Chapter III: Part 3

There are hundreds of villages, with and without a water supply, where the houses are too scattering and the street lengths too great to make it advisable that the cost of any form of public sewerage should be assumed. In all such villages, the public authority or the active influence of the village improvement association should be exerted to secure a regular and systematic adoption of some more perfect system for the private disposal of household drainage than is usual. Fortunately, the best system is the cheapest.

No form of cesspool, no leaching vault, and no cemented tank, should be allowed under any circumstances. Neither should there be permitted any form of the old-fashioned out-of-door privy with a vault. Every household should be supplied with water-closets or well-arranged earth-closets, to which reference will be made below.

The foul water discharge of kitchen sinks, or of whatever form of slop-sink is used for the water of bedrooms, should discharge into a flush-tank, and should be led from this by a tightly cemented four-inch drain to a tight settling basin in the ground beyond. If water-closets are used, the soil-pipe should deliver into the drain between the flush-tank and the settling basin. The settling basin should be constructed as shown in Figure 9; and this, as well as the flush-tank, the soil-pipe, and the connecting drains, should be amply ventilated. The outlet from the settling basin should be carried by well-cemented vitrified pipes (four-inch) to the connection with the subsoil irrigation pipes. The flush-tank discharging at each operation of its siphon about thirty gallons of liquid, two hundred feet of drain, unless the soil is very compact, will dispose of the whole discharge with sufficient rapidity. The tank being emptied, the flow ceases; and within a very short time the drain becomes empty of its contents, which are absorbed by the sponge-like action of the earth, and are subjected to the combined influence of the roots of plants, and of the concentrated oxygen contained among the particles of the soil. They will soon have their character entirely changed, so that the earth will become purified, and will be ready to receive the next discharge from the tank. In the case of my own drains, after five years of unremitted use, the gradual accumulation of bits of grease and more solid matters obstructed the drains, and there appeared undue moisture about their upper ends. All that was then necessary was to re-open the trenches, and remove, wash, and replace the tiles. This operation cost, for a length of two hundred feet, less than three dollars.

For any ordinary household of six or eight persons, where the water-closet is not used, two hundred feet of drain of this sort will be sufficient. If there are water-closets, it may be well to duplicate the length; and, to provide for the necessary connections to lead the liquid to the drains, we may assume that in all five hundred feet of length will be required. The cost of two-inch tiles at the works, in small lots, and where collars are furnished, is about three cents per foot; and we will suppose that transportation will increase the cost to five cents per foot, making the cost of this item twenty-five dollars. The strips of board (three inches wide) will cost, at a very liberal estimate, five dollars more, and the cost of digging and laying not more than another five dollars; so that the establishment of this means of disposal, under the most liberal allowance of prices, will not exceed thirty-five dollars. Ordinarily, especially where neighbors combine to buy their material in larger quantities, it will hardly exceed one-half of this amount. This, be it understood, is for a complete and permanent substitute for the expensive and nasty cesspool now so generally depended upon in the country.

A piece of ground fifty feet square, having ten rows of tile five feet apart and fifty feet long, will suffice for even a large household with an abundant water supply. For the better illustration of the arrangement of this system, I give in Figure 10 a plan for the work in the case of a lot fifty feet wide, with a depth of open ground behind the house of somewhat more than fifty feet. The leaching drains may safely begin at a distance of even ten feet from the back of the house, requiring for the whole a clear area of only fifty feet by sixty feet. With small households, the length of drain may be very much shortened. In my own case, where water-closets are not used, the total length of irrigation drain is, as before stated, only two hundred feet.

The earth-closet was invented by the Rev. Henry Moule, vicar of Fordington, in England, more than ten years ago. Its progress in England has been considerable, and its introduction there has resulted in a profit to the company undertaking it. In this country it has met with less general favor. Two companies with large capital, after expending all their resources, have been obliged to abandon their attempts to build up a profitable business. Having been actively interested in the enterprise from its inception, and having given constant attention to the merits of the system, I am to-day more than ever convinced that the solution of one of the most difficult problems connected with country and village life is to be sought in its general adoption. The public reports of sanitary officers in England, who have investigated the subject to its foundation, fully confirm every thing that has been claimed by the advocates of the earth-closet, unless perhaps in connection with the incidental question of the value of the product as a manure.

The only thing which now deters the authorities of some of the larger manufacturing towns of the North of England from adopting the dry-earth-system as a means of relief, under the sharp exaction of the law that prohibits their further fouling of water-courses, is the belief that the labor of bringing into the town the enormous amount of earth required to supply such an immense number of closets, and the labor of removing the product at frequent intervals, would be so great as to constitute an insurmountable obstruction.

Prof. Voelcker, in a paper published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, shows pretty conclusively that even the use of the same earth four or five times over, although perfectly successful in accomplishing the chief purpose of deodorization, fails to add to it a sufficient amount of fertilizing matter to make it an available commercial manure. Extended experience in small villages and public institutions seems to confirm his view, that, if the earth-closet is to be adopted by towns, they cannot depend either on farmers buying the manure, or undertaking the labor of supplying and removing it. It is estimated, that, for a population of one hundred thousand persons, there would be required seventy-five tons of earth per day, to say nothing of heavy refuse matters which would be thrown into the closets, and would increase the amount to be removed. Even the quantity required for a village of a few hundred inhabitants, if it were to be brought in and carried out, would entail a considerable cost for handling.

I have recently concluded an experiment of six years' duration, the result of which seems to show that this objection to the adoption of the earth-closet system may be set aside, or at least reduced to such proportions as to make it unimportant. In the autumn of 1870 I had brought to my house, where only earth-closets are used, two small cart-loads of garden earth, dried and sifted. This was used repeatedly in the closets; and, when an increased quantity was required, additions were made of sifted anthracite ashes. I estimate that the amount of material now on hand is about two tons. We long since stopped adding to the quantity, finding that the amount was ample to furnish a supply of dry and decomposed material whenever it becomes necessary to refill the reservoirs of the closets.

The accumulation under the seats is discharged through simply arranged valves into bricked vaults in the cellar. When these vaults become filled,--about three times in a year,--their contents, which are all thoroughly decomposed, are piled up in a dry and ventilated place with a slight covering of fresh earth to keep down any odor that might arise. After a sufficient interval these heaps are ready for further use, there being no trace, in any portion, of foreign matter nor any appearance or odor differing from that of an unused fresh mixture of earth and ashes. In this way the material has been used over and over again, at least ten times; and there is no indication to the senses of any change in its condition.

A sample of this material has recently been analyzed by Prof. Atwater, at the Connecticut Agricultural Station at Middletown. The analysis shows that it contains no more organic matter than Prof. Voelcker found in fresh earth prepared for use in the closet,--say about two hundred pounds,--nearly all of which organic matter it undoubtedly contained when first made ready for use. In my case, there was an addition, at a moderate calculation of at least, 800 pounds of solid dry matter during the six years' use by an average of four adult persons. Prof. Voelcker's analysis showed that the unused earth contained about twelve pounds of nitrogen. Prof. Atwater's analysis shows that my two tons contained only about eleven pounds of nitrogen. By calculation, the 800 pounds of solid dry matters added in the use of my material contained 230 pounds of nitrogen.

Doubtless the constitution of Prof. Voelcker's sample was somewhat different from the original constitution of my own; but practically, except perhaps for the addition of a trifling amount of residual carbon remaining after the decomposition, they were about the same; and, after being used ten times over, the whole of the 800 pounds of organic matter added, including 230 pounds of nitrogen, seem to have entirely disappeared.

It becomes interesting and important to know what has become of this added matter. That it was absorbed into the particles of the earth, is a matter of course; and the result proves that after such absorption it was subjected to such a chemical action of the concentrated oxygen always existing in porous dry material as led to its entire destruction. Porous substances condense gases--air, oxygen, etc.--in proportion to the extent of their interior surface. The well-known disinfecting action of charcoal--the surface of the interior particles of which equal from fifty to one hundred square feet to each cubic inch of material, and all of which surface is active in condensing oxygen--is due not simply to an absorption of foul-smelling odors, but to an actual destruction of them by slow combustion, so that the same mass of charcoal, if kept dry and porous, will continue almost indefinitely its undiminished disinfecting action.

The earth used in the closet is a porous material, sufficiently dry for the free admission of air or of oxygen. The foulest materials when covered with dry earth at once lose their odor, and are in time as effectively destroyed by combustion (oxidized) as though they had been burned in a furnace. The process is more slow, but none the less sure; and it is clear that in the case of my dirt-heap the foul matters added have thus been destroyed. The practical bearings of this fact are of the utmost importance. Earth is not to be regarded as a vehicle for the inoffensive removal beyond the limits of the town of what has hitherto been its most troublesome product, but as a medium for bringing together the offensive ingredients of this product, and the world's great scavenger, oxygen. My experiment seems to demonstrate the fact that there is no occasion to carry away the product from the place where it has been produced, as after a reasonable time it has ceased to exist, and there remains only a mass of earth which is in all respects as effective as any fresh supply that could be substituted.

The quantity necessary to be provided can be determined only by extended trial. My experiment proves that the amount needed does not exceed one thousand pounds for each member of the household, and that this amount once provided will remain permanently effective to accomplish its purpose.

With a suitable public supply of water for the purpose, and with a suitable means of disposal, nothing can be better and nothing is more easily kept in good condition than well-regulated and properly ventilated water-closets. Where these are available, with enough water for their flushing, their use is to be recommended. Where there is not sufficient water, there a well-regulated system of earth-closets seems to be imperatively demanded. By one process or the other we must prevent the fouling of the lower soil, and the consequent tainting of wells and springs, and the ground under houses and adjoining their cellars. With a system of sub-irrigation pipes which deliver foul matters into earth that is subject to the active operation of oxidizing influences, we need fear no contamination of the deep and unaerated soil. It would be better, however, where this system is used for the disposal of the outflow of soil-pipes, to avoid the use of wells. As a general rule, it is safer not to use for drinking purposes the water of any well near a house or a stable: practically, it is better not to use wells at all as a source of water for domestic supply. Filtered cistern-water is greatly to be preferred.

FARM VILLAGES.

"God made the country, and man made the town."

Cowper's view of the charm of country life as compared with life in the town is a very natural one. The same view suggests itself to every cultivated denizen of the city who finds himself in the country on a beautiful June morning, or under a warm September sun, or during the time of brilliant autumn foliage, or when the sun sets with a warm glow, gilding the clean, bare boughs of November trees, or when the whole countryside is covered with spotless snow, or when grass and leaves and buds and birds first feel the awakening warmth of spring. The scene is full of a charm and a novelty which appeal to him most strongly; and he believes, for the moment at least, that nothing could make him so entirely happy as to spend his life away from the noise and confusion of the town, and amid such scenes of rural peace and beauty. Filled with this enthusiasm, one builds with reference to a magnificent view, and without regard to the practical inconveniences of the site, fancying that true happiness requires only a continuance of the novel charms which have enraptured him.

The cultivated countryman, too,--one who has learned to use his eyes, and to see what nature has to offer him,--appreciates even more thoroughly, if not so keenly, the never-ending and ever-changing interest by which he is surrounded. His admiration and enthusiasm, however, are tempered by familiarity with some disadvantages of country life,--just as the romantic house-builder finds on closer acquaintance that, magnificent though a hill-top view may be, a hill-top residence is not without its grave drawbacks, nor free from annoyances and practical objections which too often throw a veil over the most majestic outlook.

A blue-sided, white-capped mountain, reflected in a broad, placid, shimmering lake, and framed between fleeting clouds, graceful trees, and verdant lawn, is beyond compare the strongest inducement and the best reward one can offer to a visiting friend; but vile roads, distant neighbors, discontented and transitory servants, and all the thousand and one obstructions to the machinery of domestic life, soon blind the eye of the unhappy householder to the beauty which lies ever before him, until at last the one great good thing which commands his constant thought is that romantic and pecunious friend who shall come some happy day to purchase his estate.

There is another class, and a very large one, whose opinion concerning the godlike character of the country it is our especial purpose to consider here. The farmer and the farmer's family may or may not be cultivated persons. Cultivation does not come by nature; and the incessant and increasing duties of farm life leave one, however well disposed, but little time and but scant strength for aesthetic study. The farmhouse is the centre of the home life and of the homely thought and feeling of its inmates. The farm on which one has been born and bred is the centre and standpoint from which he regards the world without. All those more tender emotions which are common to our nature, and which attach themselves to the home, find their development on the farm as well as in the town. Sentimentally considered, it matters little whether the object of these emotions be on the farm, in the wilderness, in the village, or in the city. Fortunately, man is by no means a creature of emotion alone; and the satisfaction and good of living are less a matter of feeling than of activity, industry, and intelligence. The place in which one lives is more or less satisfactory in proportion as it facilitates and encourages the better and more useful living.

Just as the citizen feels the attractions of the country, which are so novel to his town-bred taste, so the countryman finds a charm in the novelty of the town. As one is led toward the quiet and solitude of the fields and woods, so the other is drawn by the life and interest of the community.

As a rule, at least in America, where the facilities for pleasant country living are far less than in England, the countryman who goes to town is less likely to wish himself back on the farm than is the town-bred farmer to long for the comforts and conveniences of his former condition.

"Man is a social animal," and the aphorism is especially true of his wife and daughter. As the lives of the wife and daughter are much more confined to the immediate surroundings of the domicile than is that of the man himself, so the question as between town and country should be considered more especially with reference to them.

There is a certain amount of truth on both sides of every question; and the one which we are now considering is not to be answered by a decision in favor of the heart of a great city, or of the entire solitude of an outlying farm. As is so often the case, its solution lies between the two extremes. If one may be permitted to imagine the conditions best suited to the perfect physical, intellectual, and social development of the human being, one would naturally think of a small town or a large village where society is sufficient, where the facilities for instruction are good, where communication with the large centres is easy, where the conveniences and facilities for household economy are complete, and where the country with its beauty and quiet and freshness is close at hand,--where one feels on this side the influence of a complete social organization, and on that the sweet breath of mother earth.

Unfortunately, these imaginings can never be freed from the practical bearing of the bread-winning and money-making interests. Men must live, not where they prefer to live, but where their interests compel them to live. The town and the country have their mutual economic duties by which their life must be controlled. All that we can hope to do is, on one hand, to ameliorate the hardness and solitude of country living, and, on the other, to bring the citizen into nearer relation with the invigorating fields and woods and boundless air of the country.

Devising no modern Sybaris, where all possible good of life may follow from the unaided operation of a perfect social and industrial organization, I propose to confine myself to the simple question of the best practical development of village life for farmers. The village or its immediate vicinity seems to me to offer the urbanist the nearest approach to the country that is available for his purposes; and in like manner village life, so far as it can be made to fit his conditions, offers to the farmer as much of the benefit of town life as the needs of his work will allow him to obtain. If those who now seek the pleasures of retirement in costly and soul-wearying country-seats would congregate into spacious and well-kept villages, and if those who now live in the solitary retirement of the mud-bound farmhouse would congregate into villages, we should secure far more relief from the confinement of the town and a wider-reaching attractiveness in agricultural life; this latter leading to the improvement of our farming by a solution of that long-mooted problem, "How to keep the boys on the farm."

Nearly everywhere on the Continent of Europe those who are engaged in the cultivation of the land live in villages. An observation of the modes of life and industry of these villages has led me to consider whether some similar system might not tend to the improvement of the conditions of our own farmers, and to the amelioration of some hardships to which their families are subjected.

In Europe, as here, the methods of living have grown from natural causes. There it was a necessary condition of agricultural industry, that those who tilled the soil should be protected by the military power of their lord or chief; and their houses were clustered under the shadow of his castle wall. The castles have crumbled away, and the protecting arm of the old baron has been replaced by the protecting arm of the nation.

The community of living, which grew from necessity, having proved its fitness by long trial, is still maintained; but there seems to have been no general tendency toward the formation of such little communities here. Save in a few exceptional cases,--as in the old villages of the Connecticut Valley, where protection against Indians or safety from inundation compelled the original settlers to gather into communities,--the pioneer built his cabin in his new clearing, and, as his circumstances improved, changed his cabin for a house, and his small house for a larger one, and finally established his comfortable home in connection with his fertile fields. This method has been adopted throughout the whole country; and the peculiarly American system of isolated farm-life has become almost universal throughout the length and breadth of the land.

I am not so enthusiastic as to believe that a radical change from this universal system is to be hoped for at any early day; but I believe that it is worth while for farmers to consider how far they may, without permanent harm to the interests for which they are working, secure for themselves, and especially for their families, the benefits of village life.

To this end are adduced the following examples, both of which are of course purely imaginary. The first has reference to a new settlement of wild land, where, by the Government's system of division, the boundaries are rectangular, and where the political subdivisions are of uniform measurement. The second relates to the necessary change of conditions now existing in the longer-settled parts of the country.

For this latter, the illustration is taken from an actual accurate survey[1] of a purely agricultural district in Rhode Island, showing the roads, houses, and field boundaries as they now exist, followed by a suggestion as to the manner in which the same division of estates might be made to conform to the assembling of their owners into a village.

[Footnote 1: A map of the United States Coast Survey.]

The Government division is into townships six miles square. It is proposed to divide each township into nine settlements, giving to each a square of two miles, or 2,560 acres. Each of these settlements should have its whole population concentrated in a village at its centre. A suitable method of division would be that indicated in Figure 11, where a public road crosses the middle of the tract north and south, and east and west. The outside of the tract, for the width of half a mile all around, is laid off in farms of 80 acres and 160 acres. These are bounded on the inner sides by a road. Inside of this road again is a series of smaller farms (40 acres), and inside of these a tier of still smaller places (10 acres), separated from the central village by a narrow road. The village itself occupies 40 acres.

The division of the agricultural land is as follows:--

4 farms of 160 acres 640
16 " 80 " 1,280
12 " 40 " 480
12 " 10 " 120

in all, 44 tracts, aggregating 2,520 acres, and averaging nearly 60 acres each, the most distant being less than a mile from the village green. This division is arbitrary; in practice, the more industrious members of the community would buy land from their less industrious neighbors, and the size and arrangement of the farms would vary. Often, too, the division would be into farms averaging more than sixty acres. In such cases there would usually be about the same population, as the larger holders would employ more workmen.

What is attempted is chiefly to show how four square miles of land may be so divided that its occupiers may be conveniently gathered into a village; and it may fairly be assumed, that, except in the more remote grazing and grain-growing regions, the population (including laborers) would generally be about one household for each sixty acres. In the more thickly settled regions, this limit is exceeded now; and, as population increases, this condition will extend. In any case, the principle advanced remains the same, whether there be thirty households or sixty.

A suitable division of the village is shown in Figure 12. Its centre is occupied by a public square at the intersection of the main roads. The road surrounds a piece of ornamental ground, containing about one acre. North and south of the square are the sites of two churches, a schoolhouse, and a store and public house. This is again arbitrary; the purpose is to have these spaces occupied by somewhat important buildings, which it will not be necessary to enclose by fences, so that an appearance of more size may be given to the central feature of the village.

The spaces set apart for these buildings, as well as the village green, should be surrounded by regularly planted trees, such as will grow to a large size, like the American elm. But the whole open space should remain otherwise free from planting. Smooth, well-kept grass, and large trees planted in formal lines, with an entire absence of fences, posts, chains, bushes, and all decorations, will give a dignity and character which an excess of ornamentation would spoil. A certain amount of judicious bedding would be permissible, but it would be best that even this should be confined to private places. Any fund available for embellishing the village green will be best used in keeping its grass cut and its walks clean,--entire neatness and simplicity being its most effective characteristics.

On the streets leading east and west from the green there are shown sixteen lots 100 X 250 (one-half acre), eight 50 X 250 (one-quarter acre). These lots all open on narrow lanes at the rear. On the streets leading north and south there are twelve lots 50 X 650 (three-quarters acre), and eight lots 100 X 650 (one and one-half acres). These are the village lots proper, but the twelve ten-acre tracts which front on its surrounding street would be the residences of their owners; and these semi-detached houses--the most distant not a quarter of a mile from the green--would form a part of the village, and come within the operation of its rules of association. Probably the blacksmith, the wheelwright, and the builder would occupy these outlying places, with an "annex" of farming to supplement their trades.

The village lots proper are all large enough for a kitchen-garden, barn, barn-yard, &c.; and all have means of access from the rear, so that their street fronts may be kept for ornamental purposes.

It would be a good rule that no house should stand nearer to the street line than thirty feet, and that no fence should be made nearer to the street than sixty feet. This would add very much to the largeness of appearance of the whole village; would decorate every street with the ornamental fronts of the houses and with their plants and shrubbery, and would, at the same time, shut off from the ornamental parts every thing belonging to the working department of the village life. Even the baker and the shoemaker should conform to this rule, and their shops should be made to help the neatness of appearance of the village.

The larger farmers, having the most cattle, would occupy the largest lots, which would readily accommodate their larger needs. The more ambitious of them would probably buy land, for night pasture or for cultivation, from a ten-acre neighbor opposite their rear line.

The village population would be somewhat as follows: two clergymen, one doctor, one teacher, one baker, one shoemaker, one tailor, two store-keepers, one carpenter, one wheelwright, one blacksmith, one dressmaker, one innkeeper, forty-four farmers: total, fifty-eight heads of families. Probably, including hired laborers and servants, the average would be six persons to each household. This would make the population of the village about 350. No part of the whole scheme is more arbitrary than this arrangement of its human element; and no part of it would be more modified in different cases by the element of human nature. Still, this sketch of the industrial division of the community would probably be approximated in any purely agricultural village of this size,--with such changes in the detail as would come from individual enterprise or indolence.

Taking the whole area at 2,560 acres, and the population at 350 persons, we have an area of about 7-1/3 acres to furnish the support and home of each member of the community,--an amount ample for the purpose.

Figure 13 suggests the arrangement of the central open space of the village,--all of which should be in well-kept grass, except where roads and paths are needed. Paths should be reduced to the least amount that will furnish the necessary accommodation, and they should be kept in neat condition. If no provision can be made for this, it will be better to leave the people to beat their own tracks across the grass as their needs direct. These beaten foot-paths are never unsightly (in small villages), for the reason that they are never large, and that they are only of such width as their regular use will keep clean: the grass maintains its effort to spread, and grows always close up to the necessary foot-way. Even in Hyde Park (London), where the people have made short cuts across the broad lawns, the paths thus marked out, and receiving no attention, are not only unobjectionable, but are a charming feature of that beautiful pleasure-ground.

The foot-path indicated for the village green will be demanded by the more ambitious village improvers; but were I making an ideal village for moderate and tasteful people, the road surrounding the green should enclose only a level, close-cropped lawn, neatly trimmed at its edges, surrounded by fine and simple trees, and traced here and there with the foot-paths that honest use had marked out and made, and by the suggestive diamond-shaped track and bases of the village base-ball club. It should be perfect in grade, in outline, in regularity of planting, and in mowing; but it should be a perfect lawn _plus_ the wear of constant use and frequent pleasure.

* * * * *

The second example is taken from existing conditions in my own neighborhood. The United States Coast Survey has furnished all the necessary details save the _farm_ boundaries. The field boundaries and roads are exact.

The tract is of the same size with the one just considered,--two miles square. Its centre is in one direction about two miles from a small village, and in the other about seven miles from a large town which furnishes the chief market for its agricultural products, and is the source of all (or nearly all) of its supplies.

Figure 14 shows the present settlement of this area, the houses, about sixty in number, being scattered over the whole tract, with no near approach to a "neighborhood" at any point. These are practically all farmers' houses, some trade being carried on here and there in connection with the farm-work. A few of the houses belong to farms which lie mainly outside of my lines. Deducting a fair proportion for this, and others for the wheelwright, blacksmith, &c., we shall have about the same number of farmers as in the former instance, say forty-four; and, taking the same area for the village, we shall have the same amount of farm and village property for their support.

Figure 15 shows a suitable division of property and the location of the village, on a short cross street running from one to the other of the main public roads, and extending a short distance up and down these roads.

It would be a necessary condition precedent, that the whole property taken for the village should be set apart for the purpose. This requirement and the cost of moving buildings from the farms to the village would doubtless be an serious obstacle to the immediate carrying out of the plan. And thus the theory must long remain a theory only. No sudden change of the sort could be made in practice.

It would not be impossible, however, to bring about the end in time, if a few of the larger proprietors could secure possession of the village tract by exchange, and would dedicate it to the purpose, agreeing at any future time to sell small lots for building at a fixed low rate. In the instance under consideration, the village tract is thinly settled, and so situated as to be available at moderate cost. If a church, a schoolhouse, and a store could be established as a nucleus of the village, the young couples of the neighborhood might incline to settle there; and in time the settlement could be made so attractive--as compared with the outlying farmhouses--as to lead to the concentration of the whole population.

This part of the subject is, however, foreign to the present purpose. If the _desirability_ of village life for farmers can be established, the ways and means may safely be left to those interested in securing it. The influences now at work to make the farmers' children seek a better social condition, together with the necessity which confines them to some form of agricultural work, must be depended on to secure the relief suggested, unless some better relief can be found.

In this case, as in every other of village construction, the original plan should include some quality or feature, which, while appropriate to the modest end in view, will give character to the place.

Every village has in its situation, its uses, or its origin, some characteristic which may be developed into a leading and an attractive feature. Especially when the work is to be begun from the foundation, and when there are no buildings to be torn down or removed, a consistent and dignified result may be planned for at the outset.

The characteristic feature of the village we are now considering is that it is to consist of a single long, straight street cut off at each end by other roads. After removing one unimportant house, there remains no obstacle to the laying-out of one straight street two hundred feet wide, with either two or four rows of spreading elms. This street, two thousand feet long, mainly in well-kept grass, with only the necessary width of road and the requisite paths,--having perhaps a well-kept and home-like private place opposite each of its ends,--would stamp the village at once with an attraction which would have a constant civilizing effect on those living under its influence.

Such a village street, entirely without costly ornamentation, and requiring only the simplest care, would soon take on a look of appropriate neatness and freshness; and, as the trees grew, it would acquire a dignity and beauty which could in no other way be so well secured.

The church and the schoolhouse, being placed in broad recesses opposite the central point of the street, would gain importance from their position; and, these main features being attended to, the _character_ of the village would be fixed, and it would be difficult to make any arrangement of its private places which would spoil its beauty. Neatness and a reasonable care in the matter of house-gardening, the planting of flower-beds, vines, etc., are all that would be needed.

With so wide a street, it would be as well to bring all house-fronts to the street line, completing this line with simple fences, and paying some attention to the ornamentation of the enclosed yards.

In this village, as in the other, all meretricious ornamentation should be avoided, whether public or private. All money available for such improvement should be spent in securing perfect neatness. In fact, the two radical requirements of good taste in all such cases are an absence of obvious money-spending, and the evidence of constant care and attention. "Showiness" is common in every trumpery village in the land. What we should seek in our farm-villages is the most modest simplicity, shining with the polish of an affectionate care. Every spot should breathe of homely influences and moral peacefulness.

Figure 16 shows the general plan of the village. If other public buildings are needed, they might very well be placed opposite the ends of the main street.

It is not possible, in remodelling an old farming district, where boundaries and roads are irregular, to apportion the division of land among the population with especial reference to its distance from the village; so, for example, that the small farmers, who have little team-force, shall not have so far to go as the larger ones who are better equipped; but, even in this case, the most distant farm will be rarely a mile from the village, where all the farmers, their families, and their work-people, and their flocks and herds, would be gathered together, under the best circumstances for getting out of their lives as much good as the need for earning a living by arduous work will allow them to get anywhere,--more than they could hope to get in the isolation of the distant farmhouse.

Having now considered the methods by which farmers may congregate their homes and their farm-buildings, and live in villages, let us take up the more important question of policy.

Which would be better for a young man, just starting in life with a young wife,--to go to a distant farmhouse to found his home, or to settle in a well-ordered farm-village under substantially the conditions described above?

There is much more to be said, on both sides of this question, than there is room to say here; but certain points are worthy of consideration.

There is no doubt that in a strictly money-making aspect there is an advantage in having the animals on the land from which they are fed, and the men on the farm which they are to work. It is certain, also, that the men and the women must be near the stables, that the early and late work of feeding and milking may be promptly and regularly performed. If the family is to live in the village, the cattle must live in the village too. This involves the hauling home of all the hay and grain, and the hauling out again of all manure,--no slight task. If the work is all concentrated on the farm, under the immediate supervision of the farmer, there will be a certain convenience and economy of time.

The same principle holds true in all other relations. The merchant would find a certain advantage in living at his warehouse, the engine-builder at his factory, the cotton-spinner at his mill, the carpenter at his shop, and the grocer at his store. All of these have found that, so far as may be, they get certain other and greater advantages in living away from their business. One and all carry to their homes, at least occasionally, books, papers, and plans for work that needs attention out of the regular business hours.

The farmer alone--and in this country especially--disregards the benefits of living away from his shop, and passes his whole life--day and night--in close contact with his field of operations. He might, if he chose, make his home nearer to other homes, taking with him so much of his work as is not necessarily confined to the farm.

For his own sake, it does not make so much difference; but for the sake of his wife and children it makes all the difference between life and stagnation. The business needs which call him to town, and the habit he has of passing his evenings at "the store," give him a certain amount--and a certain kind--of social intercourse which keeps him from absolute rust. The amount of society available for his family is not usually great, and the dulness and confinement of farmhouse life need no description.

The main reason for preferring village life is principally because it is better for the women and children; but there are reasons, in the same direction, why better social conditions would give the farmer himself decided benefits. The life, too, would be more _attractive_ for both boys and girls, and would be divested of that naked and dismal gloom and dryness which now drive so much of the best farmer blood of the whole country to work-benches and counters,--to any position, in fact, which promises relief from the stifling isolation of the country.

While conceding that, just as a cabinet-maker would make more money if he lived in his back shop, and had little thought from early dawn until late evening except for his work, so the farmer may make more money if he lives on his farm than if he lives at a distance, still it must be said that the difference in profit is by no means so great as would be supposed.

It may be fairly assumed, that, at least in the more thickly settled farming regions at the East, the average distance at which farmers live from the nearest centre of population that supplies their "shopping," and from church, is not less than three miles. The visiting acquaintance of the family is nearly or quite as remote; and there is, altogether, so much driving to be done, as to make it necessary to keep a decent carriage and horses, and to supply a certain amount of extra horse service. Indeed, among those who are tolerably well off it would be moderate to set down the total services of one good horse as needed to supply the family's demand for transportation.

Then, too, the need of the farmer himself to go to town to sell and to buy, to get repairs and information, and (a much more generally gratified taste than he would always care to confess to his wife) to satisfy his craving after intercourse with his kind,--who shall estimate the aggregate of all this travel, or even of that part of it which, under the pretext of business, is really only an habitual going for gossip? All of this driving is confined to no season; it is perennial,--in good weather and in bad,--and it costs an amount of time and money that few farmers would like to put down in black and white, and charge to their expense accounts. It would form one of the most serious items of their budget.

Did the farmer live in a pleasant and attractive village, among neighbors and friends, nearly all of this driving would be saved. The appliances for the family's pleasure-driving might be entirely done away with, for the wife and daughters would gladly exchange the means for occasional visiting and for distant shopping, for an agreeable circle of friends near at hand and a good village store and post-office within five minutes' walk. In such a settlement as is contemplated, most of the business needs of the farmer would be amply supplied, and he would find the companionship at hand even more satisfactory, because more familiar, than that which he now finds in the town.

It is not worth while to calculate the cash saving that would come of this reduction of road-*work. It is enough to consider it as an important offset to the cost of carrying men and manure to the field and of bringing crops to the village.

Under the present system the women have the worst of it. They have the confinement and seclusion and dulness. Under the village system the men would have the discomfort, and this is why it will be less easy to secure its adoption; for the men control, and prefer _not_ to have the heavy end of life's log to carry.

Under either of the plans given herewith, the greatest--not the average--distance from the house to the farm would be about one mile, and it would have to be travelled only during the working weather of the warmer months, and during the good wheeling of winter. In summer, all hands would have to set off early, and come home late, often carrying their dinner with them as mechanics do; but when field-work did not call them out, as during rains, or when the ground is too wet to be disturbed, their barn-work and shop-work would be at home; and, all the winter through, the only road-work to be done would be to send the teams to haul out the manure, and to bring home the hay, which would be best stored under "Dutch hay-barracks" in the fields when it was made. This work would be systematic and simple; and it may fairly be questioned whether it would not, in many cases, amount to _less_ than the cost of the "driving" that is now done, and which in the village might be foregone. Especially would this be the case when all the heavy farm-work is done by oxen, which when idle, instead of eating their heads off like horses, are accumulating valuable flesh. With sufficient ox-power to do the work easily, the whole transportation of tools and men, and all the hay-tedding and hay-raking, would be easily done by one horse, with leeway enough to allow for a fair amount of business or pleasure travel.

So far as the presence of the farmer himself is concerned, it is to be considered that if his farm and cattle are near his house in the village, he will be within easy reach of them very often at times when his visits to the distant town would take him away from them if they were on the farm. In the village, during the whole winter, and in bad weather at other seasons, he would have little necessity or temptation to absent himself from home. Indeed, those who have had an opportunity to watch the life of the exceptional farmers whose houses and barns and stables are in a village cannot have failed to notice how much more home-like and engaging is the whole farm establishment than it usually is in the country. It is hardly too much to say that the few instances that we have, as in the farm-villages of New England, show that these village-living farmers are apparently more attentive to their home duties than are their isolated brethren, at least in the matter of tidiness.

To complete the comparison with the merchant or manufacturer, who takes his papers or plans home with him for work out of regular hours, one might say that the farmer who lives at a distance from his land, with his flocks and herds gathered about his homestead, has such of his work as needs early and late attention close at hand, while his regular workshop, the farm, calls him away for certain regular hours and regular duties.

It is not worth while here to enter into the details of the question. They are of serious moment, and involve among other things the driving of animals to and from pasture, _versus_ the raising of soiling crops to be fed in the stall or yard. All of these questions have been satisfactorily solved in the experience of many exceptional cases in this country, and of the almost universal conditions obtaining in Europe. They present no practical difficulty, and need constitute no serious objection to the general plan.

The items of economical working and money-making being fully weighed, the more serious considerations of the mode of life, and the good to be got from it, demand even greater attention. It may seem a strange doctrine to be advanced by a somewhat enthusiastic farmer, but it is a doctrine that has been slowly accepted after many years' observation, a conviction that has taken possession of an unwilling mind, that the young man who takes his young wife to an isolated farmhouse dooms her and himself and their children to an unwholesome, unsatisfactory, and vacant existence,--an existence marked by the absence of those more satisfying and more cultivating influences which the best development of character and intelligence demand. It is a common experience of farmers' wives to pass week after week without exchanging a word or a look with a single person outside of their own family circles.

The young couple start bravely, and with a determination to struggle against the habit of isolation which marks their class. But this habit has grown from the necessity of the situation; and the necessities of their own situation bring them sooner or later within its bonds. During the first few years they adhere to their resolution, and go regularly to church, to the lecture, and to the social gatherings of their friends; but home duties increase with time, and the eagerness for society grows dull with neglect. Those who have started out with the firmest determination to avoid the rock on which their fathers have split, give up the struggle at last, and settle down to a humdrum, uninteresting, and uninterested performance of daily tasks.

In saying all this,--and I speak from experience, for I have led the dismal life myself,--it is hardly necessary to disclaim the least want of appreciation of the sterling qualities which have been developed in the American farm household. But it may be safely insisted that these qualities have been developed, not because of the American mode of farm life, but in spite of it; and, as I think over the long list of admirable men and women whose acquaintance I have formed on distant and solitary farms, I am more and more impressed with certain shortcomings which would have been avoided under better social conditions. If any of these is disposed to question the justice of this conclusion, I am satisfied to leave the final decision with his own judgment, formed after a fair consideration of what is herein suggested.

If American agriculture has an unsatisfied need, it is surely the need for more intelligence and more enterprising interest on the part of its working men and women. From one end of the land to the other, its crying defect--recognized by all--is, that its best blood, or, in other words, its best brains and its best energy, is leaving it to seek other fields of labor. The influence which leads these best of the farmers' sons to other occupations is not so much the desire to make more money, or to find a less laborious occupation, as it is the desire to lead a more satisfactory life,--a life where that part of us which has been developed by the better education and better civilization for which in this century we have worked so hard and so well, may find responsive companionship and encouraging intercourse with others.

It so happens that the few farm villages to which we can refer--such as Farmington, Hadley, and Deerfield--have become so attractive by means of their full-grown beauty, or have been so encroached upon by the wealth that has come over the district to which they belong, that they are no longer to be taken as types of pure country villages; nor do I recall a single village in the land which is precisely what I have now in mind.

Assuming that a farming neighborhood--two miles, or at the utmost three miles, square--had been so arranged as to have all of its buildings (with the exception of hay-barracks in the fields, and cattle-shelters in the pastures) in a village, let us consider what would be the advantages in the manner of living which it would have to offer.