The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1917-09-14
TO WATER THE
ROADS
Continued from last issue)

NSoAIiuuCu IIOu last lSSuCJ
L. J. Porter, one of the expert
enced road overseers when asked for
his opinion as to what should be
done with the dusty roads said he
had been trying for years to get the
county commissioners to buy cen
trifugal pump and place it on a
wagon with a gasoline engine. Halt
the wagon at the roadside opposite
rough, dusty places, carry one end
Of the hose to the water ditch and
the other end to the dusty road and
set the pump to work. Have a man
at the discharge end Of the hose to
carry it about and when it had soak
ed what could be reached from
there, drive the wagon down the
line and stop again. In this way the
worst places could be treated at
slight expense, and eventually there
would be no such worst places as
we have now. Keeping the outfit
working as the season advances
would keep the road good instead of
letting them go to pieces in places
as has been the case along the yell
lowstone highway under heavy
duJU GEMV6k!
"Just think of it," said Mr.. Porter
as he shifted his cigar, If we had
been operating such an outfit at
times the past two seasons on that
line the tourists would not be giving
us a bad name all over the United
States as they are doing, but on the
contrary they would have been filled
with gratitude, and would have re-
peated the Biblical injunction of old,
and would Rise up and call us
blessed"
Mike Barclay, one of the local
barOns of agriculture, who was ask
ed for advice about roads, said he
thought there were places where
this would be best, and there were
other stretches where it would be
practical to turn the water out of
the bitches and fill the road quickly
and dry it, Either plan or both suit
ed him, and he hoped attention
would be given to it If the weather
man did not beat us to it.
P. G. Felsted, for many years con-
sidered the best road builder on the
west side, said flooding the roads
was practical in places. 1t had been
overdone here in early summer when
men pleaded accidental wetting Of
the roads, but that where the wet
ting could be done quickly with a
large flow of water and then drawn
off without soaking the road too
long it would be very good.
Lewis Robbins, the potato dealer
of Keever and for number of years
builder of roads, said he had tried
watering the road to his sorrow.
When the road is wet all thru it
has a way of cutting up till it falls
to pack, and then we have a flock Of
ruts. He was speaking more especi-
ally of watering the roads first and
then grading with the wet dirt. One
thing he had learned to certainly,
that when grading a road there
should be drag going all the time
and until about midnight after the
days grading, to get all the humps
and holes on a level and firm, or
the road would be packed down I'M
even as it is between Smiths nur-
sery and the sugar farm and would
always be rough The only time to
grade roads, he said, was early in
the spring. AS to wetting down the
dusty roads artificially he was not
so sure what ought to be. attempted.
A. Written, one of the men who
helped build the little farming en-
pire about Wapello, said he doubted
the ACCESSIBILITY of trying to irrigate
the roads, Water could be turned
out into the borrow pits and it 4
would run along down the country,
making ponds in places, and doing
neither good nor harm in others.
Where it could be backed up so it
would run across the roadbed it |
would wash away the dust for a |
while and leave gully or hole that
would have to be filled afterwards. |
The dryest place, the high points
and around the culverts would still
be dry and dusty after the watering, |
and he was not so sure but that the |
low places might be too soft for
while. He said that if they are go
ing to try it up his way it had better
be done soon, as they are going to
turn the water out of the Blackfoot
Irrigation canal on the fifteenth of
September for repairs.
wesley LduJlS, WHO OWLS d yOuH5
plantation east of town and rides
over the road twice a day six days /,
in the week to work in The Repub-
lican office, says it is time to get
busy filling up the holes in the road
and to be serious about it. A few
days ago man was riding on horse
back down the Rich lane and all was
WELL He was strong and husky and
80 was his steed. An automobile
passed them, there was dust in the
air and the steed stepped into one
of these dust craters and fell. break
ing it's own neck and fracturing the
skull of the rider. A man taking his
wife and baby along the Asylum
lane allowed his auto wheel to
chuck into a dust crater that was
level full and could not be seen. 1t
was so deep it spilled the family in
all directions before they could grab
AS an economic problem
it is worth while to save a horse and
rider occasionally and wife and
baby, and the price of the horse
mentioned would have filed and wet
down all the holes in the road for
miles.