Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 266, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1911 — ROADS AND ROAD MAKING [ARTICLE]

ROADS AND ROAD MAKING

TO LESSEN THE WEAR ON ROADS. Broad Tires, and Pleasure and Freight Roads Separate. t j to**, stone roads would last muck longer if we would load,the wagons a» bur ancestors did, saysj J. J. Albertson in Good Reads Magazine. The ambition of an American Impels him to do just aJI he Can; thus, as the highway improves, just in that proportion he increases his loads/ This concentration Of a great weight in a small space dould be overcome, in a large degree, by distributing the same weight on a great surface by the use of broad tires. To this point our people are becoming slowly educated. Tto lives of our roads are greatiy lengthened by frequent light coatings of gravel dr even sand. These act as a cushion and take the first shock and wear. My twelve years’ active experience in road building near a large city has led me to believe it is bad economy to use the same road for freight and pleasure driving. It is just like a man using hla Sunday clothes to go gunning or surveying. He soon has a suit that is not adapted to either. Man in his development has passed through several periods or ages, beginning with the earthen, too stone, the bronze, the iron, and some say we are about to enter the cement or concrete age. So it has been with road improvement. We started with earth, and now are up to steel or concrete. Past experience has demonstrated that stone is not permanent as a road metal.