s purpose and should be used if possible.
The following in regard to the construction of corduroy roads is from
Gilmore's _Roads, Streets, and Pavements_:

"The logs are all cut the same length, which should be that of the
required width of the road, and in laying them down such care in
selection should be exercised as will give the smallest joints or
openings between them. In order to reduce as much as possible the
resistance to draft and the violence of the repeated shocks to which
vehicles are subjected upon these roads, and also to render its surface
practicable for draft animals, it is customary to level up between the
logs with smaller pieces of the same length but split to a triangular
cross section. These are inserted with edges downward in the open
joints, so as to bring their surface even with the upper sides of the
large logs, or as nearly so as practicable.

"Upon the bed thus prepared a layer of brushwood is put, with a few
inches in thickness, with soil or turf on top to keep it in place. This
completes the road. The logs are laid directly upon the natural surface
of the soil, those of the same or nearly of the same diameter being kept
together, and the top covering of soil is excavated from side ditches.

"Cross drains may usually be omitted in roads of this kind, as the
openings between the logs, even when laid with utmost care, will furnish
more than ample water way for drainage from the ditch on the upper to
that on the lower side of the road. When the passage of a creek of
considerable volume is to be provided for, and in localities subject to
freshets, cross drains or culverts are made wherever necessary by the
omission of two or more logs, the openings being bridged with planks,
split rails, or poles laid transversely to the axis of the road and
resting on cross beams notched into the logs on either side."

The essential requirement of a good road is that it should be firm and
unyielding at all times and in all kinds of weather, so that its surface
may be smooth and impervious to water. Earth roads at best fulfil none
of these requirements, unless they be covered with some artificial
material. On a well-made gravel road one horse can draw twice as large a
load as he can on a well-made earth road. On a hard smooth stone road
one horse can pull as much as four horses will on a good earth road. If
larger loads can be hauled and better time made on good hard roads than
on good earth ones, the area an