Stone Crusher

Mr. Jimiiis K. Beal, Editor of the Aun Arbor Courier : Bear 8ir: - Sinee the last March meeting of the Pomologieal Society, on which occasion you addressed the society on the road question, recommending among other good measures, "a stone crusher as an educator, to be purchased by the city or several townships for $500," etc, I observe with pleasure that the Couitiek lias continually kept this important topic of road improvement before the people. Allow me in this conneetion to inform your readers and the general public whatl have since seen of a stone crusher in operation. During my visit last November at Economy, Pa., a village of several hundred inhabitants, members and employés of the Harmony Society, I noÖced one day a large gathering on the street, looking on the operation of a portable stone crusher which the society had j ust received f rom Totten & Hogg, of Pittsburgh. It was run by a threshing machine engine. School was just out. You should have seen the enthusiasm of the school boys, carrying stone by and dropping them into the breaker, which broke them twice in one revolution and did not shatter the stone. The product looked as well as hand-hammered. The trustee who superintended the operation stated that the crusher could easily be changed from a coarse to a fine crusher and from a fine one to a pulverizer in a few minutes, so that it could be used in preparing fertilizers. It was a limestone that they used. I asked the trustee whether it would crush granite boulders. He ordered some at once and they were crushed as well as the limestone. He said he wished they had granite as plenty as we liave in Michigan. They make the most durable macadam. I was told that this crusher cost them a trifle over $400. We have in this county and other parts in Michigan heaps of small boulders that cannot be used for building purposes. They are often an eye sore on the highway, on fence corners, or in the field and would soon be removed by a portable crusher at the rate of 15 to 25 tons per ten hours. The result would be the best possible roads at all times of the year. I hope our city council and the highway commissioners will investígate this matter, as it concerns the interest of the people. 1 have taken pains to investígate it carefully. It seems that my prediction at that Match meeting, that "Ann Arbor city will have a stone yard about the county jail for the benefit of the boarders of the sheriff," is going to be verified, and I hope we will see stone crushers upon our highways in Michigan in the near future. The resolution passed by our pomological society and those present, that "we will earnestly ask the next legislature to make such laws as will bring about a reform in the improvement of our highways" should not be forgotten. We happen to have this winter passable roads, but it has not been so in the past and may not be the case in the future. Thèrefore the road matter should be kept before the people and especially before their representatives at Lansing by sending in petitions from all sections and by using such influences as will finally result in permanent good. Yerv resDectfullv vonrs.