Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1874 — Horses Suffer by Bad Roads. [ARTICLE]

Horses Suffer by Bad Roads.

Supposing a horse can pull on a level road 1,000 pounds, on a road rising one foot to the hundred he could pull but 900 pounds. If it rises two feet in a hundred 810 pounds, two and a half feet 720 pounds, four feet 520 pounds, five feet 400 pounds, and if the rise were ten feet in a hundred he could pull but 250 pounds, or only one-quarter the load he could pull on a level road. Then, again r the condition of the road, whether hard and smooth, or soft and uneven, has much to do with the amount a team can draw over it. Experiments made byMorin phow that a load of 9,000 pounds will require a, tractive force of 1,000 pounds to move it over a firm, gravel road, newly repaired. On best kind of gravel road, 310 pounds. On broken stone road in good condition, 1661 pounds; on good pavement, I3Bj pounds. According to the above calculations, in the first case it would require eight horses to do the work which one could do in the latter case. So if both roads were level,

and we have 200 bushels of potatoes to carry to market, we could draw them on the best paved road with one horse, while on the newly-repaired gravel road we should need eight horses, and if the rise were ten feet in a hundred we should require thirty-two horses to draw the same joad.— N. E. Farmer.