y and two inches cover of sand_]]

Roads are prone to wear in ruts, and when hollows and ruts begin to make
their appearance on the surface of an earth road great care should be
used in selecting new material, with which they should be immediately
filled, because a hole which could have been filled at first with a
shovel full of material would soon need a cart full. It should, if
possible, be of a gravelly nature, entirely free from vegetable earth,
muck, or mold. Sod or turf should not be placed on the surface, neither
should the surface be renewed by throwing upon it the worn-out material
from the gutters alongside. The last injunction, if rightly observed and
the proper remedy applied, would doubtless put an end to the deplorable
condition of thousands of miles of earth roads in the United States.

A road-maker should not go to the other extreme and fill up ruts and
holes with stone or large gravel. In many cases it would be wiser to
dump such material in the river. These stones do not wear uniformly with
the rest of the material, but produce bumps and ridges, and in nearly
every case result in making two holes instead of one. Every hole or rut
in a roadway, if not tamped full of some good material like that of
which the road is constructed, will become filled with water, and
finally with mud and water, and will be dug deeper and wider by each
passing vehicle.

The work of maintaining earth roads will be much increased by lack of
care in properly finishing the work. The labor and money spent in
rolling a newly-made road may save many times that amount of labor and
money in making future repairs. After the material has been placed it
should not be left for the traffic to consolidate, or for the rains to
wash off into the ditches, but should be carefully formed and surfaced,
and then, if possible, rolled. The rolling not only consolidates the
material, but puts the roadbed in proper shape for travel immediately.
If there is anything more trying on man or beast than to travel over an
unimproved road, it must be to travel over one which has just been
"worked" by the antiquated methods now in vogue in many of the states.

The traveled way should never be repaired by the use of plows or scoops.
The plow breaks up the compact surface which age and traffic have made
tolerable. Earth roads can be rapidly repaired by a judicious use of
road machines and road rollers. The road machine places the material
where it is most nee