 When Commissioner Macdonald was introduced and began his talk some of the hearers rather expected that he would say something about the rela- tive advantages of the New York and the Connecticut system. He did noth- ing of the kind. devoting his remarks mainly to extolling the Connecticut system and what had been accomplish ed under it during the sixteen years it had been in force. He said it was a system under which there was no ''second table, and by which the smallest of the towns reaped from it as great benefits as the largest cities and approximately at a less cost. No one viewing with an intelligent vision what had been accomplished in Con- necticut could say that the money had not been we'll invested When the fourteen trunk lines intersecting the State were completed and the minor State roads were connected up the benefits of the system would be even more strikingly apparent than they now were. Mr. Macdonald said that his department would put in busy winter making surveys and preparing plans for new construction work to be entered upon in the spring. He touch ed briefly on the subject of town built and maintained roads, saying that most towns had very little to show for what they had spent there for in the last 150 years and that there was a deplorable lack of inn provement in methods. There was a difference in selectmen about the re- suits achieved in this direction, some of them working the roads while others worked their towns.
 As to the proper care of town roads he said about the most important thing to do was to keep water off