Driving to Perfection

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Finally, if you are breaking a new trail in heavy cover, you'll need to clear the land. Trees must be felled, limbs must be pulled to the side, and brush must be cut and removed along the drive and for at least 10 feet to each side. Make this a two-goals-in-one job: Cut, split, and stack trees and large brush into next year's firewood. Stumps will have to come outa job for a bulldozer, unless you want to spend days digging, chopping, and levering each one. A motorized brush cutter will make the job of clearing grass and small brush easier. With the land open, cut more stakes and run stake lines up both sides of the new drive.

Building It

With enough time, a strong back, a shovel, and garden cart, you can build your own drive and compact it in thin layers with your truck or rented water-filled roller. When my friend Dean Leith Jr. was sales manager for a tiller maker, he built a driveway on his farm by cutting out topsoil with a big rear-tined tiller, moving soil out and then moving garden cart-loads of crushed rock in (with the help of a tillers' dozer blade). It's faster and a whole lot easier to hire a bulldozer to cut, fill, and compact, a tractor with a bucket loader, a backhoe to move soil and ditch, and dump trucks to haul. Either way, the steps are the same: 1. Cut out organics-rich topsoil; 2. Grade and compact the subsoil footing; 3. Add and compact a good-draining base; 4. Top off with a water-repellant surface; 5. Ditch.

The Heart of Your Drive

The heart of your drive is the footing or base which must either drain naturally or raise the road surface high enough so that water won't saturate it. Well-draining subsoils such as sandy gravel or loam (a sand/silt/clay mix) need only be compacted when they've been used as fill and topped with a 6- to 8-inch surface layer of crushed rock or clay/gravel mix. Fine-particled clay and silt soils drain slowly, and often need a foot or more of base under the topping to make sure your drive won't turn to mush. Sand soils drain well, but they often provide so poor a footing that they must be dug out and replaced with gravel or crushed rock or mixed with a binding agent to form soil-cement. Here is where the local road boss can be of the utmost help.

Your road boss can advise you on the suitability of your soil, how much base is needed, and how the drive should be ditched. In addition, he can offer advice on availability and cost of suitable materials. Crushed rock and bank-run gravel are available in most places; cinders or slag, crushed coral or sea shells are found in specific areas. Or, you may learn that a few extra inches of your local soil will form a perfectly fine driveway if compacted and topped properly.

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