Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 January 1893 — GOOD PUBLIC ROADS. [ARTICLE]

GOOD PUBLIC ROADS.

A Morgan County 111., Man’s Idea of How They Can Be Easily and Cheaply Made. ■ t J. B. Turner, of Morgan county. 111. lias a readable article on road malting in the ‘Western Rural of Chicago, from which the following suggestions are copied: Road making is our next great physical improvement in the great northwest. Ever since I came to the West, some sixty years ago, I have noticed wherever I have been or traveled that, on ground thoroughly underdrained, our prairie mud or soil will make a first-class road, if duly mixed with sand, and vice versa. Our sand banks and flats can be made into good roads only 7 by being mixed with the mud or soil. The reason of this is that the soil will pack under the wheels and horses’ feet only when it ia comparatively dry, but the sand

will pack only when it is wet. Hence the two together properly mixed will pack nnder the wheels whether it is wet or dry and you have a pood surface road in rains and in droughts. Usually it takes about half and half for the first surface foot of the roadbed, sometimes more and sometimes less, according to the purity of the sand and the mud used. Sand is better than either gravel or pounded Stone, because it will stay upon the surface and pack with the soil and not sink into the depths below. You can nowhere make good roads without the proper drainage. You can nowhere make one with pure mud or pure sand. . But they must everywhere be so combined as to pack under the wheels, whether wet or dry. If you have your soil, you must cart on yonr sand until you get something like a foot of solid packed surface that will stay where it is put and let the rainwater that falls on in it, or is detained, right down through into the drainage below. Then you will have solid, even though sloppy roads, whether wet or dry. But with sand alone or mud alone this can not be done, and not half as easily with gravel or pounded stone, for your gravel and pounded stone will not stay and pack with your soil, but will be forever sinking below it. If I were to make permanent roads on all sorts of mud roads in Illinois, therefore I should first begin in the center of the road and lay a firstclass drainage pipe right under its center just below the frost line of the contemplated road, with free outlets for water at each side at all the lowest places into the fields and drainage ditches round about. If our pipes and outlets in these low places come above the natural surface so much the better. After the pipes are laid, scrape and cart on and round up your road bed out of the dirt at hand, whatever it may be, making it as high and narrow, and well rounded as convenient. Then cart on sand, the purer the better, but any sort of sand will do, though it will take more of it, till you find your sand will pack beneath the hoofs and wheels, whether wet or dry; Of course, in some soils it will take more and some less, probably, on an average about half and half for the first foot. Your road

bed will, at first, be a hard one to travel and will rut and become rough like all new road beds, but harrow it or scrape it smooth again, till the sand becomes thoroughly mixed with the soil. Then it will begin to pack beneath the wheels, and will constantly let the surplus water that lodges on it down on the drainage below. The Republican is strongly disposed to believe there is a vast deal of sound sense and practical wisdom in the above article, and wisdom and sense that aro specially applicable to the condition of things in Jasper county. There are lots of sand roads in this county which could easily be treated with a top-dressing of dirt; and lots of dirt roads, vice versa. Do any of our readers know of any pieces of road in the coupty which have been treated in the manner above indicated? And pieces of mud road that have been covered with sand; or any prices of sand road that have been coated with dirt? If so we should be glad to hear how the experiments havo resulted. If you know of any such experiments write to us and we will give the facts to our readers.