and augmented to the fullest extent. A study of the road should be made, and where snow usually piles up, all weeds and other vegetation should be cut and removed from the right of way; tight board fences should be replaced with wire fences where fences are necessary, and cable guard-rail should be installed as soon as feasible at sections of road where the plank type is troublesome. Topographical and other natural features that intercept air currents and prevent drifting in the roadway require no attention, but where these are absent, studies must be made of the sections subject to drifting

uniformity of wind direction simplifies the selection of snow-fence placements; provided snow drifts along a road at certain sections during one storm, it will be quite likely to drift at the same places during the next and succeeding storms, and in a similar manner. To locate these drift-laden sections of highways, and to study the prevalent direction of wind and the topography in close proximity to the traveled way, are the main problems in the control of snow adjacent to rural roads. For convenience the fence is usually erected on a line parallel to the road, but in some instances it is placed

and artificial structures erected. These should be placed so as to form artificial eddies on the windward side of the section of road to be protected and at a sufficient distance therefrom to permit the blowing snow to be deposited between the structures and the road. For convenience, such structures are termed snowfences.

Snow-fences of one kind or another are used in all sections where snowdrifts are apt to form, and without exception this method of prevention is favorably reported by all officials interested. To be most effective, the fences should be set perpendicular to the general sweep of the wind. In different localities, the direction of the storms varies, on account of local topography, closeness of moisture-bearing conditions, and other causes; but for individual localities snowstorms in season may be expected from the same general direction. This

oblique to the road but perpendicular to the wind sweep. Where the fence is parallel to the road, one line is usually sufficient, but in some cases two lines are installed.

Classes of Roads to Be Maintained Snow-free

With varied interests to contend with and the extensive traffic to satisfy that now utilizes our rural roads during the winter months-or at least uses them when they are kept clearit is apparent that effectual programs covering "open roads for winter traffic" must include all classes of highways; not only through routes and arterial highways must be considered, but county and township roads as well. Interurban routes or lanes of travel extending to adjacent states are surely important for winter maintenance, but fully as important are the roads connecting county-seats and others radiating from the towns and villages. Pro

vided the through routes alone were kept open, while they would prove very beneficial to intercity and adjoining state traffic, they would be of comparatively little use to the side-road dwellers, who probably pay considerable of the cost. To benefit all proportionately, the intersecting county roads must also be kept open and lateral or township roads as well. Each year the taxpayers are clamoring for more extensive programs, and it is only a matter of a few years, undoubtedly, when all paved roads in the United States over the snow area, and their connecting sections, will be kept open for yearround traffic; but until that period arrives, the roads for winter maintenance must be selected that will benefit the greatest number of those concerned, and also be consistent with the funds available for that purpose and the snowremoval equipment at hand. The main or intercity highways to be selected for winter maintenance can be determined from the amount and nature of traffic using them during the other seasons of the year. With the possible exception of tourist travel, provided a road is used to a considerable extent during the summer, it will have heavy traffic during the winter if the roadway is open and serviceable. For inter-county and lateral roads, the density of population over the territory to be served must be given consideration; also, the absence of adequate railroad facilities; whether horsedrawn or motor vehicles predominate in using the roads; the location of consolidated schools for easy transportation of pupils; rural free delivery accommodation; and sources of medical aid. In selecting arterial highways radiating from the cities or villages, the controlling features appear to be: convenience for milk delivery; export of supplies for rural communities; transportation of stock from wholesale centers to rural merchants; and aid granted bus companies in localities where that kind of rural-urban travel is in use.

Equipment

Equipment used in the removal and disposal of snow for the convenience of winter traffic remains essentially the same as that employed during recent winters. The straight-blade and the medium-size "V"-shape plows are used quite extensively when mounted on trucks for keeping roads open, especially where the work is started shortly after the beginning of the storm and is persistently followed until the snowfall stops and the road is cleared. For heavier work, in opening drifted or packed sections of roadway, or for widening cuts already made, the more powerful displacement plows with tractors are utilized, or the different types of rotary plows are employed for the same

purpose. While some engineers in the heavy snowfall areas believe the tractor-plow best adapted for opening roads during and following storms, the majority in both light and heavy snowfall sections believe the straightblade and "V"-shaped truck-plows the more efficient and economical for quick work. The heavy tractor-plows are capable of opening roads for winter traffic, but the lighter highspeed truck-plows can keep the roads open during storms, which is the result desired. The officials of a county in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, with an average annual snowfall of 99 inches, believe the truck-plow the more efficient for winter maintenance. This county maintains a winter program of 125 miles of state and county roads. To keep 15 miles of the program open during storms and to open the remainder after the storms are over, two truck units are employed-one straight-blade plow and one "V"-shaped plow, both 36 inches high, which travel through ordinary depths of snow at the rate of 10 miles per hour and clear wide traveled ways quickly and cheaply. The cuts made are later broadened for the disposal of future snowfalls with rotaries and other tractor plows. A county engineer in central New York, a locality with considerable snow, has given snow removal careful study, and believes that light "V" plows employed with. trucks are the most satisfactory for opening preliminary cuts during storms. The trucks carry "V" plows in front, and also, attached to one side or the other, auxiliary wings to widen

cuts.

The Minnesota Highway Department and also certain counties in that state use the lighter type of equipment in their snowremoval activities. For some localities, however, the trucks are employed in tandem formation; the forward trucks carry "V" plows and the rear trucks have wings attached to their right sides. These outfits are capable of traveling 12 miles per hour clearing 12 inches of snow. Ramsey County, Minnesota, employs three outfits similar to those just described. Last winter the effect of a recent storm was noted where these three plow units had cleared the county's entire 256 miles of snow program in three days to a generous width.

Fast Outfits for Heavy Snowfall The engineers in the localities with truckplows in operation contend that it takes a fastmoving snow-removal outfit to keep ahead of a heavy snowfall, and that storms are seldom experienced of such violence as to snow-in a truck-plow unit, provided the truck is in suitable condition and the personnel efficient. They also report that trucks with plow mounts can

travel at high speed while clearing an ordinary snowfall between drifts and then buck the deeper drifts, but a tractor can maintain but a comparatively slow speed, even with little or no snow encountered between the deeper sections. Also, for tractors of the crawler type, long cleats are essential to provide traction, necessitating travel under low-speed gear, which uses up considerable motor fuel. Nearly all the state officials in the heavy snowfall area of the country report that newly fallen snow to a depth of 9 inches, and recently drifted but not packed or crusted snow to a depth of 36 inches over short sections, can be efficiently moved with truck-plows; and the records of the United States Weather Bureau supply the information that snow falling to a depth greater than 9 inches is of rare occurrence, and to those storms that leave a fall greater than that depth, but very few occur within separate 24-hour periods. From these facts it appears that the problem of "open roads for winter traffic” at minimum expense may be solved to a greater or less extent by the effectual use of snow-fences and other methods of drift prevention at locations determined after careful surveys, and the employment of as numerous a fleet of the lighter type of plows as the trucks available will permit. The equipment should be placed in action by a carefully selected and efficient personnel at the beginning of each storm, or shortly thereafter, and kept constantly employed in succeeding shifts until the entire program adopted is opened and made passable for all types of winter traffic and in the least time possible.

Heavier Equipment Also Necessary

It is not intended to imply that the heavier type of snow-removal equipment is not highly efficient and absolutely necessary for winter road maintenance. The heavier displacement plows, as well as the different types of rotaries, are surely essential during emergency storms for clearing the initial cuts and are considered indispensable for widening cuts formerly made with any type of plow whatever; also for the opening of roads in the spring that were not deemed of sufficient importance for inclusion in the regular winter program. The plant of Marquette County, in northern Michigan, includes along with other heavy equipment a displacement plow of sturdy build. The plow is supported on runners, and is dragged while clearing a road instead of being mounted on a tractor, which is usually the case. The plow is hauled by two Army tractors, and thus equipped can travel at the rate of approximately five miles per hour. The larger wings in the rear carry dimensions of about 7 feet

high by 8 feet wide and when spread can clear a pass 30 feet wide.

There are at least two types of rotary plow manufactured or designed for use in the snow states: the lateral type, with the rotors revolving parallel with the line of travel; and the front type, with the rotors revolving perpendicular to the axis of the plow. Both types are mounted on heavy tractors, but the lateral type depends upon the power supplied by the tractor to revolve the rotors, while the other type, at least of the latest design, carries two auxiliary motors, one on either side to revolve the respective rotors.

Personnel and Cost of Snow Removal

Also,

The relative cost of snow removal has been given considerable study, but because of the numerous variable conditions encountered in the work, reliable data on the subject have not yet been reported or determined. One of the many controlling features necessary for consideration in attempting to arrive at cost data to cover work of this nature is the relative efficiency of the different personnels to be engaged; whether experienced, firmly knit organizations are proposed or those hastily assembled without former training. whether or not adequate and suitable equipment is at hand is an item of no small importance. The frequency, general direction, and strength of the prevailing windstorms are also important factors that must be given consideration in the attempt to compile snowremoval cost. One county or area of a state may be in such a topographical position as to be protected from heavy winds, or its main roads may extend parallel with the general direction of the wind, which would preclude drifting and keep the cost of snow removal at the minimum; while another county or area may be situated in more open country, its main roads extending perpendicularly with the general wind direction, causing consequent drifting and a resultant increase in the cost of snow removal. Whether the snow removal is moist or dry, and the temperature of the atmosphere during the storms, are other factors to study. We have shown that storms, even in the heavy snowfall regions, rarely reach depths greater than between two and nine inches. For snowfalls of such depths, with the snow falling dry, little difficulty should be experienced in keeping a traveled way open with the machinery now in vogue, and with a trained personnel; but with the snow falling in a moist state, greater efforts would be required for its disposal, with resultant higher costs; also, if the snow falls moist during a comparatively high temperature, and freezing temperature prevails

A

PPEARING on the front page of a newspaper recently, was this significant headline: "Manhattan Will Be Dead City at Night in Five Years." This means that the exodus of people from cities is concentrating on adjacent territory all the functions of government that are necessary in the cities themselves, and the problems of suburban communities are becoming keener in Particularly is this true of waste collection and disposal.

consequence.

In reviewing the treatment of this problem in the past, we find Europe studied it quite seriously, and as a result has developed means of disposal of its wastes both economical and highly sanitary. More recently, America, with her centers of population growing ever denser, and the matter of health receiving more and more attention, has scientifically attacked the waste problem. The cities took it up as a matter of self-preservation. Here was pestilential matter, and in order to conserve the health of the people, their wastes had to be removed and destroyed.

After much experimenting and trial, America now has methods of waste disposal developed along practical and scientific lines, which are accepted as standards and which therefore remove a source of danger and incidentally promote cleanliness.

The small communities are only now seriously bestirring themselves in the effort to establish proper means of caring for their wastes. Heretofore, it was not difficult for towns and villages, with their large areas sparsely settled, to get rid of their waste, but as the exodus from cities proceeded, the territory within fifteen to twenty miles of the large cities began to build up, until finally the problem of waste disposal in the new communities became as acute as that developed in the long-established cities.

The object of this discussion is to assist, if possible, those who are charged with the responsibility of removing and disposing of waste from the small city or residential community, where the service demanded is apt to be of an exacting character.

The requirements for a community of this description include uniformity and high qual

ity in service performed, and intelligent supervision and control over both collection and disposal, so as to render such service in as economical and sanitary a manner as possible.

Methods

The generally accepted methods of waste disposal are feeding to hogs, incineration, reduction, and dumping and burial.

In the high-class residential community, we cannot choose feeding to hogs as our means of disposal; neither can we maintain a dump for the burial of waste, as such methods are obviously unsuitable where so many fine homes exist.

Similarly, the operation of an incinerator plant is liable to be declared a nuisance, either from the emission of odors, or from its faculty of scattering dust and other objectionable matter over the neighborhood, as was done quite recently in a Hudson River village. Moreover, an incinerator plant cannot be made an object of beauty; its huge smokestack prevents this.

Reduction, as an economical means of disposal, can be resorted to only where huge quantities of waste are produced; therefore, such a method is confined to the big cities.

Thus, it will be realized, no easy problem lies ahead of the one on whom rests the choice of the manner of disposal in the small city or village.

Now let us look briefly over the conditions usually found in the small city or community prior to the local government's assuming responsibility for waste disposal, and as a concrete example let us refer to the village and town of Scarsdale, N. Y.

Conditions in Scarsdale

This municipality is located seven miles north of the northerly line of New York City and embraces a territory of approximately seven square miles, with over sixty miles of streets, and a population of 7,000. Its Waste Department was established in 1923. During the previous year, a canvass was made by means of return postals sent to every householder, on which specific questions were asked.

The information elicited showed that 52 per cent of the householders paid for waste re