oyster grounds of the Chesapeake might be made to yield with skillful management and improved machinery, when under the present clumsy system a profit is realized, after paying an annual rent of $300 or $400 per acre.

The oyster commissioners of the Chesapeake report a gradual diminution in the oyster crop in the past ten years, and estimate, by the same rates of decrease, that the whole stock will be exhausted in a half century. It behooves the sovereign States that have jurisdiction over these valuble oyster grounds to encourage, by legislative aid or otherwise, the propagation and culture of oysters, both as a source of wealth to the States themselves, and as an article of food and luxury for the people. The means, as well as the knowledge and skill, are now required to increase successfully the numbers and protect the spat, as well as to discriminate as to the best and most prolific varieties; for improvement may as readily be made in quality as in quantity. Until recently the supply by natural increase was considered inexhaustible, and no aids, either legislative or otherwise, were deemed needful or advisable. But now, when an interest of so much importance to the States most directly concerned, and to the whole country, is threatened with extinction, the means for its preservation become a necessity. Not only its preservation may be readily accomplished, but its value may be greatly enhanced; and, by proper management, the oyster grounds of the Chesapeake can be made to supply a demand equal to that of our whole country at the present time.

COUNTRY ROADS AND ROAD LAWS.

The term "country roads" is intended to include all descriptions of wagon roads in rural districts, which are made and repaired under the general direction of "county commissioners," "police," or "circuit courts," or, as in some States, under a board of "town supervisors," and in others under the "selectmen" of the towns. The immediate supervision of construction and repairs is generally under the direction of local "road supervisors," or "path masters," as they are termed in some districts. The tax for road repairs is generally a capitation tax on male citizens between sixteen and sixty years of age. The number of days' labor required on public roads per annum varies in the different States from one day to fifteen. Although this system of levying road tax generally prevails, it is conceded that it is very defective, and, so long as it is continued, poor roads will be the inevitable consequence. There is prob ably no public interest in which sound and intelligent legislation is more needed than in the enactment and revision of our road laws. Any system which provides for the assessment and collection of a road tax in labor will be found inefficient, and totally inadequate to the purpose for which such tax is levied. The recorded experience of reliable men in all rural districts in this country-in some cases covering a period of more than two hundred years-of the defects of this system, is sufficient evidence that reform is greatly needed.

Although the amount of statistical information obtained in answer to the circulars issued from this Department is far short of what was antici pated, we are enabled from the data furnished to arrive at many important facts, that will serve as guides to those specially interested in the construction and repair of roads. It was hoped that the returns would be so full and explicit that a complete tabular report could have been compiled in accordance with the questions propounded.

The unsettled condition of many of the southern States since the close of the war has been such that few repairs of bridges or roads have been made, and probably few will be undertaken until reconstruction is thoroughly effected.

A report from Florida says: "No road laws, no bridges; streams are crossed by ferries, fording, or swimming."

P. T. Tannehill, of Henderson County, Texas, says: "Our roads are not worked, the wagoner making his own way. Soil remarkably favorable for roads. No macadamizing material in the State, none needed. Road laws in this magnificent State, like other laws, seldom executed. No turnpikes; don't need them. Roads last until they become too miry, when wagoners cut a new one. Texas can boast of the best roads, with the least work, of any State in or out of the Union. Our citizens generally regard work as unconstitutional.”

E. S. Holden, of Stockton, San Joaquin County, California, writes that "the general character of public roads throughout the State, during wet seasons, is bad; in January and February, almost impassable. Necessity has stimulated the people to construct good and durable roads and turnpikes, and quite a number of pikes, from two to thirty miles in length each, have been finished, or are in process of construction. Those con structed will be passable at all seasons of the year. They are made by

the use of heavy, strong plows, with eight to ten yokes of oxen, or as many horses. The road-bed is back-furrowed up, so that the side gutters are from two to four feet in depth; the road-bed made is usually forty feet at base, and about thirty feet on the top, the natural soil covered with gravel twelve to fifteen inches in depth. Such roads become hard and dry, and equal to the best roads in the eastern States. Thus constructed they cost about $6,000 per mile. There are about sixteen miles of such roads in this county, and it is proposed to construct other similar roads soon."

The report from Utah Territory states, that "there are in Salt Lake County thirty-two miles of gravel road, and about eight miles of macadamized. The average cost of the former is $3,500 per mile; of the latter about $3,800 per mile."

Report from Marshall County, Iowa, states that one mile of graded and graveled road in that county costs $10,000, and yet the average cost of road repairs in the county is only $3 per mile. Report from Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, states that there are twenty miles of turnpike in that county, twelve miles of which are graveled, and cost $1,000 per mile; and eight miles macadamized, costing $2,000 per mile.

The report from Baltimore County, Maryland, states that that county has one hundred and forty miles of macadamized road, which cost $5,000 per mile for construction, and $100 per mile annually for repairs. The metal of the roads is principally of very hard trap rock, expensive to break by the hand process, by which it was all prepared. The quantity originally applied was not more than ten cubic feet per linear foot of road, or about two thousand perches of twenty-five cubic feet per perch per mile.

Washington County, Maryland, has about one hundred miles of Macadam road, which cost $2,100 per mile. This metal is of limestone rock, which is obtainable on the line of all the roads, and may be broken at about one-half the cost of the trap rock. The repair of these roads is said to cost about $50 per mile per annum.

William Bacon, of Richmond, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, says: "We have a system of taxation for making and repairing roads that is tolerated by a law of the State, and is as old as the roads. It requires towns to raise annually such an amount of money as may be deemed necessary to keep the roads in repair for the year, to divide the towns into districts, and appoint a highway surveyor to each district, whose duty it is to see that the money apportioned to his district is seasonably and properly expended. This system is generally adopted in agricultural districts, and is popular, as it gives to any one the privilege of paying his tax in money or working it out with teams, at a price stipulated by the town. The system is good where the people are all interested in good roads, but there are many who are never ready to work or pay; and, if they pretend to work, it is more of a holiday affair than a matter of public benefit." This is the general experience of all observers of the working of this and similar systems. Mr. B. adds: "We had formerly many turnpike roads in this county, but the introduction of railroads, which now traverse more than half of the towns in the State, has set them aside entirely, and all have become county roads."

This is the case in many other districts, even where railroads are not so numerous as in Massachusetts. The most favorable location for a turnpike is frequently selected by the railroad engineer, nearly parallel with the railroad or contiguous to it; hence much of the heavy transpor tation is by rail, and the collateral turnpike is little used. With the increase of railroads in all parts of the country, the effect on nearly parallel

turnpike roads will be as above described; hence, when locating a new turnpike road, it will be well to consider the probabilities of the construction of a railroad at an early day in the same direction or route. If probable that the railroad will be constructed at no distant day, and yet the necessity is great for a hard road for immediate use, the width of the hard bed of such road might be made as narrow as would answer, thus reducing the cost of the road, and correspondingly reducing the sum sacrificed by the loss of traffic which may leave the turnpike for the railway. While the foregoing is undoubtedly true, as regards turnpikes running in the same direction and near the railroads, it is equally true that these same railroads will cause an increased demand for improved lateral roads, by which products may reach the iron way. As the railroads usually thread the valleys and mountain passes, and cannot be worked profitably in the direction of the heavy mountain slopes, the products of the hill country and of the vales between it and the railroads, together with return supplies, must be transported on wagon roads, at least until a great improvement is effected in the traction of the locomotive. As these roads will be permanent, and are frequently required to overcome heavy grades, skillful engineering, thorough construction, and repairs are demanded.

The reports from nearly all the States in which "plank roads" have been tested, under a great variety of circumstances, concur in condemning them on account of the great cost of construction, as well as for their lack of durability. From careful investigation we find that they have generally become unfit for use in from five to eight years, even where the material used was of a good quality. One plank road only is mentioned on which repair with the same material is continued. For their average cost see statement. The agents of decomposition, heat and moisture, being everywhere active, timber of the same kind and quality is found, when used in plank roads, to be most durable in climates and positions unfavorable to a perpetual supply of these elements. The writer was familiar with a plank road in Madison County, New York, about twenty years since. This road was mainly in an elevated mountain region having a northern aspect, and was covered with snow on an average fully four months of the year, and yet the remains of the material used, it being hemlock three inches in thickness, were all removed in eight years. The same material used in the Carolinas or in Florida would probably have become worthless in four years. A slight covering of earth on the planks is found to hasten decay, though it prevents wear. Yellow pine and cypress logs, used in the southern States in "corduroy" or causeway roads, where the logs are constantly covered with water from never-failing springs, and with a covering of earth of twelve to eighteen inches, and shaded by a tall, dense forest, have been known to remain sound for thirty years.

The causeway of logs has been a common mode of primitive roadmaking in low marshy regions, and is still common in the southern States, even on mail routes. The logs should have a good covering of earth, and depressions occasioned by irregular decay should be repaired as they occur. The durability of causeway logs is much greater when covered with ten to twelve inches of compact clay well rounded off, and if it is obtainable, with gravel on the clay, than where they are entirely covered with gravel; the latter being porous, rain falling on the roadbed penetrates directly to the logs, and draws the warm air after it, thus rapidly promoting decay, while the clay covering will shed off the water before it reaches the logs. The log causeway system of roadmaking in regions where the soil is wet, timber abundant on the spot,

only costing the cutting, and drainage among the green roots too expensive, must necessarily continue in use many years to come. From the statements elicited, it appears that a very large proportion of the roads of all the States, even in the older ones, are little more than a belt of natural surface, just wide enough to admit of vehicles passing when they meet; sufficiently cleared of trees, rocks, and stumps to be passable with the worst marshes causewayed. Many of the unfordable streams are still crossed by flat-boat ferries of the most primitive character; more shallow ones are forded, and a tree felled across the stream for foot travelers is the only bridge seen on streams many miles in length. The primitive bridges, for vehicles on such streams, are usually made by placing three or more round logs from bank to bank, without abutments, and covering them with flattened poles. As civilization advances, or these primeval structures become unsafe, their places are usually supplied with hewed or sawed timbers and flooring, with "King's post truss" on either side, using pins and wedges instead of the rods, or bolts and nuts used in more modern structures. Unless suitable stones are at hand, and more convenient than timber, logs are flattened and pinned one upon another, and used for abutments. These are in turn supplanted by more scientific wooden structures, such as the "Burr," "Howe," "Improved Howe," and other forms of trussed wooden bridges; or perhaps by iron bridges constructed upon some one of the many plans now in vogue-those known as the Bollman and Fink being considered the best in use in this country for railroad purposes.

With each successive improvement in the construction of bridges in all districts, where other characteristics of civilization, such as the clearing up of forests, &c., have made collateral and corresponding progress, it has been found necessary constantly or periodically to increase the span and height, from the water at ebb, of all bridges to be built. This necessity arises from the more sudden escape of rain-fall from the surface of cleared and swarded land, than from that of the forest with its accumulated mulch of ages, maintained by a net-work of undergrowth, through which water is greatly impeded in its flow to the stream, and a much larger proportion of it is absorbed by the earth than when flowing on a surface of smooth turf. Another effect of the sudden rising of streams from the rapid escape of water into them during excessive rainfall, is a waste of the fertility of steep tillage lands, which shed water directly into the streams. Where interval lands to any considerable extent border on the streams, this waste is intercepted, and the fertile washings of the higher lands are deposited on the meadows, by which the fertility is augmented by each successive flood, often forming valuable muck deposits which enterprising farmers return to the hilly lands, thereby restoring their lost fertility. Where the interval land is nar row, the effect of the excessive, increasing floods is to sweep these washings into the creeks and rivers. The effects of floods in dissipating the fertility of rolling, cleared lands bordering streams may be prevented, in a good degree, by keeping them in grass as large a portion of the time as is practicable; and, when they are laid down to grass, by constructing numerous surface water furrows in succession from the summit to the base of slopes, giving them good capacity and very gentle fall; thus the washing of the soil will, in a great degree, be prevented, a larger amount of water will be absorbed, and that escaping to the streams will be a longer time in reaching them, and the destructive effects of inundation lessened materially.

The proportion of area of the cleared lands of the middle and the eastern States, which would be greately benefited by the precautionary