Excerpt from Gravel Roads, Vol. 2: July, 1913 A well graded and well drained earth road is necessary for the foundation of any kind of an improved road; therefore, money expended on such work is not lost even though it be several years before the road receives a hard surface. In building any good road, the first essentials are a careful survey and suitable plans. As most of the Michigan roads that will be graveled are old roads now in use, and which have been in use for many years, there is but little opportunity to make new locations. However, when new locations are made, as they still are in the newer and sparsely settled counties, the work should be done with the same regard for easy grades, low cost of construction and fitness of roadbed as would characterize a railroad survey. Due prominence should be given to directness, but it should be remembered that the primary object of section lines is not to define the center lines of highways, that the distance around a hill may not be much greater than the distance over it, and that slight curves increase the length of a road but little. Sometimes the cost of a new right of way around a bad hill would not be so much as the cost of cutting the hill down to a reasonable grade. What has been said about new surveys applies with equal force to resurveys, except that old roads can seldom be changed unless the reasons for so doing are very strong. Permanent buildings, improved grounds, beautiful shade trees and other improvements become fixtures along old roads that make changes a hardship to the owners, who frequently, and often justly, strenuously oppose any suggestion of a new location. Nevertheless changes should be made where little damage would result, to avoid bad hills, bad swamps, sinking bogs, expensive stream crossings and sometimes to shorten the road. On old roads it is best to set the stakes along the sides, one row on each side parallel to the center line, and preferably 20 or 25 feet therefrom, so as to place them on the outer margin of the ditches or gutters where they will not be destroyed by ordinary traffic, nor so easily by grading teams. The plans should show: (a) the center cuts and fills; (b) the depth of each ditch or gutter from the hub stake adjacent thereto and (c) the vertical distance, up or down, from each side stake to the established center grade. Nothing less complete is satisfactory, for, in most cases, the work of grading is placed in charge of a highway commissioner or his foreman without the assistance of an engineer. Grades. In some parts of the State the most troublesome question to consider is that of grades. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The purpose of this manual is to provide clear and helpful information for maintaining gravel roads. Very little technical help is available to small agencies that are responsible for managing these roads. Gravel road maintenance has traditionally been "more of an art than a science" and very few formal standards exist. This manual contains guidelines to help answer the questions that arise concerning gravel road maintenance such as: What is enough surface crown? What is too much? What causes corrugation? The information is as nontechnical as possible without sacrificing clear guidelines and instructions on how to do the job right.