ior to many of the so-called macadam or stone roads.

"Water is the great road destroyer," and too much attention cannot be
given to the surface and subdrainage of earth roads. The material of
which their surfaces are composed is more susceptible to the action of
water and more easily destroyed by it than any other highway material.
Drainage alone will often change a bad road into a good one, while on
the other hand the best road may be destroyed by the absence of good
drains.

The same can be said of rolling, which is a very important matter in
attempting to build or maintain a satisfactory earth road. If loose
earth is dumped into the middle of the road and consolidated by
traffic, the action of the narrow-tired wheels cuts it or rolls it into
uneven ruts and ridges, which hold water, and ultimately results, if in
the winter season, in a sticky, muddy surface, or if it be in dry
weather, in covering the surface with several inches of dust. If,
however, the surface be prepared with a road machine and properly rolled
with a heavy roller, it can usually be made sufficiently firm and smooth
to sustain the traffic without rutting, and resist the penetrating
action of the water. Every road is made smoother, harder, and better by
rolling. Such rolling should be done in damp weather, or if that is not
possible, the surface should be sprinkled if the character of the soil
requires such aid for its proper consolidation.

In constructing new earth roads all stumps, brush, vegetable matter,
rocks, and bowlders should be removed from the surface and the resulting
holes filled in with suitable material, carefully and thoroughly tamped
or rolled, before the road embankment is commenced. No perishable
material should be used in forming the permanent embankments. Where
possible the longitudinal grade should be kept down to one foot in
thirty feet, and should under no circumstances exceed one in twenty,
while that from center to sides should be maintained at one foot in
twenty feet.

Wherever the subgrade soil is found unsuitable it should be removed and
replaced with good material rolled to a bearing, _i.e._, so as to be
smooth and compact. The roadbed, having been brought to the required
grade and crown, should be rolled several times to compact the surface.
All inequalities discovered during the rolling should be leveled up and
rerolled. On the prepared subgrade, the earth should be spread, harrowed
if necessary, and then rolled