ght
road with anything like the same grade as the curved road can only be
constructed at enormous and unnecessary expense and labor. Even in a
level country a road curved sufficiently to give variety of view and to
conform to Hogarth's "line of beauty" is preferable to a perfectly
straight road, which is always tedious to the traveller.

"The road the human being travels,
That on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow
The river's course, the valley's playful windings,
Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines."

Moreover, we are told by competent engineers that the difference in
length between a straight and a slightly curved road is very small.
Thus, if a road between two places ten miles apart was made to curve
so that the eye could nowhere see farther than a quarter of a mile
of it at once, its length would exceed that of a perfectly straight
road between the same points by only about one hundred and fifty
yards.

But, in any event, in road-making mere straightness should always
yield to a level grade, even if thereby the distance is greatly
increased; for on a good grade a horse can draw rapidly and easily a
load which it would be impossible for him to draw on a steep grade.
It is an accepted maxim by road-engineers that the horizontal length
of a road may be advantageously increased, to avoid an ascent, by at
least twenty times the perpendicular height which is to be thus
saved; that is, to escape a hill a hundred feet high, it would be
proper for the road to make such a circuit as would increase its
length to two thousand feet.

Hence it is apparent that the ordinary road in a hilly and uneven
country should follow the streams as far as possible, as Nature has
located them in the places best adapted for highways; and when hills
are found on the line of a road they should be surmounted by passing
around and across them at the easiest grades possible rather than
over them at steep grades.

CHAPTER III.

CONSTRUCTION.

Suitable drainage is the first requisite of a good road, as with our
climate and soil it is impossible to have a road in a satisfactory
condition at all seasons of the year unless the same is well
drained. In building a new road provisions should be made to get rid
of all surface water, and in wet land of the water in the soil, by
ditches and drains sufficient to dispose of it in a thorough manner;
and in repairing an old road it frequently happens that it