A Single Track Plank-Road
Costs From 375 To 425 Pounds Per Mile, According To The Value Of The
Land To Be Purchased, Or Other Local Causes.
The cost of a gravel
road, laid twelve feet wide and nine inches deep, and twenty-two
feet from out to out, is from 250 to 325 pounds, and it is much more
lasting, and more easily repaired than a plank-road.
Macadamised or
gravel roads will no doubt entirely supersede the others.
In the present circumstances of the colony, however, plank-roads
will be preferred, because they are more quickly constructed, and
with less immediate outlay of money in the payment of labourer's
wages, as our numerous saw-mills enable the farmers to get their
own logs sawed, and they thus pay the greater portion of their
instalments on the stock taken in the roads. In fact, by making
arrangements with the proprietors of saw-mills they can generally
manage to get several months' credit, so that they will receive the
first dividends from the road before they will be required to pay
any money. The mode of making these roads is exceedingly simple.
The space required for the road is first levelled, ditched, and
drained, and then pieces of scantling, five or six inches square,
are laid longitudinally on each side, at the proper distance for
a road-way twelve feet wide, and with the ends of each piece sawn
off diagonally, so as to rest on the end of the next piece, which
is similarly prepared, to prevent the road from settling down
unequally.
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