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Show 1 DRAG ROADS AT PROPER TIME i j Fully as Important as It Is That Highways High-ways Should Be Done Right ( Keep Ruts From Forming. (Prepared by the United States Department Depart-ment of Agriculture.) It is fully as important that a road be dragged at the right time as it is that the dragging be properly done. Furthermore, the difficulties involved iu prescribing definite rules for determining deter-mining when dragging should be done are equally as great as those already encountered in attempting to define how it should be done. Only very general gen-eral statements concerning this feature fea-ture of the work can properly be made bere, and much must be left to the experienced ex-perienced judgment of those who decide de-cide when the dragging of any particular particu-lar road is to be started and when it is to be stopped. The rule frequently cited that all arth roads should be dragged immediately imme-diately after every rain, is in many cases entirely impracticable and is also Drag on a North Carolina Road. very misleading because of the conditions condi-tions which it fails to contemplate. It Is true that there are many road surfaces sur-faces composed of earth or earthy material ma-terial which do not become very muddy , under traffic, even during long rainy seasons, and since such surfaces usually usu-ally tend to harden very rapidly as soon as the weather clears up, it may be desirable to drag roads of this kind immediately after a rain. Such roads, however, would not ordinarily need to be dragged after every rain, because of the strong tendency that they naturally nat-urally possess of holding their shape. On the other hand, many varieties of clay and soil tend to become very muddy under only light traffic after very moderate rains, and, it is evident that roads constructed of such materials ma-terials could not always be successfully success-fully dragged immediately after a rain. Sometimes, in fact, it may be neces-' neces-' f sary to wait until several consecutive clear days have elapsed after a long rainy spell before the road is sufficiently sufficient-ly dried out to keep ruts from forming almost as rapidly as they can be filled by dragging. Well-constructed sand-clay topsoil roads should not often become muddy after they are once well compacted. They may become seriously rutted, however, under heavy traffic, during rainy weather, and are almost sure to need dragging several times each year. ' Such roads should ordinarily be dragged drag-ged as soon after a rain as practicable prac-ticable as otherwise the surface soon becomes dry and hard, so that it is necessary to do considerably more dragging in order to fill the ruts. Furthermore, Fur-thermore, the material which the drag moves will not compact readily unless it contains a considerable amount of moisture. Gravel roads can be effectively maintained main-tained with a road drag only when the gravel composing the surface is fine grained ancr contains a considerable quantity of clay earth. Gravel road surfaces in which this condition prevails pre-vails not infrequently get badly out of .shape during wet weather, and may sometimes require considerably more attention than well-constructed sand-clay sand-clay topsoil roads. The time for dragging drag-ging gravel roads is unquestionably while they are wet. In fact, the best results are sometimes obtained by do-inp do-inp the dragging after the road has become be-come thoroughly soaked and while it is still raining. In general, it may be said that the best time to drag any type of road is when the material composing the surface sur-face contains sufficient moisture to compact readily after it has been moved by the drag and is not sufficiently suffi-ciently wet for the traffic following the drag to produce mud. |