The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-06-14
THE REPAIR AND MAINTENANCE
 OF EARTH ROADS.

If you look at the ordinary country road after a shower you. will see small puddles along the wheel ruts and sometimes larger pools. This water stays on the road surface because il cannot drain away into the side ditches. If you look closely you will see side ditches. which have. grown ur with bushes and weeds in many cases, and which are so far from the trav- eled part of the road that the rain water does not drain Into them. That part of the roadway where the -wag- ons travel is called the travelled way. To prevent water from standing on the travelled way the. road should be raised in the center and should slope gently into broad shallow ditches. It is then said to have a crown If it is 10 feet from the center of the road to the side ditch, the surface at the side ditch should be at least 10 inches lower than it is at the center where the horses travel The road then has a 1o-fnch crown The-rain that falls on the road properly erowned will run quickly to the side ar1ds,not soak into the surface or form pools. The side 1itches for surface water should run parallel to the right of way, and should be open at every low point so that the water can run out of them into neighboTing brooks or streams If the ditches merely collect the wa ter from the road surface and it cam not run away, large pools will be formed along the roadsioe,s.whichw will . gradually soak into the soil beneath the road and make 1t so soft that the wheels of wagons will cut through the road surface and soon destroy it.
 Sometimes wa ter runs from land along the road into the read and forms a little stream down the wheel tracks or in the middle where the horses travel When driveWays. into farm yards are built across the side ditches they frequently form chan neIs for water from the farm yard to run into the road. The pipes under drive~ays become filled with leaves Or rubbish and the water can no longer run away. If the driveways that stop the ditch water were rebuilt so that no pipes were necessary and the ditch could be left open, much trouble from surface water would be stopped.
 Sometimes a road runs across low ground or through a swamp where the road can not be drained by side ditches alone If the road were built higher like a railroad embankrnent across such low land and made with a crown it would be dry and hard. Sometimes road passes through what 1s called a cut This is a place where the earth has beep dug out so that the road can go Over a hill without being too steep. The water which aI- ways flows quietly under the ground on hill sides Is known as ground wa tier. In road cuts such water some -+ LimeS makes the road very n1uddys and the road then needs what road builders call underdrafnag A good kind of underdrainage is trench to go along under the side drain and about three feet deep and a foot and a half wide In this trench a pipe is l laid near the bottom and covered with loose stones no bigger than an egg When the trench Is completely filled with loose stones the. ground ! water, instead of soaking into the roadway, will stop among the stones and flow down the hill through the pipe.
 To keep a road smooth and crowned the best method is to drag it with road drag. A road drag is made easily f-yIth two halves of a log which has zbeen split The log should be about i6 or 8 inches in thickness and about 76 or feet long. The two halves of the log are set 3 feet apart with the smooth faces forward and upright They are then fastened together with braces set in holes bored through the Dog. pair of horses may be used to drag the road and are hitched to chain fastened to the front half of rhe log The road drag should move forward so that it slants across the road in such a way that a small smooth face of the log toward the center of the road, thus forming the crown The edges of the logs will smooth out the ruts. The best way 70 drag is to begin at the side ditch and go up one side of the road, and then down the other. In the next trip -rhe drag should be started a little nearer the center and tast trip over she road the drag may work close to