Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/199

forming the land into ridges, raised a little in the middle, is the same as that of raising the middle of a road to prevent the water from settling upon it, and what is sufficient for the ploughed land is certainly enough for a road. If the road is of good stone, four to five inches rise in ten feet is sufficient, gravel, and other inferior material, will allow a little more. In this section it may be worth while to notice the situation of the hedge and ditch, or rill on each side of the road, a more common, but I think a more dangerous and worse way, is to form the ditch close to the road, and to plant the quick upon a raised bank beyond it. I have dotted this mode also upon the section. The advantage of having the hedge next the road, consists in its greater safety to the traveller, particularly if a ditch of any considerable depth is necessary, and in the hedge being supported in its growth from the ground under the road, without drawing upon the farmer's side of the ditch; and it is I believe, this last advantage, which has led the author of an article in the Edinburgh Farmer's Magazine, with whom I am acquainted, to make nearly the same observations. In a length of road, made eight or ten years since, over a marsh, partly a bog, considerably under high water, where, from the level of the ground, and of the drainage, the ditches were obliged to be deep and wide, and therefore dangerous; I ordered some cuttings of willow to be stuck into the road-*side of the ditch. In about two years they formed a blind to the ditch, and are now so thick and strong as to be a complete security from all danger. I may here take the liberty to say, that nothing is more injurious to roads than the permitting high hedges and plantations near them, their effect in keeping the rain suspended and dripping upon the road longer than otherwise it would, and in preventing the air and sun from drying the roads, is most destructive and