Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 287, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 December 1918 — ROAD BUILDING [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ROAD BUILDING

GOOD WORK OF A ROAD DRAG Implement Should Be Ueed Property at Right Time—Repair All Ruts and Depressions. After two days of rain, says a writer in Hoard’s Dairyman, we took an eight-mile drive out into the country to buy some pigs. One piece of road was like a city boulevard, only better. Despite Its being only a grpvel road there wim little mud or Water, and one would have thought that there had been only rain enough to settle the dust instead of the big rainstorm. Wes Inquired and found that two neighbors had made it a practice to alternate in going over this road with a road drag after every rain. Just beyond, we came +o a piece of road muddy, slippery and full of chuck holes that sent us up a mile for every mile covered.. The only difference between these two pieces of road was a road drag and an hour’s time spent when field work could not be done. We estimate that it took twice as much gasoline to cover the undragged road. Multiply our experience by the dozens of teams and autos going over this jhiuddy road, and then compute the expense of failure to use the road drag that was doubtless rotting away In some fence corner. We do not now have in mind the demands of the good roads extremist, bnt are. considering what may be done and wbat should be done with the common dirt road. It does more hafm thal good, as a general rule, to j>low np the sod on the sides of the traveledr track and pild it up in big lumps in the center of the track, leaving them there to be broken up by passing vehicles, and the loosened dirt, washed away by the rain or blown away by the wind. Keep* all the sod, grass roots and other

trash out of the road bed. It merely decays and makes ready for a splendid hole to form. w Whatever is worth doing at all Is worth doing well. No part of a repaired highway should be left until Its surface has been thoroughly and evenly compacted and shaped to let all the water run off. And when, as will most always happen, ruts and depressions make their appearance, they should, be smoothed down, filled, and well compacted so that water may not remain in them to soften the ground and permit further damage by the traffic. When using the road drag, use it properly at the right tifhe. Don’t go out when the road is too wet or too dry. Take it when the mud will make a good mortar and will puddle down like the little girl’s mnd cakes or the mason’s mortar.

Perspective View of Sp|it-Log Drag.