Care of the Surface

Light Scrapers. A

heavy stick of timber faced on one side with a steel plate, and hitched behind a wagon or drawn by a team direct, is very effective in smoothing the way for travel. To the top face of the timber should be fastened a frame by which to hitch the leveler to the wagon or team. This frame should be in the form of a capital A with one leg a little shorter than the other, to cause the cutting edge to stand obliquely to the line of draft.

Fig. 37, page 132, shows a slightly more elaborate form of road leveler. The blade is usually about inch thick, 4 inches wide, and 72 inches long. The timber is 6 X 12 inches square by 6 feet long. This form costs $10 to $12.

Fig. 38, page 132, shows a still more elaborate form of road leveler. The blade is all steel, and may be tilted forward or back ward. The catalogue price of this machine is $50.

199.

The advantage of these scrapers or road levelers is that they are cheap, and are easily handled. They do a little better work than the railroad rail, but their first cost and cost of operation.

is considerably more; and they are not as effective as the four-wheel scraping grader, but their first cost is much less and they are easier handled. They are not effective when the road is very rough or very hard.

Two-wheel Scrapers. There are several two-wheel road scrapers upon the market, of which Fig. 39, page 133, is the most elaborate. The blade of this machine is adjustable in both the horizontal and the vertical plane, and can be raised and lowered. The wheels can be inclined to neutralize the resistance of the furrow to being moved laterally; in other words, the oblique wheels pre vent the whole machine from sliding sidewise.

The other two-wheel machines consist virtually of the blade of the scraping grader (§ 142) carried on a pair of high wheels, and are the results of an attempt to supply a cheaper machine than the four wheel scraping grader.

No two-wheel scraper can do as good work as the four-wheel machine shown in Fig. 24, 25, and 34, pages 102 and 109, since the long frame with four points of support gives a more uniform surface to the road, and since the blade of the two-wheel machine has a tendency to work into or out of the ground and thus form scallops in the surface of the road.

Scraping Grader.

In late spring, after the ground has settled, roads should be prepared for summer travel by being shaped up with the scraping grader (§ 142). When this work is to be done, the ground is comparatively dry, and consequently the heavy scraping grader is required and can be handled on the roads.

It is somewhat unfortunate that this tool is ordinarily called a road grader, since the name has possibly led to a misconception as to an important use of the machine. As an instrument of road con struction, this machine is used to give a crown to the road; but as an instrument of maintenance, it should be used only to smooth the surface and restore the original crown. Apparently some operators assume that the machine is not to be used except to in crease the crown of the road; at least since the introduction of this road machine there has developed a strong tendency to increase the crown unduly. Side slopes steeper than just enough to turn the water into the side ditches are a detriment. Other things being equal, the best road to travel on or to haul a load over is a. perfectly flat one.

Operating the Scraping Grader. To smooth the road, the machine should be run over the ground so as to plane off the ridges and fill up the ruts. Commence at the ditch and work toward the center, scraping with the entire length of the blade. The blade should stand nearly square across the road, and considerable earth should be shoved along in front,—enough to fill the depres sions;—but only enough earth should be moved toward the center of the roadway to re-place that washed down by the rains. The sur plus earth should be uniformly distributed along the surface, by carrying the rear end of the blade a little higher than the point. A ridge of earth should not be left in the center of the road, since it will only slowly consolidate and is likely to be washed into the side ditches to make trouble there.

This work should be done early—before the ground becomes hard and difficult to work, before traffic has been compelled par tially to do the work of the road leveler, and while the surface is in condition to unite with the loose earth left by the machine, and when the roots of grass and weeds do not interfere with the work of the blade. Unfortunately this work is often postponed until the ground is so hard that it is impossible to do a thoroughly good job. If the ground is a little too wet for tillage, it is all the better for road making, since it will pack and harden better than though it were drier. After the ground becomes dry and hard, it is not only more laborious and expensive to secure a smooth surface; but the newly repaired road may for weeks be in a worse condition than before it was worked, since the loose earth is too dry to pack under traffic.