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Show I0ST OF ROAD MAINTENANCE set In Southsastsm Nebrsska Shown Satisfactory Work Can Be Done for Less Than $10 Per Mile. By C. r. CJIA8K. North PakoU Agricultural Agri-cultural I'ollraO At the home farm in southeastern Nebraska there la a stretch of land ne-half mile In length that we have Iragged for seven years. Only once luring thle period has thla road been vorked with anything but a drag. Two 'ears ago the side ditches were leaned with the common road grader. A careful record of the time taken 0 drag this road has been kept. Two rips for one man and one team requlr-ng requlr-ng one hour's time for a single drag-ting drag-ting Is the basis taken. The first year e dragged It 16 times, the second 13. he third 17, and the fourth 13 and the mh 14 times or 71 dragglngs of one tour's time In five years. Thla le 30 . ;enta an hour for a man and team la 14.20 a year for the one-half mile. For k mll It would be $3.62 annually. An-ther An-ther mad In the Immediate vicinity :osl leva than $10 per mile annually. K case Is noted In Public Uoads Hull In No. 48, United States department jf agriculture, where the cost of similar sim-ilar maintenance of roads In Arkansas waa tU per mile. State Engineer Hear lui rt of Kausae puts the range of coft for dragging at from 34 to f 10. The cost for North Dakota should not cost more than $10 a mile, while In most casus It would be much less, the cost depending upon the character of the soil, the rainfall, traffic and grade. As an average for all dirt roads 1 would place the annual cost of maintenance main-tenance at 37.60 per mile or $460,740 to drag In a satisfactory manner the roads In North Dakota one year. The total expenditure on public roads of North Dakota outside of towna In 1U waa $891,640. If properly proper-ly organised, and If the people were educated, we could properly maintain our earth road with the present road runda and have $230,800 loft for brtdgee, new conatruction, etc. The national office of public roads recommenda the patrol system combining com-bining dragging. The Nebraaka legislature legis-lature passed a law that Is not unlike the patrol system. The substance of the law la aa follows: The graded roads in each county are to be divided Into road dragging districts dis-tricts by the county boards. One person per-son to each township la to be appointed ap-pointed superintendent of dragging, and la to receive not more than $2 60 per day. Hoads shall be dragged whenever necessary, and all the sections of the highway shall be dragged at once. County boards may levy a tax of not to exceed one mill for road dragging. Where four horses are used on an eight fool drag, the rate of payment ia 75 cents for each mile of highway dragged both ways. Where a seven-foot seven-foot drag and two or three horses are used, 60 cents Is the prescribed rate. On rocky highways or stretches of road that cannot be Improved by dragging drag-ging the county boards are not required re-quired to put the act into effect |