St. Tammany farmer., 1922-09-09
ROAD BUILDING In ST. TAM
MANY PARISH.

|
gift Of she'll bank a year or SO
ago, which however does not mean
that her snell streets cost her moth
ing. But although the shells were
| broken and rotten they were mixed
with considerable earth, and this
mixture appears to stand up better
for street wear than the WASHED
sound shells recently put on the Cow
ington streets. This would tend to
| show the advantage of heavy oil on
| shell road.
Ordinarily on dirt roads the dus:
is removed before applying the road
oil, but as a means to ally the dust
alone 1t would certainly be desir-
able thing to sprinkle the shell dust
on the streets in Covington. Prob
| ably the best time to apply the oil
to a shell road would be after the
| shells had become broken by traffic
but not ground to fine dust. To
avoid the nuisance to traffic of a
| newly oiled street one-half of the
street could be oiled at a time and
roped off from traffic to allow the
oil to soak in for "a hours or SO;
| otherwise the benefit of oiling will
| be to some extent lost. Sprinkling
sand at the rate Of cubic yard to
100 square yards of road surface will
help to bind the road and prevent
the oil from being carried away on
| vehicle wheels.
/ do not know of case where
| shell roads have been oiled, but in
quiry from those who deal In road
oils can easily discover places which
have had such experience if there
/ are any.
However, the use of oil on dirt
| roads has been abundantly tried.
| And I think it is quite likely that a
| we'll made dirt road properly oiled
will be found to be less expensive
and quite as good shell road at
its best stage and last longer.
One of the senatorial candidates
in this state two years ago after hav-
ing Travelled extensively over Louisi-
ana roads, gravel, shell and dirt, pro-
tested against building gravel and
she'll roads at approximately $4,000
mile of cost when dirt road as
| well graded with proper drainage
| would cost only $500 mile. He
| maintained that the difference in cost
if only partly applied to keeping up
| the dirt roads would yield in the
long run much better road,
In this country it is easier to build
good dirt roads than In most, and
there are several reasons why we
The first place our lack Of taxable
wealth makes it necessary that we
should build good roads which cost
| us the least amount of money. In
| case Of our smaller towns in this
| parish The improvement Of streets
| makes it necessary to choose either
to make only one or two miles cf
good gravel or shell road or to fall
back entirely on the best methods o1
building dirt roads by which we can
afford to have all the streets in good
repair instead of only one or two of
she'll or gravel.
In Vaudeville, for instance, the
town has possibly less than $1,000
available for street Improvement
when its bonds are sold II this
money is spent on she'll or gravel
most of its streets will be left in Daa
condition, while If spent on improv~
ing the dirt roads 1t could build up
20 miles of streets. Probably by oil
ing the dirt roads this sum would
improve 10 miles Of streets as agains,
a fifth or less in mileage of gravel
or she'll street. It may be that with
its gift of shells Vaudeville can build
shell road for $1,000 or $500 per
mile as is claimed, but not road
which will last more than a couple
Of years.
But the Importance of the dirt road
Is to the rural part of the parish
which has not the good fortune to be
located on the fine gravel or good
road. We must have great exten-
sion Of roads in this parish, which
are fit for auto travel. It is out of
the question at present to make more
gravel roads, for our taxable values
will not warrant it, but we shoul,.
devise some method for improving
such roads as the Military, Abita,
and other roads which are already
established as we'll as build new ones,
so that 1t will not be necessary as 1t
now Is to 80 several miles to reach
a place mile or less away.
A good dirt road when It is q good
one is all easier road to travel than
one Of shell or grave1, and 1t saves
tha wear on ffrpa nf fho laffor rhfo