oward the
gutters to carry the flow away before it can accumulate sufficiently to
form a washing current.

If it can be done without hauling additional material, it is always well
to raise the road-bed somewhat above the level of the adjoining land,
and this may usually be accomplished by throwing upon it the subsoil of
the gutters. In no case should surface-soil sods or fine road-mud be
used for repairs. The most serious objection to the absurd system of
road-mending so common in this country lies in the fact that the annual
repairing is little more than the ploughing up and throwing back upon
the roadway of the soft and unsuitable material which has been washed
into the gutters.

What is said above applies especially to country roads; but it is
appropriate, so far as it goes, to the better-made and better-kept roads
of a village. In the case of these latter, except where the soil is
naturally dry and firm, some attention should be given to the
improvement of the surface; and it is to be considered whether to adopt
the expensive process of covering with broken stone road-metal, or to
use gravel. One or the other of these is desirable in all cases where
there is much tendency to sloppiness in wet weather; but any form of
artificial covering is so costly that the early efforts of the
improvement association will produce a more telling result if applied in
other directions. The necessary cross-walks may be satisfactorily made
with coal-ashes.

It is even more easy in a village than in the country, to have the
grades of all roadways so regulated as to shed rain-water falling upon
them, and to have them so furnished with side gutters so as to prevent
water from the roadside from running on to them. The simplest way to
effect this, and the neatest way too, is to make gutters outside of the
line of the road, say six inches deep and eight feet wide, these being
at once sodded or sown with grass and grain to give an early protection
against washing; made on such a shallow curve, they will afford no
obstruction to any system of mowing that may be adopted, while their
great width will give them sufficient capacity to carry away the water
of considerable storms.

The work of construction having been duly attended to, it is no less
important to provide for regular and constant care. Any rutting that
comes of heavy traffic in bad weather should be obliterated either by
raking, or, better still, by filling the ruts with gravel o