The very best place to test the durability of a wagon is on the plains. Run it there, one summer, when there is but little wet weather, where there are all kinds of roads to travel on and loads to carry, and if it stands that it will stand any thing. The wagon-brake, instead of the lock-chain, is a great and very valuable improvement made during the War. Having a brake on the wagon saves the time and trouble of stopping at the top of every hill to lock the wheels, and again at the bottom to unlock them. Officers of the army know how much trouble this used to cause, how it used to block up the roads, and delay the movements of troops impatient to get ahead. The lock-chain ground out the wagon tire in one spot. The brake saves that; and it also saves the animal's neck from that bruising and chafing incident to the dead strain that was required when dragging the locked wheel. There is another difficulty that has been overcome by the wagon-brake. In stopping to lock wheels on the top of a hill, your train get into disorder. In most cases, when trains are moving on the road, there is a space of ten or fifteen feet between the wagons. Each team, then, will naturally close up that space as it comes to the place for halting to lock. Now, about the time the first teamster gets his wheel locked, the one in the rear of him is dismounting for the same purpose. This being repeated along the train, it is not difficult to see how the space must increase, and irregularity follow. The more wagons you have to lock with the drag-chain, the further you get the teams apart. When you have a large body of wagons moving together, it naturally follows that, with such a halt as this, the teams in the rear must make twenty-five halts, or stops, and starts, for everyone that the head team makes.