OCR Text |
Show THE SPUTLOG DRAG U8E AND LIMITATIONS OF THI8 DEVICE IN CARING FOR ROADS. USE FOR CONVICT LABOR Dragging Should Always Be Done Just After a Rain Good Road Is One That Is Good and Usable 365 Days in Year. By HOWARD H. GROSS. There Is no road implement that will do more to make bad roads better than the split log drag, and none that Is so inexpensive. A handy man can usually get up one at a cost of $3 or $4. Better ones can be bought of road machinery companies for $8 to $15. There Is no patent on it, so there is no reason why they should not come into general use. The problem of supplying prisoners .with work that shall not compete unfairly un-fairly with free labor is not yet solved. Here, however. Is an article that can be readily made to advantage in the penitentiary and It would be well to have a few thousand turned out. The writer desires in the outset to correct a misconception that seems quite general, and that Is, that the split log drag is a solution of the good roads problem. It Is nothing of the kind, it has Its uses and Its limitations. limita-tions. Unfortunately, the man who made it, and for which the country is under obligations, overshoots the mark in his slogan: "Good Roads Without Money." The drag is doing good work it Is a pity the Inventor is not satis-fled satis-fled to put it and leave It where it belongs. The drag is not only useful for earth roads, but serves an excellent purpose in keeping gravel roads in condition, and it may be used at times on macadam macad-am roads to advantage. Dragging should always be done In or just following a rain. The surface should be quite wet. The drag should carry Just enough weight so it will smooth the surface and fill' the ruts without clogging the drag with an accumulation ac-cumulation of mud before it. It should Iron out and smooth the road without with-out disturbing more than surface projections. pro-jections. Its main use is to fill the ruts and keep the center of the road to the proper crown so the water will readily find its way into the ditches. The attempt to have the farmers voluntarily vol-untarily drag the road by their farms, or by co-operation have all the roads dragged, will never work out satisfactorily. satisfac-torily. Some will respond and do their duty, but the human hog must be reckoned with the one who Is supremely su-premely selfish, and takes pleasure In overturning the good work of another sometimes just to be mean pure cuss-edness. cuss-edness. The writer was told of an incident in-cident that illustrated this perverse-ness. perverse-ness. A coarse grained middle aged man was heard to say: "T'other day I was coming back from town and I seen old man Jones out with a road drag In the rain you'd a thought he owned the road. Say, you ought to a-seen that road when me and Jake druv over It. You wouldn't s'posed it had ever seen a drag. Jones was hot when he seen us coming. He tore around like a crazy man. We wouldn't row with an old man, so we give him the ha! ha! and went on." It Is no use to drag a road and then cut It up again. Let all such work as dragging be done and paid for and make it a heavy fine for any one to drive over a dragged road until it Is dry enough so It will not cut up. Gravel roads while new and compacting com-pacting under the traffic show deep ruts along the wheel track and less ones made by the feet of the horses. When In this condition one or two round trips with the drag will fill the ruts and reform the surface and in doing do-ing so will move very little material. The forward movement of the drag should be at an angle so that when the material Is pushed forward it Is also carried to the center of the road. A good road Is one that is good and usable 365 days in the year; a road whereon one may ride or drive with pleasure or have a full load without strain upon the horse, vehicle or harness. har-ness. To do this the road must have a hard, smooth surface and offer the minimum of resistance. This requires the surface to be "metaled," as the English say, 1. e., covered with gravel, broken stone or an equivalent. An earth road may be an excellent one today and tomorrow a very bad one. It may be a delight In June and a fright In March. Such roads have the virtues of a balky horse they are liable to fail when most wanted. With a stone or gravel road, leading from the farm, should a heavy rain occur in the busy season, when for a day or so It is too wet to go into the field, the errands to town may be done, several sev-eral loads of grain or hogs taken to market, and the time well employed. With the average earth roads, when r. :-":. . -, . t . . ' : i ' ,4 :''-.-,'. . " ' - . t ' - ' - - - L . ' ' . , -.-. . . ... , -. . ? ;: . - - - - '- - y , .. ' ,. ' :. '.-'" v . :, Road After Being Dragged One Year Helena, Ark. The above road lor many years was Impassable a large part of the time. A few years ago it was frraded as shown not very well done, however. The surface has been dragged at short Intervals for a year. This has kept the road comparatively smooth. While It cannot be called a good road, it is a good example of how a very bad road may be made better with grading and dragging. This road is In Arkansas. the fields are too wet to work, the roads are too muddy to travel. Hence, the writer holds to the opinion above expressed, that no earth road is entitled en-titled to be called a good road, because so much of the time it Is positively bad. The extravagant claims that have been made for the road drag are really holding back the building of good roads. Many have believed that all that was required to have good roads was to go up and down a strep' ol mud once or twice, say "Presto.' and behold, a good highway. This is sheer nonsense. The loud acclaim of a "River to River Road," made good in an hour or so is a myth. This famous road was greatly improved by the dragging, drag-ging, but it is not a good road, and never will be until it Is thoroughly drained, properly' graded and has a hard, durable wearii surface placed upon it. It Is human nature to hunt for some easy, cheap and speedy way to do things, and usually no sooner has one discovered- how to make some progress toward a solution, than he announces a complete revolutionary discovery that sets aside all experience and precedent, prece-dent, and gains something for nothing. The split log drag is directly in point. The people may as well make up their minds now, as to find out later, that good roads cost money and lots of it, but they are worth many times their cost and they will pay for themselves them-selves over and over again every decade. dec-ade. A well drained and well built macadam road with a good binder may cost anywhere from $4,000 to $0,000 per mile, but such a road with moderate mod-erate repairs will last for generations, rlence the future should bear part of the burden. There is only one sensible, sensi-ble, businesslike way to build good roads, and that is, by state aid, where by the state, preferably from a long time low rate bond Issue, pays part ot the expense, and the township issues bonds, running from 20 to 30 years, for its part. By building all at once from ten to twenty per cent, can be saved in the cost of the work, and the community has the roads to use from the start. Of course Interest must be paid on the bonds, but against this goes the use of the roads. If this Is not worth more than the Interest It is better not to build the roads. The road question Is a big one and must be handled In a big way. |