The people of this county have not been behind their neighbours in these improvements.  The first plank-road which they constructed was from Belleville to Canniff’s Mills, a distance of three miles over a road which at the time was often knee-deep in mud, with a solid foundation of flat limestone rock, which prevented the escape of the water.  So infamous was this road, that, on some parts of it, it was a matter of serious doubt whether a boat or waggon would be the better mode of conveyance.  Notwithstanding the badness of this road, it was the greatest thoroughfare in the county, as it was the only approach to a number of mills situated on the river, and to Belleville, from the back country.  It was, however, with the utmost difficulty that the warden could induce the other members of the county-council to sanction the construction of a plank-road at the expense of the county; so little was then known in Canada of the effects of such works.

The profits yielded by this road are unusually large, amounting, it is said, to seventy or eighty per cent.  This extraordinary success encouraged the people to undertake other lines, by means of joint-stock companies formed among the farmers.  All these plank-roads are highly remunerative, averaging, it is stated, fourteen per cent. over and above all expenses of repair.  More than thirty miles of plank-road is already constructed in the county.  In a few years plank or gravel roads will be extended through every part of the country, and they will be most available as feeders to the great line of railway which will very soon be constructed through the entire length of the province, and which has been already commenced at Toronto and Hamilton.  A single track plank-road costs from 375 to 425 pounds per mile, according to the value of the land to be purchased, or other local causes.  The cost of a gravel road, laid twelve feet wide and nine inches deep, and twenty-two feet from out to out, is from 250 to 325 pounds, and it is much more lasting, and more easily repaired than a plank-road.  Macadamised or gravel roads will no doubt entirely supersede the others.

In the present circumstances of the colony, however, plank-roads will be preferred, because they are more quickly constructed, and with less immediate outlay of money in the payment of labourer’s wages, as our numerous saw-mills enable the farmers to get their own logs sawed, and they thus pay the greater portion of their instalments on the stock taken in the roads.  In fact, by making arrangements with the proprietors of saw-mills they can generally manage to get several months’ credit, so that they will receive the first dividends from the road before they will be required to pay any money.  The mode of making these roads is exceedingly simple.