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 roadside 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 very general: and as the Commissioners or principal men of the district are often the greatest offenders in this respect, the evil is one in which both the enactments and the application of them require the strictest attention and impartiality. After a road is properly made, the comfort of the traveller and the principle of economy on the part of the road-trust, both demand that it be not allowed to get much out of repair; the adage of “a stitch in time,” applies particularly to the repairing of roads, and though not universally practised, is so well known, that it is, I presume, unnecessary to state reasons, for what no one acquainted with the subject at all doubts. The best season for repairing roads is, I think, the spring or very early in the summer, when the weather is likely neither to be very wet nor dry, for both of these extremes prevent the materials from consolidating, and therefore cause a waste of them, and at the same time, either a heavy or a dusty road; but if done at the time I have recommended, the roads are left in good state for the summer, and become consolidated and hard to resist the work of the ensuing winter.