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Show FOR RHLDER5 SUGGESTIONS TO HELP THE INEXPERIENCED IN-EXPERIENCED IN HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION. FIRST STEP IS DRAINAGE Get Water Off and Away From Road as Quickly as Possible Weeds and Sod Make Trouble Proper Use of Gravel. By HOWARD H. GROSS. It is not overstating the fact to eay that three-fourths of the men charged with the responsibility of building and repairing the roads the country over, know very little about the subject; sub-ject; they have not had the engineering engineer-ing experience or even the practical experience necessary; they have simply sim-ply followed their predecessors and they do what the fellow before them did. 'In the movement for better highways high-ways the first step is a more intelligent intelli-gent expenditure of the time and money appropriated for the betterment better-ment of the roads, to the end that the community shall get the most and the best results for its contribution. It is common practice to do either the wrong thing, or if perchance the right thing is done, to do it at the wrong time of the year, and the result is very often an expenditure of one dollar dol-lar to get thirty cents worth of benefit. bene-fit. As an instance we 'might cite that Illinois is spending five million of dollars a year upon the highways, and those in position to know, assert that more than half of it is wasted by ill timed and misdirected effort. bly farther down hill than the intake. in-take. Where culverts are necessary have them of ample size, and it is equally important to give the culvert sufficient fall. A twelve inch culvert, twenty-four twenty-four feet long with a fall of four inches, is better than one twice the size with a fall of two inches. The rapid Row through the culvert with a greater fall will keep the culvert clean. In one where the flow is sluggish, slug-gish, desposits will form and soon will choke the flow. Be sure to leave ample am-ple outlet so the water can move freely after passing through tlfe culvert. cul-vert. In grading to make a fill do not allow al-low any weeds or sod to get into the roadway. These will decay and make all kinds of trouble. It is much better bet-ter to keep them out in the first instance. in-stance. if, in making the fill, the material must be moved six hundred feet or less, it will be advantageous to do this with scrapers wheel type preferred. pre-ferred. But if the material must be moved more than that it will be cheaper to put it upon wagons. Any filling of this nature should be made early in the spring, preferably as soon as the frost is out of the ground, so it will have ample time to compact and settle by the summer rains and the traffic. By proper handling during dur-ing the summer season, a fill several sev-eral feet deep can be put in shape for the road. A fill of this kind should be dragged with a split log drag or its equivalent after rains in order to keep the fills smooth and rounded so the water will run off quickly. The main thing is to prevent this fill from becoming water soaked. If this is done it will be thoroughly dried out and in good condition before the winter win-ter sets in, and it can be kept comparatively com-paratively dry, if the tiles are kept open at the side and water is kept off the surface. In order to do this Mw!mm: l$?fkc4c imusjr-MMKtaMM Before Improvement Johnson City, Tenn. - large extent takes the place of a roller. roll-er. If a roller can be had this also should be used, and used immediately after a rain. But. a good road cau be had without a roller, if it is taken care of and looked after during the first year, and the best implement to do this is with a split log drag, using it the same as on an earth road. Ruts will form along the wagoD track and where the horses go, but a dragging of the surface will fill these and in a short time a compact, smooth roadway road-way will result. A better road can be built in one year if this plan Is followed fol-lowed than can be built in three yeara by the old plan, and the road will be smoother and will serve a better purpose. pur-pose. Do not forget that the most important impor-tant part of road building is drainage, and that five or six inches of gravel on a well drained road will give better bet-ter results than twice this material upon a road that 1b imperfectly drained. drain-ed. When the writer was attending the great International Meeting of Road Engineers In Paris, 1908, one of the delegates asked an eminent French engineer how soon after the road was built he commenced to make repairs. His answer was: "The next day." If any place "a stitch In time saves nine," it certainly will do so on the highway. The splendid roads of Europe are looked after by an attendant attend-ant who goes over them every week, and as soon as a break appears, the necessary repair is made. In this country the practice has been to build an expensive road or pave a street at a high cost, and do nothing with it until un-til it becomes impassable. When any township has well graded grad-ed and thoroughly drained Its highways high-ways the question of good roads is half solved, but only half. A smooth hard wearing surface must be put upon up-on the same, especially upon the main highways. Where the state aid plaD is followed the expense is not a burden bur-den to anyone and the benefits are many and shared in by all. We sometimes hear the statement made by those who are trying to find objections to the building of hard roads, that an earth road is much pleasanter to drive upon and easier for the horses, and therefore the advantages ad-vantages of a good road are in some degree off-set by the fact that an earth road at certain seasons is the better of the two. The writer has always advocated, that where It is practical, it would be well to leave a smooth earth road alongside of the stone or gravel road, so that the drivers might choose between be-tween the two. When the weather Is fine and the earth road is smooth, the drivers will usually take that In preference pref-erence to the hard road. This saves wearing the hard road, and thus it serves a double purpose. Let a heavy rain descend and everybody takes the hard road. The difference is the improved im-proved highway is good 365 days ts the year, and the other road is good and bad by turns. Having them side by side, which can easily be done without additional expense, the people have the choice. There is another Jjeature of the permanent per-manent road that should not be lost sight of. In the busy season while the crops are being planted, sometimes some-times a heavy rain will fall, so that the fields are too wet to work. With good roads the farmer can make e trip to town, do the necessary errands, er-rands, haul off a load of grain or hogs and keep his farm hands employed. If the roads are unimproved, he can neither work the farm nor travel the highways. Every road overseer, and in fact every ev-ery farmer, should send to the state engineer of his state, and to the office of Public Roads at Washington, and have his name put upon the mailing list, so that the bulletins and circulars, circu-lars, of which scores are published every ev-ery year, upon road building and maintenance, main-tenance, road drainage, and suggestions sugges-tions that grow out of the experience of road building can be followed up and adopted by them. If this were done it would stop an enormous amount of money that every year is wasted upon the highways by ill timed and misdirected effort. Old Vorld Cast'e on the Hudson. Washington Heights is to have a castle like those of the old world Plans are being prepared for Com mendatore Celestlno Piva, a wealthy importer of raw silk and a member of Givernaud Brothers. It Is to be erect ed on the high bluff overlooking tht Hudson river and the Palisades, just back of the historical Arrowhead inn The property comprises more that twenty lots, being part of the forme? McCormick tract. The castle Is lo be surrounded b Italian gardens, and the slope of th bluff is to be terraced and windim roads built to reach the castle fron the boulevard. The building itself wll be a three-story affair, with two look out turrets at either end and a larg pergola at the north end. Italian Renaissance will be the architeclurr of every detail of the ex'erioi nd In rerior. New York Tribune. Not Perfect A hon-p dealer was f -.owStir a norfce to a prospective buyer After running him back and forward for a few minutes, min-utes, he stopped and zt-M to the buyer: buy-er: "What do you think of his coat? Isn't he a dar.dy?" The buyer, noticing that the home had the heaves, replied: "Yes, I like his coat, all right, but I don't like his pants." Tit-Bits. Our Varying Moods. "Yea. environment does Influenr us." "How now?" "Ycu never see a man comlne o-of o-of church with his hat ercl : cn il side of his hed." What is true of Illinois is true throughout the central west. In order to make suggestions that will be of value one must assume some typical conditions and indicate what it is best to do to improve the roads under them. In road improvement the first and most important step is drainage. Without proper drainage every effort will fail. Water is the only natural enemy of roads, and water is a coward cow-ard and will run away if given a chance, hence get the water off the road and away from the road as quickly as possible. This may be done either by surface or sub-surface drainage, by side ditches with ample fall and proper outlet to carry the water away from the highway, or by tile. If the latter is done nothing less than four inch tile ought to be used and it should "be very carefully laid, and should be put on each side of the road, particularly where the drainage is most needed. Be sure the ruts must be filled as soon as ! made. When a grade is once established the surface thereafter should never be disturbed except the top two or three inches in order to smooth it out with a road drag or harrow. We will assume that the fill has been made preparatory to putting gravel or crushed stone upon the highway, and thus have a permanent improvement. The following suggestions will be of benefit to the inexperienced road builder, who has simply farm tools to use. It is not designed to suggest to the experienced builder, having improved road machinery to use. Where roads are graveled, it has been very common for the farmers to haul the gravel and dump it down in a winrow, and leave it to be spread and compacted by traffic. Every driver avoids this winrow until soft weather compels him to drive over I : 1 " s ' v&! After Improvement Johnson City, Tenn. . This beautiful road shows the same highway as the other illustration illus-tration taken less than a half mile away after the same has been improved, such roads mean better schools, more social life, contentment, more profit and higher farm values. The Increase In the value of farm lands along this road is said to be at least three times as much as the tax to build the road. These illustrations were furnished by the U. S. Office of Public Roads. that the outlet is unobstructed If side ditches are used, especially on a hill slope, and have them as wide as practicable prac-ticable ar the bottom. Suppose the bed of the ditch is twenty-four inches wide down a hill slope. Construct so that the bottom of the ditch next to the hill side will be an inch or so lower than the side next to the road, so the How will teud to the hill side instead of to the road. Wherever it Is necessary to carry water across a roadway, it is best to use iron or concrete pipe and carry it across at an angle. Strong tile will do if it Is placed a sufficient distance dis-tance below the surface so it will not be broken by the traffic. The outlet of this crossing should be considera- it. Hence the road made in this manner man-ner requires a long time and a great deal of subsequent attention before a fairly good gravel road is the result. re-sult. Before putting down the gravel shoulders should be made the width that the gravel is to be spread, which may be anything from nine feet or more. After the gravel is dumped In between the shoulders, take an -old-fashioned field harrow and go back and forth over this winrow. and with the aid of a little hand work here and there, have it spread over the surface smoothly, and three or four Inches higher at the middle than at ;he sides. This harrowing Is very Important as it gets the particles, composing the material, closer together and to a |