A Good-roads TrainA Good-roads Train[The Southern Roadway's good-roads train, October 29, 1901, consisting of two coaches for officials and road experts and ten cars of road machinery; for itinerary through Virginia, North Carolina. Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia]
A Good-roads Train
[The Southern Roadway's good-roads train, October 29, 1901, consisting of two coaches for officials and road experts and ten cars of road machinery; for itinerary through Virginia, North Carolina. Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia]
One great work the government has done and is doing. It has founded an Office of Public Road Inquiries (described elsewhere) at Washington, and under the efficient management of Hon. Martin Dodge and Maurice O. Eldridge a great work of education has been carried on—samples of good roads have been built, good road trains have been sent out by the Southern Railway and the Illinois Central into the South, a laboratory has been established at Washington, under the efficient charge of Professor L. W. Page, for the testing ofmaterials free of charge, and a great deal of road information has been published and sent out.
The Brownlow Bill, introduced into Congress at the last session, is the latest plan of national aid, and is thus described by Hon. Martin Dodge of the Office of Public Road Inquiries:
"The bill provides for an appropriation of twenty million dollars. This is to be used only in connection and coöperation with the various states or civil subdivisions of states that may make application to the General Government for the purpose of securing its aid to build certain roads. The application must be made for a specific road to be built, and the state or county making the application must be ready to pay half of the cost, according to the plans and specifications made by the General Government. In no case can any state or any number of counties within the state receive any greater proportion of the twenty million dollars than the population of the state bears to the population of the United States.
"In other words, all of the plans mustoriginate in the community. The bill does not provide that the United States shall go forward and say a road shall be built here or a road shall be built there. The United States shall hold itself in readiness, when requested to do so, to coöperate with those who have selected a road they desire to build, provided they are ready and willing to pay one-half the cost. Then, if the road is a suitable one and is approved by the government authorities, they go forward and build that road, each contributing one-half of the expense. In order to prevent the state losing jurisdiction of the road, it is provided that it may go forward and build the road if it will accept the government engineer's estimate. For instance, if a state or county asks for ten miles of road, the estimated cost of which is thirty thousand dollars, and the state or county officials say they are willing to undertake the work for thirty thousand dollars, the government authorizes them to go ahead and build that road according to specifications, and when it is finished the government will pay the fifteen thousand dollars. If the state or county does notwish to take the contract, the General Government will advertise and give it to the lowest bidder, and will pay its contributory share and the other party will pay its contributory share.
"It is no part of the essential principle involved in this national aid plan that the exact proportion should be fifty per cent on each side. Any other figure can be adopted. Some think ten per cent is sufficient; some think thirty-three and one-third is the proper percentage; others think twenty-five per cent only should be paid by the government, twenty-five per cent by the state, twenty-five per cent by the county, and twenty-five per cent by the township. The one idea that seems to be generally accepted is that the government should do something."
Thus the interest in the great question is beginning to forge to the front; through the Office of Public Road Inquiries a great deal of information is being circulated touching all phases of the question. There is a fine spirit of independence displayed by the leaders of the movement; no one plan is over-urged; the situation is suchthat the final concerted popular action will come from the real governing power—the people. When they demand that the United States shall not have the poorest rural roads of any civilized and some uncivilized nations, we as a nation will hasten into the fore front and finally lead the world in this vital department of civic life, as we are leading it in so many other departments today.
Sample Steel Track for Common RoadsSample Steel Track for Common Roads[On the driver's right is seated Hon. Martin Dodge, since 1898 Director of the Office of Public Road Inquiries]
Sample Steel Track for Common Roads
[On the driver's right is seated Hon. Martin Dodge, since 1898 Director of the Office of Public Road Inquiries]
[1]Seepost, pp. 68-80.
[1]Seepost, pp. 68-80.
[2]The Federalist, p. 198.
[2]The Federalist, p. 198.
[3]Historic Highways of America, vol. xiv, p. 57.
[3]Historic Highways of America, vol. xiv, p. 57.
[4]Thomas M. Cooley,Constitutional Law(Boston, 1891), pp. 85-86.
[4]Thomas M. Cooley,Constitutional Law(Boston, 1891), pp. 85-86.
In a government having a composite nature like that of the United States it is not always easy to determine just what share the General Government, the state government, and the local government should respectively take in carrying out highway work, though it is generally admitted that there should be coöperation among them all.
In the early history of the Republic the National Government itself laid out and partially completed a great national system of highways connecting the East with the West, and the capital of the nation with its then most distant possessions. Fourteen million dollars in all was appropriated by acts of Congress to be devoted to thispurpose, an amount almost equal to that paid for the Louisiana Purchase. In other words, it cost the government substantially as much to make that territory accessible as to purchase it; and what is true of that territory in its larger sense is also true in a small way of nearly every tract of land that is opened up and used for the purposes of civilization; that is to say, it will cost as much to build up, improve, and maintain the roads of any given section of the country as the land in its primitive condition is worth; and the same rule will apply in most cases after the land value has advanced considerably beyond that of its primitive condition. It is a general rule that the suitable improvement of a highway within reasonable limitations will double the value of the land adjacent to it. Seven million dollars, half of the total sum appropriated by acts of Congress for the national road system, was devoted to building the Cumberland Road from Cumberland, Maryland, to St. Louis, Missouri, the most central point in the great Louisiana Purchase, and seven hundred miles west of Cumberland. The total costof this great road was wholly paid out of the United States Treasury, and though never fully completed on the western end, it is the longest straight road ever built by any government. It passes through the capitals of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and the cost per mile was, approximately, ten thousand dollars. It furnishes the only important instance the country has ever had of the General Government providing a highway at its own expense. The plan, however, was never carried to completion, and since its abandonment two generations ago, the people of the different states have provided their own highways. For the most part they have delegated their powers either to individuals, companies, or corporations to build toll roads, or to the minor political subdivisions and municipalities to build free roads.
With the passing of the toll-road system, the withdrawal of the General Government from the field of actual road construction, and the various state governments doing little or nothing, the only remaining active agent occupying the entire great field is the local governmentin each community; and while these various local governments have done and are still doing the best they can under the circumstances, there is great need that their efforts should be supplemented, their revenues enlarged, and their skill in the art of road construction increased.
The skill of the local supervisor was sufficient in primitive times, so long as his principal duties consisted in clearing the way of trees, logs, stumps, and other obstructions, and shaping the earth of which the roadbed was composed into a little better form than nature had left it; and the resources at his command were sufficient so long as he was authorized to call on every able-bodied male citizen between twenty-one and forty-five years of age to do ten days' labor annually on the road, especially when the only labor expected was that of dealing with the material found on the spot. But with the changed conditions brought about by the more advanced state of civilization, after the rights of way have been cleared of their obstructions and the earth roads graded into the form of turnpikes, it became necessary to hardentheir surfaces with material which often must be brought from distant places. In order to accomplish this, expert skill is required in the selection of materials, money instead of labor is required to pay for the cost of transportation, and machinery must be substituted for the hand processes and primitive methods heretofore employed in order to crush the rock and distribute it in the most economical manner on the roadbed. Skill and machinery are also required to roll and consolidate the material so as to form a smooth, hard surface and a homogeneous mass impervious to water.
The local road officer now not only finds himself deficient in skill and the proper kind of resources, but he discovers in many cases that the number of persons subject to his call for road work has greatly diminished. The great cities of the North have absorbed half of the population in all the states north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, and those living in these great cities are not subject to the former duties of working the roads, nor do they pay any compensation in money in lieu thereof.So the statute labor has not only become unsuitable for the service to be performed, but it is, as stated, greatly diminished. In the former generations substantially all the people contributed to the construction of the highways under the statute labor system, but at the present time not more than half the population is subject to this service, and this, too, at a time when the need for highway improvement is greatest.
While the former ways and means are inadequate or inapplicable to present needs and conditions, there are other means more suitable for the service, and existing in ample proportion for every need. The tollgate-keeper cannot be called upon to restore the ancient system of turnpikes and plank roads to be maintained by a tax upon vehicles passing over them, but there can be provided a general fund in each county sufficient to build up free roads better than the toll roads and with a smaller burden of cost upon the people. The statute labor in the rural districts cannot be depended upon, because it is unsuitable to the service now required and spasmodic in its application, when it should be perennial;but this statute labor can be commuted to a money tax, with no hardships upon the citizens and with great benefit to the highway system.
Former inhabitants of the abandoned farms or the deserted villages cannot be followed to the great cities and the road tax which they formerly paid be collected from them again to improve the country roads; but it can be provided that all the property owners in every city, as well as in every county, shall pay a money tax into a general fund, which shall be devoted exclusively to the improvement of highways in the rural districts. The state itself can maintain a general fund out of which a portion of the cost of every principal highway in the state shall be paid, and by so doing all the people of the state will contribute to improving the highways, as they once did in the early history of the nation, when substantially all the wealth and population was distributed almost equally throughout the settled portions of the country.
Having a general fund of money instead of statute labor, it would be possible tointroduce more scientific and more economical methods of construction with coöperation. This coöperation, formerly applied with good results to the primitive conditions, but which has been partially lost by the diminution in the number and skill of the co-workers, would be restored again in a great measure by drawing the money with which to improve the roads out of a general fund to which all had contributed.
In many countries the army has been used to advantage in time of peace in building up and maintaining the highways. There is no army in this country for such a purpose, but there is an army of prisoners in every state, whose labor is so directed, and has been so directed for generations past, that it adds little or nothing to the common wealth. The labor of these prisoners, properly applied and directed, would be of great benefit and improvement to the highways, and would add greatly to the national wealth, while at the same time it would lighten the pressure of competition with free labor by withdrawing the prison labor from the manufacture of commercial articles andapplying it to work not now performed, that is, the building of highways or preparing material to be used therefor.
The General Government, having withdrawn from the field of road construction in 1832, has since done little in that line until very recently. Eight years ago Congress appropriated a small sum of money for the purpose of instituting a sort of inquiry into the prevailing condition of things pertaining to road matters. This appropriation has been continued from year to year and increased during the last two years with a view of coöperating to a limited extent with other efforts in road construction.
The General Government can perform certain duties pertaining to scientific road improvement better than any other agency. Scientific facts ascertained at one time by the General Government will serve for the enlightenment of the people of all the states, and with no more cost than would be required for each single state to make the investigation and ascertain the facts for itself.
With a view to securing scientific facts inreference to the value of road-building materials, the Secretary of Agriculture has established at Washington, D. C., a mechanical and chemical laboratory for testing such material from all parts of the country. Professor L. W. Page, late of Harvard University, is in charge of this laboratory, and has tested many samples of rock without charge to those having the test made. There is, however, no test equal to the actual application of the material to the road itself.
With a view to making more extensive tests than could be done by laboratory work alone, the Director of the Office of Public Road Inquiries has, during the past two years, coöperated with the local authorities in many different states in building short sections of object-lesson roads. In this work it is intended not only to contribute something by way of coöperation on the part of the General Government, but also to secure coöperation on the part of as many different interests connected with the road question as possible. The local community having the road built is most largely interested, and is expectedto furnish the common labor and domestic material. The railroad companies generally coöperate, because they are interested in having better roads to and from their railroad stations. They therefore contribute by transporting free or at very low rates the machinery and such foreign material as is needed in the construction of the road. The manufacturers of earth-handling and road-building machinery coöperate by furnishing all needed machinery for the most economical construction of the road, and in many cases prison labor is used in preparing material which finally goes into the completed roadbed. The contribution which the General Government makes in this scheme of coöperation is both actually and relatively small, but it is by means of this limited coöperation that it has been possible to produce a large number of object-lesson roads in different states. These have proved very beneficial, not only in showing the scientific side of the question, but the economical side as well.
In the year 1900 object-lesson roads were built under the direction of the Office ofPublic Road Inquiries near Port Huron, Saginaw, and Traverse City, Michigan; Springfield, Illinois; and Topeka, Kansas. Since that time the object-lesson roads so built have been extended and duplicated by the local authorities without further aid from the government. The people are so well pleased with the results of these experiments that they are making preparations for additional extensions, aggregating many miles.
During the year 1901 sample object-lesson roads were built on a larger scale in coöperation with the Illinois Central, Lake Shore, and Southern railroad companies, and the National Association for Good Roads in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. In all of these cases the coöperation has been very hearty on the part of the state, the county, and the municipality in which the work has been done, and the results have been very satisfactory and beneficial.
Hon. A. H. Longino, governor of Mississippi, in his speech made at theInternational Good Roads Congress at Buffalo, September 17, 1901, said:
"My friends, the importance of good roads seems to me to be so apparent, so self-evident, that the discussion thereof is but a discussion of truisms. Much as we appreciate railroads, rivers, and canals as means for transportation of the commerce of the country, they are, in my judgment, of less importance to mankind, to the masses of the people, and to all classes of people, than are good country roads."I live in a section of the country where that important subject has found at the hands of the people apparently less appreciation and less effort toward improvement than in many others. In behalf of the Good Roads Association, headed by Colonel Moore and Mr. Richardson, which recently met in the state of Mississippi, I want to say that more interest has been aroused by their efforts concerning this important subject among the people there than perhaps ever existed before in the history of the state. By their work, demonstrating what could be done by the methods which they employed, and by theiragitation of the question, the people have become aroused as they never were before; and since their departure from the state a large number of counties which were not already working under the contract system have provided for public highways, worked by contract, requiring the contractor to give a good and sufficient bond, a bond broad enough in its provisions and large enough in amount to compel faithful service; and Mississippi is today starting out on a higher plane than ever before."
"My friends, the importance of good roads seems to me to be so apparent, so self-evident, that the discussion thereof is but a discussion of truisms. Much as we appreciate railroads, rivers, and canals as means for transportation of the commerce of the country, they are, in my judgment, of less importance to mankind, to the masses of the people, and to all classes of people, than are good country roads.
"I live in a section of the country where that important subject has found at the hands of the people apparently less appreciation and less effort toward improvement than in many others. In behalf of the Good Roads Association, headed by Colonel Moore and Mr. Richardson, which recently met in the state of Mississippi, I want to say that more interest has been aroused by their efforts concerning this important subject among the people there than perhaps ever existed before in the history of the state. By their work, demonstrating what could be done by the methods which they employed, and by theiragitation of the question, the people have become aroused as they never were before; and since their departure from the state a large number of counties which were not already working under the contract system have provided for public highways, worked by contract, requiring the contractor to give a good and sufficient bond, a bond broad enough in its provisions and large enough in amount to compel faithful service; and Mississippi is today starting out on a higher plane than ever before."
[5]By Hon. Martin Dodge, Director of the Office of Public Road Inquiries.
[5]By Hon. Martin Dodge, Director of the Office of Public Road Inquiries.
Poor roads constitute the greatest drawback to rural life, and for the lack of good roads the farmers suffer more than any other class. It is obviously unnecessary, therefore, to discuss here the benefits to be derived by them from improved roads. Suffice it to say, that those localities where good roads have been built are becoming richer, more prosperous, and more thickly settled, while those which do not possess these advantages in transportation are either at a standstill or are becoming poorer and more sparsely settled. If these conditions continue, fruitful farms may be abandoned and rich lands go to waste. Life on a farm often becomes, as a result of "bottomless roads," isolated and barren of social enjoyments andpleasures, and country people in some communities suffer such great disadvantage that ambition is checked, energy weakened, and industry paralyzed.
Good roads, like good streets, make habitation along them most desirable; they economize time and force in transportation of products, reduce wear and tear on horses, harness and vehicles, and enhance the market value of real estate. They raise the value of farm lands and farm products, and tend to beautify the country through which they pass; they facilitate rural mail delivery and are a potent aid to education, religion, and sociability. Charles Sumner once said: "The road and the schoolmaster are the two most important agents in advancing civilization."
Bryn Mawr, PennsylvaniaTYPICAL MACADAM ROAD NEAR BRYN MAWR, PENNSYLVANIA
TYPICAL MACADAM ROAD NEAR BRYN MAWR, PENNSYLVANIA
The difference between good and bad roads is often equivalent to the difference between profit and loss. Good roads have a money value to farmers as well as a political and social value, and leaving out convenience, comfort, social and refined influences which good roads always enhance, and looking at them only from the "almighty dollar" side, they are foundto pay handsome dividends each year.
People generally are beginning to realize that road-building is a public matter, and that the best interests of American agriculture and the American people as a whole demand the construction of good roads, and that money wisely expended for this purpose is sure to return.
Road-making is perfected by practice, experience, and labor. Soils and clays, sand and ores, gravels and rocks, are transformed into beautiful roads, streets, and boulevards, by methods which conform with their great varieties of characters and with nature's laws. The art of road-building depends largely for its success upon being carried on in conformity with certain general principles.
It is necessary that roads should be hard, smooth, comparatively level, and fit for use at all seasons of the year; that they should be properly located, or laid out on the ground, so that their grades may be such that animate or inanimate power may be applied upon them to the best advantage and without great loss of energy; that they should be properly constructed, the groundwell drained, the roadbed graded, shaped, and rolled, and that they should be surfaced with the best material procurable; that they should be properly maintained or kept constantly in good repair.
All the important roads in the United States can be and doubtless will be macadamized or otherwise improved in the not distant future. This expectation should govern their present location and treatment everywhere. Unless changes are made in the location of the roads in many parts of this country it would be worse than folly to macadamize them. "Any costly resurfacing of the existing roads will fasten them where they are for generations," says General Stone. The chief difficulty in this country is not with the surface, but with the steep grades, many of which are too long to be reduced by cutting and filling on the present lines, and if this could be done it would cost more in many cases than relocating them.
Many of our roads were originally laid out without any attention to general topography, and in most cases followed the settler's path from cabin to cabin, the pigtrail, or ran along the boundary lines of the farms regardless of grades or direction. Most of them remain today where they were located years ago, and where untold labor, expense, and energy have been wasted in trying to haul over them and in endeavors to improve their deplorable condition.
The great error is made of continuing to follow these primitive paths with our public highways. The right course is to call in an engineer and throw the road around the end or along the side of steep hills instead of continuing to go over them, or to pull the road up on dry solid ground instead of splashing through the mud and water of the creek or swamp. Far more time and money have been wasted in trying to keep up a single mile of one of these "pig-track" surveys than it would take to build and keep in repair two miles of good road.
Another and perhaps greater error is made by some persons in the West who continue to lay out their roads on "section lines." These sections are all square, with sides running north, south, east, andwest. A person wishing to cross the country in any other than these directions must necessarily do so in rectangular zigzags. It also necessitates very often the crossing and recrossing of hills and valleys, which might be avoided if the roads had been constructed on scientific principles.
A STUDY IN GRADINGA STUDY IN GRADING[The old road had a grade of eight per cent; by the improved route the grade is four per cent]
A STUDY IN GRADING
[The old road had a grade of eight per cent; by the improved route the grade is four per cent]
In the prairie state of Iowa, for example, where roads are no worse than in many other states, there is a greater number of roads having much steeper grades than are found in the mountainous republic of Switzerland. In Maryland the old stagecoach road or turnpike running from Washington to Baltimore makes almost a "bee line," regardless of hills or valleys, and the grades at places are as steep as ten or twelve per cent, where by making little detours the road might have been made perfectly level, or by running it up the hills less abruptly the grade might have been reduced to three or four per cent, as is done in the hilly regions of many parts of this and other countries. Straight roads are the proper kind to have, but in hilly countries their straightness shouldalways be sacrificed to obtain a level surface so as to better accommodate the people who use them.
Graceful and natural curves conforming to the lay of the land add beauty to the landscape, besides enhancing the value of property. Not only do level, curved roads add beauty to the landscape and make lands along them more valuable, but the horse is able to utilize his full strength over them; furthermore, a horse can pull only four-fifths as much on a grade of two feet in one hundred feet, and this gradually lessens until with a grade of ten feet in one hundred feet he can draw but one-fourth as much as he can on a level road.
All roads should therefore wind around hills or be cut through instead of running over them, and in many cases the former can be done without greatly increasing the distance. To illustrate, if an apple or pear be cut in half and one of the halves placed on a flat surface, it will be seen that the horizontal distance around from stem to blossom is no greater than the distance over between the same points.
The wilfulness of one or two privateindividuals sometimes becomes a barrier to traffic and commerce. The great drawback to the laying out of roads on the principle referred to is that of the necessity, in some cases, of building them through the best lands, the choicest pastures and orchards, instead, as they do now, of cutting around the farm line or passing through old worn-out fields or over rocky knolls. But if farmers wish people to know that they have good farms, good cattle, sheep, or horses, good grain, fruit, or vegetables, they should let the roads go through the best parts of the farms.
The difference in length between a straight road and one which is slightly curved is less than one would imagine. Says Sganzin: "If a road between two places ten miles apart were made to curve so that the eye could see no farther than a quarter of a mile of it at once, its length would exceed that of a perfectly straight road between the same points by only about one hundred and fifty yards." Even if the distance around a hill be much greater, it is often more economical to construct it that way than to go over andnecessitate the expenditure of large amounts of money in reducing the grade, or a waste of much valuable time and energy in transporting goods that way. Gillespie says "that, as a general rule, the horizontal length of a road may be advantageously increased to avoid an ascent by at least twenty times the perpendicular height which is thus to be avoided—that is, to escape a hill one hundred feet high it would be proper for the road to make such a circuit as would increase its length two thousand feet." The mathematical axiom that "a straight line is the shortest distance between two points" is not, therefore, the best rule to follow in laying out a road; better is the proverb that "the longest way round is the shortest way home."
The grade is the most important factor to be considered in the location of roads. The smoother the road surface, the less the grade should be.
Whether the road be constructed of earth, stone, or gravel, steep grades should always be avoided if possible. They become covered at times with coatings of ice orslippery soil, making them very difficult to ascend with loaded vehicles, as well as dangerous to descend. They allow water to rush down at such a rate as to wash great gaps alongside or to carry the surfacing material away. As the grade increases in steepness either the load has to be diminished in proportion or more horses or power attached. From Gillespie we find that if a horse can draw on a level one thousand pounds, on a rise of—
1 foot in—Pounds100 feet he draws90050 feet81044 feet75040 feet72030 feet64025 feet54024feet50020 feet40010 feet250
It is therefore seen that when the grades are 1 foot in 44 feet, or 120 feet to the mile, a horse can draw only three-fourths as much as he can on a level; where the grade is 1 foot in 24 feet, or 220 feet tothe mile, he can draw only one-half as much, and on a ten per cent grade, or 520 feet to the mile, he is able to draw only one-fourth as much as on a level road.
As a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, just so the greatest load which can be hauled over a road is the load which can be hauled through the deepest mud hole or up the steepest hill on that road. The cost of haulage is, therefore, necessarily increased in proportion to the roughness of the surface or steepness of the grade. It costs one and one-half times as much to haul over a road having a five per cent grade and three times as much over one having a ten per cent grade as on a level road. As a perfectly level road can seldom be had, it is well to know the steepest allowable grade. If the hill be one of great length, it is sometimes best to have the lowest part steepest, upon which the horse is capable of exerting his full strength, and to make the slope more gentle toward the summit, to correspond with the continually decreasing strength of the fatigued animal.
So far as descent is concerned, a road should not be so steep that the wagonsand carriages cannot be drawn down it with perfect ease and safety. Sir Henry Parnell considered that when the grade was no greater than one foot in thirty-five feet, vehicles could be drawn down it at a speed of twelve miles an hour with perfect safety. Gillespie says:
"It has been ascertained that a horse can for a short time double his usual exertion; also, that on the best roads he exerts a pressure against his collar of about one thirty-fifth of the load. If he can double his exertion for a time, he can pull one thirty-fifth more, and the slope which would force him to lift that proportion would be, as seen from the above table, one of one in thirty-five, or about a three per cent grade. On this slope, however, he would be compelled to double his ordinary exertion to draw a full load, and it would therefore be the maximum grade." Mr. Isaac B. Potter, an eminent authority upon roads, says:
"Dirty water and watery dirt make bad going, and mud is the greatest obstacle to the travel and traffic of the farmer. Mud is a mixture of dirt and water. The dirt isalways to be found in the roadway, and the water, which comes in rain, snow, and frost, softens it; horses and wagons and narrow wheel tires knead it and mix it, and it soon gets into so bad a condition that a fairly loaded wagon cannot be hauled through it.
"We cannot prevent the coming of this water, and it only remains for us to get rid of it, which can be speedily done if we go about it in the right way. Very few people know how great an amount of water falls upon the country road, and it may surprise some of us to be told that on each mile of an ordinary country highway three rods wide within the United States there falls each year an average of twenty-seven thousand tons of water. In the ordinary country dirt road the water seems to stick and stay as if there was no other place for it, and this is only because we have never given it a fair opportunity to run out of the dirt and find its level in other places. We cannot make a hard road out of soft mud, and no amount of labor and machinery will make a good dirt road that will stay good unless some plan is adoptedto get rid of the surplus water. Water is a heavy, limpid fluid, hard to confine and easy to let loose. It is always seeking for a chance to run down a hill; always trying to find its lowest level."
An essential feature of a good road is good drainage, and the principles of good drainage remain substantially the same whether the road be constructed of earth, gravel, shells, stones, or asphalt. The first demand of good drainage is to attend to the shape of road surface. This must be "crowned," or rounded up toward the center, so that there may be a fall from the center to the sides, thus compelling the water to flow rapidly from the surface into the gutters which should be constructed on one or both sides, and from there in turn be discharged into larger and more open channels. Furthermore, it is necessary that no water be allowed to flow across a roadway; culverts, tile, stone, or box drains should be provided for that purpose.
In addition to being well covered and drained, the surface should be kept as smooth as possible; that is, free from ruts, wheel tracks, holes, or hollows. If any ofthese exist, instead of being thrown to the side the water is held back and is either evaporated by the sun or absorbed by the material of which the road is constructed. In the latter case the material loses its solidity, softens and yields to the impact of the horses' feet and the wheels of vehicles, and, like the water poured upon a grindstone, so the water poured on a road surface which is not properly drained assists the grinding action of the wheels in rutting or completely destroying the surface. When water is allowed to stand on a road the holes and ruts rapidly increase in number and size; wagon after wagon sinks deeper and deeper, until the road finally becomes utterly bad, and sometimes impassable, as frequently found in many parts of the country during the winter season.
Road drainage is just as essential to a good road as farm drainage is to a good farm. In fact, the two go hand in hand, and the better the one the better the other, and vice versa. There are thousands of miles of public roads in the United States which are practically impassable during some portion of the year on account of baddrainage, while for the same reason thousands of acres of the richest meadow and swamp lands lie idle from year in to year out.
The wearing surface of a road must be in effect a roof; that is, the section in the middle should be the highest part and the traveled roadway should be made as impervious to water as possible, so that it will flow freely and quickly into the gutters or ditches alongside. The best shape for the cross section of a road has been found to be either a flat ellipse or one made up of two plane surfaces sloping uniformly from the middle to the sides and joined in the center by a small, circular curve. Either of these sections may be used, provided it is not too flat in the middle for good drainage or too steep at the gutters for safety. The steepness of the slope from the center to the sides should depend upon the nature of the surface, being greater or less according to its roughness or smoothness. This slope ought to be greatest on earth roads, perhaps as much in some cases as one foot in twenty feet after the surface has been thoroughlyrolled or compacted by traffic. This varies from about one in twenty to one in thirty on a macadam road, to one in forty or one in sixty on the various classes of pavements, and for asphalt sometimes as low as one in eighty.
Where the road is constructed on a grade or hill the slope from the center to the sides should be slightly steeper than that on the level road. The best cross section for roads on grades is the one made up from two plane surfaces sloping uniformly from the center to the sides. This is done so as to avoid the danger of overturning near the side ditches, which would necessarily be increased if the elliptical form were used. The slope from the center to the sides must be steep enough to lead the water into the side ditches instead of allowing it to run down the middle of the road. Every wheel track on an inclined roadway becomes a channel for carrying down the water, and unless the curvature is sufficient these tracks are quickly deepened into water courses which cut into and sometimes destroy the best improved road.
In order to prevent the washing out ofearth roads on hills it sometimes becomes necessary to construct water breaks; that is, broad shallow ditches arranged so as to catch the surface water and carry it each way into the side ditches. Such ditches retard traffic to a certain extent, and often result in overturning vehicles; consequently they should never be used until all other means have failed to cause the water to flow into the side channels; neither should they be allowed to cross the entire width of the road diagonally, but should be constructed in the shape of the letter V. This arrangement permits teams following the middle of the road to cross the ditch squarely and thus avoid the danger of overturning. These ditches should not be deeper than is absolutely necessary to throw the water off the surface, and the part in the center should be the shallowest.
Unfortunately farmers and road masters have a fixed idea that one way to prevent hills, long and short, from washing is to heap upon them quantities of those original tumular obstructions known indifferently as "thank-you-ma'ams," "breaks," or "hummocks," and the number they cansqueeze in upon a single hill is positively astonishing. Quoting Mr. Isaac B. Potter:
"Side ditches are necessary because the thousands of tons of water which fall upon every mile of country road each year, in the form of rain or snow, should be carried away to some neighboring creek or other water channel as fast as the rain falls and the snow melts, so as to prevent its forming mud and destroying the surface of the road. When the ground is frozen and a heavy rain or sudden thaw occurs, the side ditch is the only means of getting rid of the surface water; for no matter how sandy or porous the soil may be, when filled with frost it is practically water-tight, and the water which falls or forms on the surface must either remain there or be carried away by surface ditches at the sides of the road."A side ditch should have a gradually falling and even grade at the bottom, and broad, flaring sides to prevent the caving in of its banks. It can be easily cleared of snow, weeds, and rubbish; the water will run into it easily from each side, and it is not dangerous to wagons and foottravelers. It is therefore a much better ditch than the kind of ditch very often dug by erosion along the country roadside."
"Side ditches are necessary because the thousands of tons of water which fall upon every mile of country road each year, in the form of rain or snow, should be carried away to some neighboring creek or other water channel as fast as the rain falls and the snow melts, so as to prevent its forming mud and destroying the surface of the road. When the ground is frozen and a heavy rain or sudden thaw occurs, the side ditch is the only means of getting rid of the surface water; for no matter how sandy or porous the soil may be, when filled with frost it is practically water-tight, and the water which falls or forms on the surface must either remain there or be carried away by surface ditches at the sides of the road.
"A side ditch should have a gradually falling and even grade at the bottom, and broad, flaring sides to prevent the caving in of its banks. It can be easily cleared of snow, weeds, and rubbish; the water will run into it easily from each side, and it is not dangerous to wagons and foottravelers. It is therefore a much better ditch than the kind of ditch very often dug by erosion along the country roadside."
Where the road is built on a grade some provision should be made to prevent the wash of the gutters into great, deep gullies. This can be done by paving the bottom and sides of the gutters with brick, river rocks, or field stone. In order to make the flow in such side ditches as small as possible it is advisable to construct outlets into the adjacent fields or to lay underground pipes or tile drains with openings into the ditches at frequent intervals.
The size of side ditches should depend upon the character of the soil and the amount of water they are expected to carry. If possible they should be located three feet from the edge of the traveled roadway, so that if the latter is fourteen feet wide there will be twenty feet of clear space between ditches.
The bottom of the ditch may vary in width from three to twelve inches, or even more, as may be found necessary in order to carry the largest amount of water which is expected to flow through it at any onetime. Sometimes the only ditches necessary to carry off the surface water are those made by the use of the road machines or road graders. The blade of the machine may be set at any desired angle, and when drawn along by horses, cuts into the surface and moves the earth from the sides toward the center, forming gutters alongside and distributing the earth uniformly over the traveled way. Such gutters are liable to become clogged by brush, weeds, and other débris, or destroyed by passing wagons, and it is therefore better, when the space permits, to have the side ditches above referred to, even if the road be built with a road machine.
In order to have a good road it is just as necessary that water should not be allowed to attack the substructure from below as that it should not be permitted to percolate through it from above. Especially is the former provision essential in cold climates, where, if water is allowed to remain in the substructure, the whole roadway is liable to become broken up and destroyed by frost and the wheels of vehicles. Therefore, where the road runsthrough low wet lands or over certain kinds of clayey soils, surface drainage is not all that is necessary. Common side drains catch surface water and surface water only. Isaac Potter says: