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Show BETTER HIGHWAYS IS NEED OE FARMER AS WELL AS OF AUTOIST Most that is said and written about roads for the farmer is based upon an entirely false premise as to his needs. The prevalent notion is that the farmer farm-er does not require the best type of, road; that thoroly good roads are prl-! marily designed to meet the require-; ments of the motorist. As a matter of fact, the farmer needs all that the' motorist hopes to obtain, plus a fewi loings the motorist can dispense with. The common factors that farmers and motorists especially now that i farmers are becoming our largest automobile au-tomobile owning class are continuous continu-ous stretches of good roads passable at all seasons. This means roads with ounvi, yi t-ii-ui .iuif-u iuunuauuns aiiu wearing surfaces made secure by an enduring binding material which cannot can-not be sucked out and dispersed by motor traffic or transformed into mud and dust. Given a road of this type, the motorist is satisfied. But the farmer needs more. While he may be a motorist, he depends largely upon horses for the transporta tion of crops and produce, and the ideal farmer's road should not only have the characteristic described, but also the further advantage of a resilient, resi-lient, non slippery surface adapted to horse traffic In recognition of the disadvantage? of the too-hard road, a movement Is under way in New York state to provide pro-vide rural districts with a double-barreled type of road, one side for motors mo-tors and the other for iiorse traffic While the remedy proposed is absurd, uneconomical and entirely unneres.Na ry, it shows the drift of public sentiment senti-ment as it concerns the non resilient and very hard road. The solution of the problem is to use a binding ma terlal possessing maximum strength and durability, but at the same time sufficiently elastic to absorb traffic shock. In other words, there should go Into the wearing surface of the road something which makes for tho result obtained by the use of rubber tires on the automobiles The binding material best adapted; to this purpose is in use in every large i city in the United Stattes It is merely mere-ly natural asphalt, such as sustains in! the form of sheet asphalt paving the heaviest traffic of our cities. It is the only material that has given sat-i isfactory and economical sen-ice on I Riverside Drive, New York. So congested con-gested and constant is traffic on this i famous boulevard that tho street had: to be renewed every few years until a natural asphalt was substituted for less durable materials. But country roads do not require sheet asphalt. To emplov asphalt as a binder for the wearing surface stone gives ample resiliency and Inaarefl minimum maintenance charges. Where a farming community has established stone or macadam roads, such roads can be used as foundations for a new wearing top of asphalt hound stone, and from one-half to a third the cost of roads entirely new from the foundation foun-dation up. Two methods of resurfacing old stone roads are in vogue. One is to pour the melted asphalt over the stone after the latter has been spread, and the other Is to pre-mlx the asphalt and stone. The first Is known as the "peuetratlon" raetnod and the second is called the "mixed" method. The penetration method Is the cheaper process, requiring little in the way of mechanical equipment. But whether the fanners road Is resurfaced re-surfaced or an entirely new proposition, proposi-tion, It will cost no more to have it meet the requirement of both horse and motor traffic than to provide for motor traffic alone. Jefferson Highway High-way DecIaraUon. oo |