Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1912-11-27

A9A iH AHE gs4&&E Va E38u tkt41ayt So - ~
cent lecture has TO say on the subject:
water being the greatest enemy OF the
road, IL should fiow freely OF the surface
by the sidss to the gutter or ditch pre-
pared tor it. In order to maintain proper
surface drainage, 1t IL necessary that the
road crown be higher in the middle than
at the sides. IL fat IL soop becomes con-
cave and lis middle becomes . pool or
mud hole, II on a level or water course II
on an incline.n
Again, weli-crowned and consequently
well-drsined road is very nearly immune
from the action OF frost, because il freezes
dry, so to speak, and when the warm sun
OF spring begins to drsw the frost, there
being SO little water, the same sun,
assisted BY the winds, evsporates 1t as fast
as liberated, and your road dries over, as
we say. On the other hand, IL the water
is allowed to stand ON the road bed, IL
percoIstes and freezes down TO unknown
depths until the whole mass is nearly
block OF ice, and then when the softening
influences get to work in the spring. the
water cannot get down through several
feet OF frost. so the surplus comes to the
surface and il keeps coming as long as any
frost remains. This water, not being able
by force of gravity to get over the
shoulders OF the road, remains there. and
the passing to and fro soon stirs 1t into
beautiful porridge and forms what I am
pleased to call mud canal.
MUST CHANGE OUR METHODS.
At the beginning OF this paper inti-
mated that in order to improve our
country roads we must change oar
methods. do not mean by this that
we should commence building macadam
roads, for in the spsrsely-settied sections
this would be so expensive, consequently
so slow, that many years would elapse be-
fore we had any appreciable mileage or re-
lief from our present condition. Rather
let us make the most OF what we have and
can pay for with the same money we are
each year putting into this work, by
changing or, in some instances, slightly
modifying, our methods. BY adopting
here and there q new and approved tool
we may work wonders.
On the subject OF new tools for road
construction shall perhaps speak OF only
one, which Is not in general use. This
is the roller. Let me again quote Mr..
Eidridye where he says: The roller 10
doubtless the most important piece OF
machinery connected with the bniiding
and maintaining OF roads, and 1t 10 well
to remember that II cannot be used too
much" 1 believe with Mr.. Eldridge
that every town should own q roller Of
sufficient weight. say not less than i've
tons, and use 1t in connection With the
road machine on all new turnpike, for
the more compact you can get . road
bed the more impervioas ii becomes to
water, and we have seen that water Is the
greatest road destroyer.
There is another form OF road main
tenance and improvement which, il
adopted, would be quite a new method for
a large majority Of Penobscot county
towns, although IL has been tried In other
places and found efficient. refer to the
man with horse and dump cart. We all
know how difficult 1t Is to get any little
job done upon the road In modern times,
that cannot be done with the road ma
chine. OF course we know this is all
wrong, and that there should be some
system OF an effectual nature adopted to
care for them other than too much road
machine.
which have mentioned, let me quote }.
o. Sanborn, of Stamford, VT, in paper
on practical road building and mainte-
nance, read at one OF cur farmers insti-
tutes in 1901. He says: "In my own
town we have road six miles long W here
more than 100 teams pass daily, many Of
them heavily loaded. We had paid out
more than 1900 year on that road, and
ii was in a miserable condition. We en-
ployed one man to work the road alone all
summer with his horse and cart. He be-
gan al the lower end and worked mile
the first day; then q mile the second. It
took him six days to cover the road and
the next week he did the same thing and
he did il all summer. His bill at the end
OF the season was s255, and we had bet
ter road than we had had since the MEM
DRY OF man"
This method Of caring for the country
road has long been . hobby with me,
and were l ever called upon TO have
charge Of the roads in any town should
adopt the method by all means. As soon
as the roads began to settle in the spring
/ would start a man, two IL had seventy
i've miles or more, have him mend and
level up the culverts which had been mis-
placed by the frost-and they are always
with us--fill the holes after draining the
water from every one that he can; re-
move all loose stones and other obstruc-
tions, and dump them in out-of-tbe-way
places, not throw them into the ditch to
later be carried back to the road by the
machine or the log drag; clean out ditch
es and open up waterways to take the
water away from the road; turn the water
from the road on the hills where ii had be-
gun to wash during the melting OF the