Doubtless the state of New Jersey is building more roads and better roads for less money per mile than any other state in the Union. Its roads are now costing from twenty to seventy cents per square yard. Where the telford construction is used they sometimes cost as much as seventy-three cents per square yard. The average cost of all classes of the roads of that state during the last season was about fifty cents per square yard. The stone was, as a rule, spread on to a depth of nine inches, which, after rolling, gave a depth of about eight inches. At this rate a single-track road eight feet wide costs about $2,346 per mile, while a double-track road fourteen feet wide costs about $4,106 per mile, and one eighteen feet wide costs about $5,280 per mile. Where the material is spread on so as to consolidate to a four-inch layer the eight-foot road will cost about $1,173 per mile, the fourteen-foot road about $2,053 per mile, while the one eighteen feet wide will cost about $2,640 per mile. [Illustration: EARTH AND MACADAM ROADS [_Built by convict labor in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina_]] The total cost of maintaining roads in good order ranges, on account of varying conditions, between as wide limits almost as the initial cost of construction. Suffice it to say that all money spent on repairing earth roads becomes each year a total loss without materially improving their condition. They are, as a rule, the most expensive roads that can be used, while on the other hand stone roads, if properly constructed of good material and kept in perfect condition, are the most satisfactory, the cheapest, and most economical roads that can be constructed. The road that will best suit the needs of the farmer, in the first place, must not be too costly; and, in the second place, must be of the very best kind, for farmers should be able to do their heavy hauling over them when their fields are too wet to work and their teams would otherwise be idle. The best road for the farmer, all things being considered, is a solid, well-built stone road, so narrow as to be only a single track, but having a firm earth road on one or both sides. Where the traffic is not very extensive the purposes of good roads are better served by narrow tracks than by wide ones, while many of the objectionable features of wide tracks are removed, the initial cost of construction is cut down one-half or more, and the charges for repair reduced in proportion. FOOTNOTES: [6] By Hon. Maurice O. Eldridge, Assistant Director Office of Public Road Inquiries. CHAPTER IV THE SELECTION OF MATERIALS FOR MACADAM ROADS[7]