diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 02:32:55 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 02:32:55 -0700 |
| commit | aef6480cf48297f0a7be071cca46fa1307935814 (patch) | |
| tree | 86c750ccc33ee0faf2430159de3af1ed2fdb5135 /26801-h | |
Diffstat (limited to '26801-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/26801-h.htm | 4193 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0029.jpg | bin | 0 -> 15537 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0042.jpg | bin | 0 -> 13238 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0071.jpg | bin | 0 -> 11725 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0071b.jpg | bin | 0 -> 12461 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0077.jpg | bin | 0 -> 10149 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0078.jpg | bin | 0 -> 19332 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0084.jpg | bin | 0 -> 12609 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0095.jpg | bin | 0 -> 46115 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0100.jpg | bin | 0 -> 30356 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0103.jpg | bin | 0 -> 22041 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0122.jpg | bin | 0 -> 31293 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0124.jpg | bin | 0 -> 30491 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0129.jpg | bin | 0 -> 26330 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0131.jpg | bin | 0 -> 59830 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0133.jpg | bin | 0 -> 40385 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 26801-h/images/i0137.jpg | bin | 0 -> 30194 bytes |
17 files changed, 4193 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/26801-h/26801-h.htm b/26801-h/26801-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..33bceb1 --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/26801-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4193 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Village Improvements and Farm Villages, by Geo. E. Waring Jnr. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + div.centered {text-align: center;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 1 */ + div.centered table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 2 */ + + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .author {text-align: right; margin-right: 5%;} + + .centerbox { width: 50%; /* heading box */ + margin: 0 auto; + text-align: center; + padding: 1em; + } + + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Village Improvements and Farm Villages, by +George E. Waring + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Village Improvements and Farm Villages + +Author: George E. Waring + +Release Date: October 7, 2008 [EBook #26801] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VILLAGE IMPROVEMENTS *** + + + + +Produced by Tom Roch and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from +images produced by Core Historical Literature in Agriculture +(CHLA), Cornell University) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + <h1>Village Improvements<br /> + AND<br /> + FARM VILLAGES.</h1> + + <h4>By</h4> + + <h2>GEO. E. WARING, Jr.</h2> + + <h4>CONSULTING ENGINEER FOR SANITARY AND AGRICULTURAL + WORKS.</h4> + + <p class="center">BOSTON:<br /> + JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,<br /> + (Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co.)<br /> + 1877.</p> + + + + <p class="center">Copyright, 1877,<br /> + By GEO. E. WARING, Jr.<br /><br /> + + Franklin Press: Rand, Avery, & Co.,<br /> + Boston.</p> + + +<div class="centerbox"> +<p>The following papers on Village Improvements and Farm Villages are +reprinted, with some amendments, from "Scribners Monthly." These +constitute the more practical part of the book, so far as villages are +concerned.</p> + +<p>It has, however, been judged appropriate to add to them a paper on +Eastern Farming, which originally appeared in "The Atlantic Monthly," +and which continues the discussion of the question of village residence +as a means for mitigating some of the hardships which beset the lives of +isolated country families.</p> + +<p>The wide-spread and growing interest in the topics considered makes it +seem worth while to give these short essays a more permanent form.</p> + +<p class="author"> +<span class="smcap">G. E. W., Jr.</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap" style="margin-left: 2em;">Newport, R.I.</span>, June, 1877.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + + +<div class='centered'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="50%" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS"> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Village Improvements</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Village Sanitary Work</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_69'><b>69</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Farm Villages</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Life and Work of the Eastern Farmer</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_159'><b>159</b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<h2><br />LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2> + + +<div class='centered'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="80%" cellspacing="0" summary="LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS"> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 1.--Drainage of Hill-Side Foot-Path</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_31'><b>31</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 2.--Section of Road with Drains</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 3.--Pipes resting on their Shoulders</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 4.--Pipes resting on their Full Length</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 5.--Grease-Trap</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_79'><b>79</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 6.--Field's Flush-Tank</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_80'><b>80</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 7.--The Emerson Ventilator</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_86'><b>86</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 8.--Diagram illustrating Manner of Sewage Disposal at Lenox, Mass.</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_97'><b>97</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 9.--Settling Basin</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_102'><b>102</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 10.--Arrangement of Absorption Drains</span>,</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_105'><b>105</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 11.--Division of Four Square Miles with Central Village</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_124'><b>124</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 12.--division of the Central Village</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_126'><b>126</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 13.--Division of the Central Open Space of the Village</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_131'><b>131</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 14.--Present Division and Settlement of Tract in Rhode Island</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_133'><b>133</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 15.--The Rhode Island Tract with its Buildings gathered together into a Compact Village</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_135'><b>135</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fig. 16.--Proposed Arrangement of the Rhode Island Farm Village</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_139'><b>139</b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VILLAGE_IMPROVEMENTS" id="VILLAGE_IMPROVEMENTS"></a>VILLAGE IMPROVEMENTS.</h2> + + +<p>It may be because the newness of our country and the fragile character +of our early structures have prevented the accumulation of inferior, +ugly, and uncomfortable houses, as the nucleus around which later +building has crystallized; it may be from circumstances which have +prevented the isolated residence of the better classes of our people; or +it may be the result of accident. Whatever the reason, it is beyond +dispute that the United States is <i>par excellence</i> a land of beautiful +villages. North, south, east, and west, there are plenty of hideous +conglomerations of poor-looking houses, with an absence of every element +of beauty; but there are thousands of other villages scattered all over +the land, which are full of the evidences of good taste in their +regulation and in their management.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> + +<p>As a rule, these more attractive features are very much modified by the +presence of badly-kept private places or neglected public buildings, and +by a general air of untidiness. Still, the foundation of attractiveness +is there; and nothing is needed beyond a well-organized and well-guided +control of public sentiment, to remove or to hide the more objectionable +features, and to permit such beauty as the village may possess to +manifest itself.</p> + +<p>The real elements of beauty in a village are not fine houses, costly +fences, paved roadways, geometrical lines, mathematical grading, nor any +obviously costly improvements. They are, rather, cosiness, neatness, +simplicity, and that homely air that grows from these and from the +presence of a home-loving people.</p> + +<p>To state the case tersely, the shiftless village is a hideous village, +while the charm which we often realize without analyzing it comes of +affectionate care and attention.</p> + +<p>There are villages in New England, in Western New York, and all over the +West, even to the far side of Arkansas, which impress the visitor at +once as being homelike and full of sociability<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> and kindliness; which +delight him, and lead him almost to wish that his own lot had been cast +within their shades. These are chiefly villages where the evidences of +public and private care predominate, or are at least conspicuous. A +critical examination would, in almost every case, develop very serious +evidence of neglect, unwholesomeness, and bad neighborhood.</p> + +<p>Within a few years, beginning, I believe, in Massachusetts, the more +thoughtful of those whose affections are centred in their village homes +have united in organized efforts to make their villages more tidy, to +interest all classes of society in attention to those little details the +neglect of which is fatal, and to make the village, what it certainly +should be, an expression of the interest of its people in their homes +and in the surroundings of their daily life.</p> + +<p>The first of these associations of which I have any knowledge (though, +as such work is unobtrusive, there may have been many before it) was the +"Laurel Hill Association" of Stockbridge, Mass. It takes its name from a +wooded knoll in the centre of the village, which had been dedicated to +public use. The first object of the association<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> was to convert this +knoll into a village park. Then they took in hand the village +burial-ground, which was put in proper condition and suitably surrounded +with hedge and railing. Then the broad village street was properly +graded and drained, and agreeable walks were made at its sides. +Incidentally to this, the people living along both sides of the streets +were encouraged to do what they could to give it an appropriate setting +by putting their own premises into tasteful condition and maintaining +them so. The organization worked well, and accomplished good results. +The Rev. N. P. Eggleston, formerly of Stockbridge, in a paper on village +improvements written for the "New York Tribune," thus describes the +collateral work and influences of the Laurel Hill Association:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Next followed the planting of trees by the roadside wherever trees +were lacking. The children, sometimes disposed in their +thoughtlessness to treat young trees too rudely, were brought in as +helpers of the association, while at the same time put under a +beneficial culture for themselves. Any boy who would undertake to +watch and care for a particular tree for two years was rewarded by +having the tree called by his name. Other children were paid for +all the loose papers and other unsightly things which they would +pick up and remove from the street.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Gradually the work of the association extended. It soon took in +hand the streets connected with the main street. Year by year it +pushed out walks from the centre of the village toward its outer +borders; year by year it extended its line of trees in the same +manner; and year by year there has been a marked improvement in the +aspect of the village. Little by little, and in many nameless ways, +the houses and barns, the dooryards and farms, have come to wear a +look of neatness and intelligent, tasteful care, that makes the +Stockbridge of to-day quite a different place from the Stockbridge +of twenty years ago. Travellers passing through it are apt to speak +of it with admiration as a finished place, and, compared with most +even of our New England villages, it has such a look; but the +Laurel Hill Association does not consider its home finished, nor +its own work completed. Still the work goes on. Committees are even +now conning plans for further improvements. By itself, or by +suggestions and stimulations offered to others, the association is +aiming at the culture of the village people through other agencies +than those of outward and physical adornment. It fosters libraries, +reading-rooms, and other places of resort where innocent and +healthful games, music and conversation will tend to promote the +social feeling, and lessen vice by removing some of its causes."</p></div> + +<p>No one can drive through this beautiful old place without realizing the +effect of some influence different from that which has usually been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> at +work in country towns. One feels that it is a village of homes; that the +people who live in it love it, and that it has no public or private +interest so insignificant as to be neglected.</p> + +<p>I have cited this instance somewhat at length, because it was the first, +as it is the most complete, that has come to my notice. In other places, +more serious work of improvement has been undertaken in the direction of +sewerage, gas-lighting, &c. In fact, the present writing was suggested +by frequent requests for information and advice on the more practical +parts of the subject.</p> + +<p>At the outset it is to be said that the organization and control of the +village society is especially woman's work. It requires the sort of +systematized attention to detail, especially in the constantly-recurring +duty of "cleaning up," that grows more naturally out of the habit of +good housekeeping than out of any occupation to which men are +accustomed. Then, too, it calls for a degree of leisure which women are +the most apt to have, and it will especially engage their interest as +being a real addition to the field of their ordinary routine of life. +The sort of en<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>thusiasm which has led to marked success in the Dorcas +Society and other organized action outside of the household, for which +American country women are noted, will find here a new and engaging +object. This, however, is only a suggestion by the way, and one which +may or may not be appropriate under varying circumstances.</p> + +<p>If we assume, which is not altogether true, that the main purpose of +village improvement is to improve the <i>appearance</i> of the village, we +must still understand that the direct object of the society should not +be alone nor chiefly in the direction of appearance.</p> + +<p>What it is especially desirable that a village should appear to be is: a +wholesome, cleanly, tidy, simple, modest collection of country homes, +with all of its parts and appliances adapted to the pleasantest and most +satisfactory living of its people. All improvements should therefore +have this fundamental tendency, and every element of adornment, and +every evidence of careful attention, should be only an outgrowth of the +effort to obtain the best practical results. Costly park railing where +no railing is needed, width of road<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>way greater than the needs of the +community require, formal geometric lines and surfaces where more +natural slopes and curves would be practically better, elaborate +fountains or statuary out of keeping with the general character of the +village, (the gift of a public-spirited, ambitious, and pretentious +fellow-townsman,) and isolated examples, as in a church or schoolhouse, +of a style of architecture which would be more appropriate for a +city,—all these are obtrusive and objectionable, and are consequently +in bad taste. In so far as these or any other elements of improvement +are unsuited to the conditions in which they are placed, they are +undesirable; and it would be well for those having the interest of the +village in charge, to adopt an early resolution to accept no gifts, and +to allow no work of construction or embellishment, which is not, first +of all, appropriate to the modest character of a well-regulated country +village.</p> + +<p>If every public building is sufficient for its uses and suggests no +undue outlay for show alone; if the roads and walks are such as the uses +of the people require; if the fountain suggests a tasteful ornament and +centre of freshness and coolness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> rather than a monument of some +citizens liberality and ambition; if the village green or park is a +proper pleasure-ground for old and young; and, in short, if every thing +that is done and every dollar that is expended has for its object only +the improvement of the conditions of living,—then there will be needed +only the element of careful keeping to maintain always the best sort of +beauty that is possible under the circumstances.</p> + +<p>No satisfactory result can be attained without organization. The work +will necessarily require much money and more time in order to avoid an +undue tax upon individuals. It is desirable, too, that, so far as +possible, every member of the community should be interested in the +work, and should contribute in labor or in money according to his means. +This general interest can be secured much better through the influence +of an organization in which all are interested, than by any individual +effort.</p> + +<p>The association should become the distributor, not only of the moneys +accruing from membership fees, &c., but of contributions made by +citizens, or subscriptions raised by combined effort for general or +specific works of improvement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> It should be, in fact, not only the +inciter of public spirit, but the director of public effort.</p> + +<p>The precise form of constitution for such an association must +necessarily depend more or less on circumstances; and I sketch only as a +basis for discussion, the following form suggested by the regulations +governing the Laurel Hill Association of Stockbridge:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><h4>ARTICLE I.</h4> + +<p>This Association shall be called "The Village Improvement +Association of ——."</p> + +<h4>ARTICLE II.</h4> + +<p>The object of this Association shall be to improve and ornament the +streets and public grounds of the village by planting and +cultivating trees, establishing and maintaining walks, grading and +draining roadways, establishing and protecting good grass plats and +borders in the streets and public squares, securing a proper public +supply of water, establishing and maintaining such sewerage as +shall be needed for the best sanitary condition of the village, +providing public fountains and drinking-troughs, breaking out paths +through the snow, lighting the streets, encouraging the formation +of a library and reading-room, and generally doing whatever may +tend to the improvement of the village as a place of residence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> + +<h4>ARTICLE III.</h4> + +<p>The officers of this Association shall be a President, two +Vice-Presidents, a Secretary, and a Treasurer, who shall constitute +the Executive Committee. These officers shall be elected at the +annual meeting, and shall hold their offices until their successors +shall have been elected.</p> + +<h4>ARTICLE IV.</h4> + +<p>It shall be the duty of the President, and in his absence of the +senior Vice-President, to preside at all meetings of the +Association, and to carry out all orders of the Executive +Committee.</p> + +<h4>ARTICLE V.</h4> + +<p>It shall be the duty of the Secretary to keep a correct and careful +record of all proceedings of the Association, and of the Executive +Committee, in a book suitable for their preservation; to give +notice of all meetings of the Association and of the Executive +Committee; to make all publications, and to give all public and +private notices ordered by the Executive Committee, and to attend +to all the correspondence of the Association.</p> + +<h4>ARTICLE VI.</h4> + +<p>It shall be the duty of the Treasurer to keep the funds of the +Association, and to make such disbursements as may be ordered by +the Executive Committee.</p> + +<h4>ARTICLE VII.</h4> + +<p>It shall be the duty of the Executive Committee to manage all the +affairs of the Association, to employ all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> laborers, to make all +contracts, to expend all moneys, and generally to direct and +superintend all improvements which in their discretion, and with +the means at their command, will best serve the public interest. +The Executive Committee shall hold a meeting at least once in each +month, and as much oftener as they may deem expedient.</p> + +<p>The Executive Committee shall have power to institute premiums to +be awarded for planting and protecting ornamental trees, and for +doing such other acts as may seem to them worthy of such +encouragement. They shall also encourage frequent public meetings +of the Association and of citizens generally, both with a view to +maintain an interest in their work, and for the general +encouragement of the habit of meeting for discussion and amusement.</p> + +<h4>ARTICLE VIII.</h4> + +<p>Three members of the Executive Committee present at any meeting +shall constitute a quorum for transacting business; and the vote of +a majority of those present shall be binding on the Association.</p> + +<h4>ARTICLE IX.</h4> + +<p>No debt shall be contracted by the Executive Committee beyond the +amount of available funds within their control to pay it; and no +member of this Association shall be liable for any debt of the +Association beyond the amount of his or her subscription.</p> + +<h4>ARTICLE X.</h4> + +<p>Every person over fourteen years of age who shall plant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> and +protect a tree under the direction of the Executive Committee, or +who shall pay the sum of one dollar annually, and shall obligate +him or herself to pay the same for three years, shall be a member +of this Association; and every child under fourteen years of age, +who shall pay or shall become obligated to pay as before the sum of +twenty-five cents annually for three years, shall be a member of +this Association.</p> + +<h4>ARTICLE XI.</h4> + +<p>The payment of ten dollars annually for three years, or of +twenty-five dollars in one sum, shall constitute a person a member +of this Association for life.</p> + +<h4>ARTICLE XII.</h4> + +<p>The autograph signatures of all members of the Association shall be +preserved in a book suitable for that purpose.</p> + +<h4>ARTICLE XIII.</h4> + +<p>An annual meeting of the Association shall be held at such place as +the Executive Committee may direct, on the fourth Wednesday of +August, at two o'clock, P.M. Notice of such meeting shall be posted +on each of the churches and at the post-office at least seven days +prior to the time of holding said meetings, and a written notice +shall be sent to all non-resident members. Other meetings of the +Association may be called by the Executive Committee on seven days' +notice as above prescribed.</p> + +<h4>ARTICLE XIV.</h4> + +<p>At the annual meeting, the Executive Committee shall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> report the +amount of money received during the year, and the source from which +it has been received; the amount of money expended during the year, +and the objects for which it has been expended; the number of trees +planted at the cost of the Association; the number planted by +individuals, with the location, the kind of tree, and the name of +the planter; and generally all of the acts of the Committee. This +report shall be entered on the record of the Association.</p> + +<h4>ARTICLE XV.</h4> + +<p>Any person who shall plant a tree under the direction of the +Executive Committee, and shall protect it for five years, shall be +entitled to have such tree known forever by his or her name.</p> + +<h4>ARTICLE XVI.</h4> + +<p>This Constitution may be amended by the Executive Committee with +the approval of the majority of the members present at any annual +meeting of the Association, or at any special meeting, the notice +of which shall have been accompanied by a copy of the proposed +amendment, with the statement that the amendment is to be voted on +at such meeting.</p></div> + +<p>I have provided, in the above draft of a constitution, for an executive +committee of only five members; for the reason that, while it will be +comparatively easy to secure the services of this number, the duties and +responsibilities of a larger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> committee would be so distributed that +there would be too often occasion for the application of the old adage: +"What is everybody's business is nobody's business." The Laurel Hill +Association has an executive committee of fifteen, in addition to seven +officers. This large committee (twenty-two) serves to secure the +interest of a larger number of citizens; but the same thing may be as +well accomplished by inviting the co-operation of citizens in the work +of sub-committees, the chairman of each of which would be a member of +the regular executive committee. In Easthampton, Mass., there is a board +of fourteen directors, and there are committees on sanitary matters, on +setting out trees, on sidewalks and hitching-posts, &c. It would be +prudent to restrict the number of members of these sub-committees to +three; one from the executive committee and two from outside.</p> + +<p>Besides special executive work, a vast deal has been done wherever +improvement societies have been organized, in the way of stimulating +citizens to adorn their private grounds, or at least to keep their +grounds and fences in good order, removing weeds and rubbish from the +sidewalk, keeping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> the grass well trimmed and free from litter and +leaves. What most detracts from the good appearance of any village is +the slovenly look which comes from badly hung gates, crooked fences, +absent pickets, and general shiftlessness about private places; and it +is by encouraging citizens to take a pride in attention to these minor +details, that the association will do its best work. This result may be +accomplished almost entirely without the expenditure of money. It is in +attention to little things and in securing the co-operation of private +owners,—a co-operation which will call for an inappreciable amount of +labor,—that the most telling work of the officers of the society is to +be done.</p> + +<p>So far as these details are concerned, it is hardly necessary in a paper +of this sort to do more than to call attention to them. They are within +the capacity of every citizen, and they will naturally suggest +themselves to any person who would be likely to undertake the direction +of an improvement association. There are other and really more important +objects looking to a certain amount of landscape gardening and +engineering, on which specific instruction may be desired,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> and often in +cases where it will be impracticable to employ professional assistance. +These are as follows:—</p> + +<p>1. The construction of sidewalks.</p> + +<p>2. The construction and care of roadways.</p> + +<p>3. The supply of water, and the construction of drinking-troughs.</p> + +<p>4. The laying-out and adornment of public squares and other open spaces.</p> + +<p>5. The establishment of a system of sewerage or sanitary drainage, +including the removal of excessive soil moisture.</p> + + +<h4>SIDEWALKS.</h4> + +<p>No one thing has more to do with the comfort of those living in country +villages than sidewalks which are good at all seasons of the year. Those +fortunate villages which are built on a gravelly soil, with a perfect +natural drainage, need little more in this direction than such a +conformation of the surface as will prevent water from standing on the +footway when the ground is frozen. At all other times it sinks naturally +away into the earth. It is much more often the case that the character +of the soil or subsoil prevents a settling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> away of water, or that +subterranean oozing from higher ground keeps the earth throughout the +spring and autumn, and after heavy rains in summer, damp, and often +sloppy. Wherever the ground is of such a character as to prevent the +rapid sinking to a considerable depth of all excessive moisture, there +is sure to be a disagreeable condition of the footway whenever the lower +soil is locked with frost, and the surface is thawed. Even with the best +drainage, natural or artificial, this condition will exist for a short +time while frost is coming out of the ground; but with good drainage it +is of so temporary a character as hardly to justify any expensive +finishing of the surface, except perhaps in the case of the most +frequented walks.</p> + +<p>To overcome occasional sloppiness where the difficulty is not +deep-seated, there is no cheaper nor better device than to dress the +surface with coal-ashes. Indeed, if these are used to a sufficient +thickness, they are practically as good as concrete or the best gravel. +When first applied, they are dusty and unpleasant; but the first wetting +lays the dust, and they soon settle to a firm consistency, and make a +very pleasant walk, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> the great advantage of being entirely barren, +and preventing the growth of weeds and grass. If the ashes of a village +are collected and screened, the cinders being used at the bottom, and +the surface being smoothly dressed with the finer material, they will +make as satisfactory walks, even where the use is considerable, as any +other material. The color is unobtrusive, and the surface soon becomes +hard enough to bear sweeping. Those who are more ambitious for effect +may prefer a walk made of tar-and-gravel concrete; and this, if well +made, is good, durable, and satisfactory. So far as the improvement +association is concerned, it can find many ways for expending the +difference of cost between ashes and concrete, which will accomplish a +much more telling result.</p> + +<p>If gravel can be obtained without too much expense, it may be used with +excellent results to a depth of from one to three inches, according to +the porosity of the subsoil,—more being needed where the ground is +inclined to become soft. In using gravel it is best either to screen it, +using the coarser parts below and the finer parts at the surface, or, +after applying it, to add a thin layer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> of earth, barely sufficient to +fill its spaces,—to "bind" it so as to give it a firm and solid +consistency. Loose and rattling gravel makes a handsome walk to look at, +but an unpleasant one to walk upon. Nothing is more agreeable than +well-trodden, dry, root-bound earth, as where grass has been worn away +by frequent use; but this becomes at once objectionable on being +saturated with rain or moistened by melting frost.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 395px;"> +<img src="images/i0029.jpg" width="395" height="186" alt="FIG. 1." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 1.</span> +</div> + +<p>It is a common impression, that all thoroughly good foot-paths must be +dug out to a considerable depth, filled with loose stones, and dressed +at the top with some good finishing material; but this is not necessary +even for the best work. The great point is to secure a thorough draining +of the sub-stratum, so that there shall be no rising of ooze-water from +below, and so that the ground shall be free from such saturation as to +cause heaving during frost. This condition may be secured by a suitable +draining of the ground immediately under the walk, and by the use of a +well-compacted and tightly-bound surface covering of such form as to +shed or turn away rain-water. Figure 1 (p. 31) shows the cross section +of a foot-path six feet wide on slightly sloping ground, where we have +to apprehend an oozing of subsoil water from the land at the highest +side. The centre of the walk is slightly crowning,—say one inch higher +than the sides,—so that rain falling upon it will flow readily toward +the grass-border at either side. To prevent the ponding of water at the +sides when the ground is frozen, the surface of the walk at its edges +should be well above the level of the adjoining ground; but it may be +necessary under some circumstances to furnish, here and there, a channel +or surface-gutter across the walk, to allow the accumulation at the +higher side to escape. Rarely will deep gutters at the sides be +necessary or desirable. If the walk is laid at a sufficient height to +turn water on to the adjoining ground instead of receiving water from +this, it will be easy to keep it dry. We will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> assume that the path in +question is to be made over a tenacious clay soil, with a considerable +oozing from the hillside,—the most unfavorable condition that can be +found, especially in cold climates. The first thing to be secured is the +cutting-off of the subsoil water from the hill. This may be done by +digging a trench as narrow as possible,—six inches will be better than +more, as requiring less filling material,—to a depth of three feet. In +the bottom of this drain lay a common land-tile drain, with collars at +the joints if these can be procured, and, if not, with a bit of paper +laid over the joints to prevent the entrance of loose material, and to +hold the pipes in place during construction. The ditch should then be +filled with cinders, gravel, or coarse sand. If stones are to be used, +they should be broken to a small size,—not more than one inch in +diameter,—and the loose bits should be mixed with them in the filling. +Very small interstices will be sufficient to allow water to pass freely +through, while if large stones are used, with large interstices, there +will be danger of a washing-in of earth sufficient in time to obstruct +both the stonework and the tile. The smaller the tile, so long as it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> is +sufficient for its purpose, the better; for lengths of five hundred feet +or less, an interior diameter of an inch and a quarter will be +sufficient; from this to one thousand feet, use an inch and a half bore. +If possible, before exceeding this length, secure an outlet for the +water in the roadside gutter or some other channel of exit. The +tile-drain, at a depth of three feet, will remove all subsoil water from +under the walk, and all that may be delivered into the loosely filled +trench at its side. The loose filling of the trench should not be +carried nearer than within six inches of the surface of the ground, and +should be covered with fine and well-packed earth to prevent the +entrance of <i>surface</i>-water which would soon carry in silt enough to +stop its action. Whatever covering is adopted for the walk itself, it +must be of such a character as to prevent any thing like a free +admission of surface-water. Concrete will do this perfectly; and either +ashes, or gravel dressed at the top with ashes, if well raked and rolled +at the outset to a smooth surface, will soon become so bound together as +to shed pretty nearly all rain falling upon it. The difference in cost +between a walk made in this way, and one dug<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> out for its whole width to +a depth of two feet, and filled first with stone and then with gravel +and a suitable surface dressing, will be very important; and it is safe +to say that the cheaper will be at least as good and durable as the more +expensive method. In all construction of sidewalks, whether public or +private, regard must be had to the surface conformation, and some device +must be adopted for preventing the flow of water upon the walk from the +adjoining ground, and for the easy delivery of storm-water falling upon +the walk itself.</p> + + +<h4>ROADWAYS.</h4> + +<p>The great expense of Macadamizing or Telfordizing puts these systems +almost out of the reach of small communities. Wherever the original +expense can be borne, the subsequent cost of maintenance will be so +slight, and the result generally will be so satisfactory, as to make it +always a good investment. The circumstances under which these costly +forms of construction may be adopted will be greatly extended if we can +overcome the prevalent American prejudice in favor of <i>wide</i> roadways. +Against wide <i>streets</i> there is, as a rule, no objection, though +exceptional narrow and well-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>shaded lanes have a rural charm that will +always commend them to persons of taste. A wide street, that is, broad +spaces between fences, by no means implies a broad roadway. All we need +in the principal thoroughfare of a busy village is such a width as will +allow of the easy passing of vehicles in the middle of the road, and the +standing of one vehicle at rest at each side. This will be accomplished, +even in the business street of a village, by a width of roadway of +thirty feet. Under most other circumstances twenty feet of roadway will +be ample. This will allow of the moving of three vehicles side by side, +and will give a leeway of six feet between two vehicles passing each +other.</p> + +<p>On both sides of this roadway, except for the necessary sidewalks, the +whole space to the fences should be in well-kept grass, which is the +cheapest to secure, the most economical to maintain, and the most +agreeable to see, of all ground covering. It is not unusual in country +towns to find a width of from sixty to eighty feet devoted to a muddy, +dusty, and ill-kept roadway. From one-half to two-thirds of this width +is waste space, which must either remain an eyesore, or entail<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> an undue +cost for maintenance. When both sides of the street are occupied by +places of business, it may be necessary to provide for some occasional +driving close to the buildings for the delivery of merchandise; but this +occasion will rarely be so regular as to cause any serious damage to +grass. If the line of hitching-posts is placed within fifteen feet of +the centre of the roadway on each side, it will be seldom that any one +will drive over the bordering grass, especially if there is, as there +generally should be, a well-defined gutter or well-kept grass with a +curbstone border at each side.</p> + +<p>In considering the width to be given to roadways, it should be +understood that every form of road is more or less costly to make and to +keep in order, and that the cost of both items is in direct proportion +to the width. If to the cost of making and grading an ordinary roadway +sixty feet wide, we add the capital sum whose interest would be +necessary to keep this width in good repair, we shall have an amount +that would go far toward the construction and maintenance of a road of +the very best quality only thirty feet wide. Furthermore, while it is +impossible to estimate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> such items exactly, and while the amount thus +saved cannot be controlled for the road-making account, the saving in +the wear and tear of vehicles, and in the team force needed to move +heavy loads, constitutes an important argument in favor of the best +construction. The amount thus saved in the short streets of the village, +where the principal traffic is over rough country roads, would not be +very great, but it would enable the road authorities of the township to +realize the advantage of first-rate roads and the degree to which the +narrowing of the roadway cheapens construction. As a result, there would +soon be an extension of the improvement over the more important highways +into the country; where a well-metalled width of twelve feet would +accommodate nearly the whole traffic, and where the proper application +of a cheap system of under-drainage would make well-metalled roads +extremely cheap to maintain.</p> + +<p>In the island of Jersey, there are many excellent roads only six feet +wide. These are provided with frequent little bays or turn-outs to allow +teams to pass each other. Although such extremely narrow roads are not +to be recommended, the difference in comfort and economy of team<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>power +between these and the average American dirt road is enormously in their +favor. The widest roads in Jersey, leading from a busy town of thirty +thousand inhabitants into a thickly settled farming region where +business and pleasure travel is very active, and where "excursion cars" +carrying thirty or forty persons are constantly passing, are only +twenty-four feet wide; often only of this width between the hedge-rows, +the road itself being an excellent footpath for its whole width. Nowhere +else in the world is the rural charm more perfectly developed than in +Jersey, and no element of its great beauty is so conspicuous and so +constantly satisfactory as its narrow and embowered lanes and roadways.</p> + +<p>This, however, by the way, and only as a suggestion, for the sake of +variety. As a rule, we may at least accept much less width than is now +usual for our country and village roads. Wherever it is intended to +build expensive stone roads, those having the work in charge will +naturally employ a competent engineer, or will at least appeal to Prof. +Gillespie's work on road-making, or to some other authority. Space need +not be given here to engineering details, which would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> require a lengthy +elucidation. There is, however, a sort of road-making materially more +costly at the outset than that now in vogue, but much less costly in the +long-run, if we consider the element of practical value and the cost of +maintenance. It depends more on fundamental principles of construction +than on special processes of finishing, and will be more or less +satisfactory according to the character of the soil and of the covering +material available.</p> + +<p>The great enemy of all roads is excessive moisture; and the chief +purpose of all methods of improvement is to get rid of this, or to +counteract its effect. As in the case of foot-paths, wherever the porous +character of the subsoil, and the absence of higher-lying wet lands, is +such that no accumulation of water upon or under the roadway need be +feared, the greatest difficulty is at once set aside. Roads lying on +such a soil may be over-dusty in dry weather. When the subsoil is +temporarily impervious because of its frozen condition, they may become +unduly muddy, or, when the situation is such as to lead hill-water upon +them, they may be badly washed; but they are free from the great +difficulties that beset all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> roads which for a large part of the year +are underlaid by an over-saturated, compact subsoil. Where such natural +drainage is secured, no artificial under-drainage will be needed. In +many more instances, all that will be required in the way of draining +will be to lead away the sources of wet-weather springs, which break +through the road-bed and cause deep sloughs. Where incomplete or partial +artificial under-draining is needed, the need is absolute; and whether +we consider the durability of the road, or the degree to which its +traffic is interfered with by its wet condition, we may be confident +that every dollar spent in well-directed under-draining will be invested +to the very best advantage. The varying conditions of wetness, and the +different sources of surplus water, must be regarded in deciding +precisely how much of this work is needed, and how it should be done. +Details cannot be fully considered here; but as a general rule it may be +said, that where the subsoil generally is of an impervious character, +and where the road is more or less wet and weeping after long rains, a +continuous system of under-drains is required. If the trouble is local, +here and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> there in spots, and is obviously caused by the breaking up of +springs from the road-bed, such partial work may be adopted as will tap +the sources of these springs, and lead their water harmlessly away. +Gisborne, one of the best agricultural writers of England, put the case +tersely and well when—objecting to the system of circumventing +springs—he said, "<i>Hit him straight in the eye</i>, is as good a maxim in +draining as in pugilism." It is best not to pass up at the side of a +spring, and so creep around behind it to head off its water; but to +drive the drain straight through it, and far enough beyond it to tap and +lead away at a lower level the water which causes it. These drains, as +well as all others intended simply to remove subsoil water, and not to +cut off a weeping stream, are best made with common drain-tiles laid as +before directed, and covered immediately with well-packed earth. Water +enters an under-drain, not from above, but from below; that is to say, +as water, from whatever source, fills the subsoil, it rises therein +until it reaches the floor of the drain, when it enters and is led away, +just as water falling into a cask which stands on end flows off at the +under side of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> bung-hole when it reaches its level. Even if the cask +be filled to the top with earth, the rain falling upon it will descend +perpendicularly to the bottom, and will flow off at the bung only when +the soil to that level has become saturated. It will descend through the +soil by the straightest course, and will raise the general level. It +will not violate the laws of gravitation, and run diagonally toward the +point of outlet, as seems to be the general supposition when the +perplexing question, "How does water get into the drain?" is first +considered. When we drive a drain through a spring and into the +water-bearing stratum which feeds it, we simply make it easier for the +water to escape by the drain than to keep on at the higher level, and +break out at the surface of the ground.</p> + +<p>As in the case of the sidewalk illustrated in Figure 1, in cutting off a +continuous weeping or ooze from higher land, it is best to introduce a +vertical filling of porous material through which the water will descend +and enter the drain; but, excepting this single instance, all that we +need to do, so far as subterranean work is concerned, is to furnish an +easy and sufficient channel for the removal of subsoil water.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> + +<p>What constitutes a sufficient drain is something very much less than +what is generally supposed. In ordinary agricultural drainage, where the +lines of tiles are forty feet apart, a well-laid tile an inch and a +quarter in diameter is sufficient for a length of one thousand +feet—that is, it is sufficient to remove the water of filtration from +an acre of land. If laid with only an inclination of six inches in one +hundred feet, its delivery will be so rapid as to amount to more than a +heavy continuous rain-fall upon this area. In road drainage, the same +rule would hold true; but, as the soil offers a certain resistance to +the rapid descent of water, it is best to give a means of outlet at +smaller intervals; and for the best work in roads thirty feet wide or +more, three drains could be used with advantage. In no case, however, +need the size of pipes be larger than above indicated, if the form of +the tiles is true, and if they are well joined together at their ends. +Tiles of less perfect form had better be an inch and a half or even two +inches in diameter; but, as a rule, they should not be of a larger size, +for the reason that the amount of water that they may be expected to +carry will not be sufficient to keep them prop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> erly freed from silt +unless the flow is concentrated within a narrow channel.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px;"> +<img src="images/i0042.jpg" width="650" height="94" alt="Fig. 2." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 2.</span> +</div> + +<p>Figure 2 shows the cross section of a country road thirty feet wide, +with three lines of tile-drain laid at a depth of about three feet below +it. Except in case of necessity, these drains should have an inclination +of not less than six inches in one hundred feet. There is no objection +to their having more than this wherever the lay of the land permits or +requires it. They may often have considerably less in case of need; but, +the smaller the rate of inclination, the greater the care needed in +securing a true grade. The water of these drains should be collected +into a single drain, and led away at intervals of from five hundred to +one thousand feet. It may be delivered into a roadside gutter, or into a +collecting under-drain, according to the requirements of the situation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is now possible to procure drain-tiles at reasonable cost in almost +all parts of the country; and these are not only very much better than +any form of stone drain, but they are also much cheaper in +construction,—the labor of preparing and handling the stone, and of +excavating the wider trench that stone requires, amounting to more than +the cost of the tile, even with a high charge of transportation added. +Incidentally it is proper to say that where tiles cannot be had, a mass +of gravel or fine cinders, six inches wide and six inches deep, placed +at the bottom of the drain, and <i>covered with well-packed soil</i>, is +preferable even to broken stone or any other form of channel that would +permit of the rapid running of water and the washing into the drains of +even a slight amount of silt.</p> + +<p>The removal of excessive subsoil moisture being secured, attention +should next be given to the surface of the road, which should be +finished with the firmest material at hand,—with the common earth of +the subsoil where nothing better can be afforded,—and which should be +brought to a true grade, with a <i>very slight</i> slope from the centre to +the edge. For a road thirty feet wide,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> the elevation of the centre +above the level of the edges should not be more than four to six inches, +and the grade should be made on a straight line rather than on a curve. +If the road is made as flat as the turning-off of surface-water will +permit, it will be travelled upon in all its parts; while if it is +crowned to a high arch, as is often the case, it will soon be found that +the best place to drive is in the middle of the road, and foot-tracks +and wheel-tracks will soon form slight channels or ruts which will lead +water lengthwise along the road, and which will cause an undue amount of +wear and washing. A road may be actually flat to the eye, and equally +convenient for travel at every part of its width, and still have enough +lateral slope to cause water to run off from it.</p> + +<p>It is especially desirable that no surface-water flowing from the +roadside (above all, when frost is coming out of the ground in the +spring) be permitted to run on to the road. This should be effectively +prevented by the formation of sufficient gutters, with such outlets as +will prevent ponding at the sides of the road. When it is necessary to +carry the water of the gutters from one side of the road to the other, +culverts should be pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>vided; and wherever the slope of the road is +sufficient to cause water to flow along it lengthwise,—that is, +wherever the inclination is more than about one in fifty,—there should +be frequent slight depressions from the centre diagonally toward the +gutters to carry the flow away before it can accumulate sufficiently to +form a washing current.</p> + +<p>If it can be done without hauling additional material, it is always well +to raise the road-bed somewhat above the level of the adjoining land, +and this may usually be accomplished by throwing upon it the subsoil of +the gutters. In no case should surface-soil sods or fine road-mud be +used for repairs. The most serious objection to the absurd system of +road-mending so common in this country lies in the fact that the annual +repairing is little more than the ploughing up and throwing back upon +the roadway of the soft and unsuitable material which has been washed +into the gutters.</p> + +<p>What is said above applies especially to country roads; but it is +appropriate, so far as it goes, to the better-made and better-kept roads +of a village. In the case of these latter, except where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> the soil is +naturally dry and firm, some attention should be given to the +improvement of the surface; and it is to be considered whether to adopt +the expensive process of covering with broken stone road-metal, or to +use gravel. One or the other of these is desirable in all cases where +there is much tendency to sloppiness in wet weather; but any form of +artificial covering is so costly that the early efforts of the +improvement association will produce a more telling result if applied in +other directions. The necessary cross-walks may be satisfactorily made +with coal-ashes.</p> + +<p>It is even more easy in a village than in the country, to have the +grades of all roadways so regulated as to shed rain-water falling upon +them, and to have them so furnished with side gutters so as to prevent +water from the roadside from running on to them. The simplest way to +effect this, and the neatest way too, is to make gutters outside of the +line of the road, say six inches deep and eight feet wide, these being +at once sodded or sown with grass and grain to give an early protection +against washing; made on such a shallow curve, they will afford no +obstruction to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> any system of mowing that may be adopted, while their +great width will give them sufficient capacity to carry away the water +of considerable storms.</p> + +<p>The work of construction having been duly attended to, it is no less +important to provide for regular and constant care. Any rutting that +comes of heavy traffic in bad weather should be obliterated either by +raking, or, better still, by filling the ruts with gravel or ashes. If +such work is attended to immediately on the occasion for it arising, the +amount of labor required will be very slight; for it is especially true +with reference to roads, that "a stitch in time saves nine." If the +filling of ruts and wheel-tracks be done in time, the serious damage +that comes from guttering flows of water lengthwise along the road may +be almost entirely avoided.</p> + +<p>The mere cleaning work of both the roadway and roadside grass spaces, it +will be easy to induce children to perform for slight rewards and +encouragement. The daily removal of bits of paper and other rubbish will +have an excellent effect on the general appearance of the village. In +the autumn the removal of the fallen leaves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> will call for something +more than children's work; but ordinarily this source of cheap labor +will be found sufficient if properly directed.</p> + + +<h4>PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY.</h4> + +<p>As a field for encouragement, rather than as an object for the +expenditure of the association's funds, the furnishing of an ample +supply of water is entitled to very early consideration. Not only is the +question of public health very seriously involved in the water problem; +but as a mere beautifying element an abundance of water, to be obtained +without labor, will have a very telling effect by the facility it gives +for preserving the fresh appearance of lawns and shrubbery, and for the +cultivation of flowers and vines.</p> + +<p>Regarded from the horticulturist's point of view, the climate of pretty +nearly the whole of this country is simply detestable. We may arrange to +withstand very well the severity of our northern winters; we expect an +entire shutting-up of all garden industries, and long cold seasons are +an accustomed matter of necessity: but we have never yet learned to +accept with patience the almost annual destruction of our lawns and +gar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>dens and flower-beds by scathing drought. No public water supply +available for an ordinary village would suffice to overcome the effects +of a dry season over the whole of even a small homestead; but we may +hope to secure enough to keep one or two small sprinklers flowing +steadily through the hot months, and so keep a little grass measurably +green, and preserve a semblance of life and beauty in flower-beds and +delicate shrubbery. It is very rarely that it will be possible to supply +water enough in a whole week to equal in its effect a half-hour's rain; +but the difference between towns where even the small amount of water is +available for the garden and those which are hopelessly given over to +drought shows how much may be accomplished in this direction even with +limited means.</p> + +<p>As in the case of road-making in any thing like a complete and thorough +manner, the providing of a water supply must necessarily be directed by +professional advice. Although the simpler principles of hydraulics are +sufficiently understood, and although it would be quite within the +ability of a number of the more intelligent men of any village to secure +and distribute a satisfactory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> amount of water, the cost of doing such +work in an experimental way by persons unaccustomed to its details, as +compared with the cost of doing it under the direction of an engineer +whose natural judgment and capacity are supplemented by experience and +skill, would be without doubt far beyond the fee demanded for his +services. In this case, as in many others connected with public and +private works, it is always bad economy to save the cost of proper +knowledge. Very likely—perhaps indeed very generally—the actual +performance of the work, the buying and laying of the pipe, and all +that, can be as cheaply done under home direction as under that of a +public contractor; but the making of the plans—the deciding upon the +source of the supply, upon the means for securing a sufficient head, the +sizes of the pipes, the location and construction of fire-plugs, and all +the minor details of the work—will be more or less economical, +according to the skill, experience, and capacity of the person who +directs it.</p> + +<p>The sources from which water may be obtained are various. Often enough +water of the best quality may be procured by driven, dug, or artesian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +wells; but, whenever this course is adopted, the wells should be located +far enough away from the village, or on land sufficiently high, to make +it impossible that there shall be any fouling of the water-bearing +strata by the filtration from barn-yards, privy-vaults, or cesspools. +Generally, water so secured will have to be raised to an elevated +reservoir by some mechanical force. If the demand is to be a large one, +and if the community can afford the cost, the most reliable plan will be +to use steam-power for pumping; but in smaller places, and where economy +is a great object, wind-power may serve an excellent purpose.</p> + +<p>If a stream of pure water is available at a sufficient height, it may be +led directly to the reservoir, or its current may be used to drive a +water-wheel sufficient to do the pumping. In a majority of cases there +will be found at no great distance a stream capable of supplying the +water needed throughout the dryest season of the year, but not entirely +free from organic impurities. In such cases it is often feasible, by +excavating a filtering sump or pump-well at a little distance from the +side of the stream, and at a sufficient depth below the level of its bed +to secure a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> supply tolerably purified by filtration through the +intervening earth. The distance at which this sump should be placed from +the bed of the stream will depend on the character of the soil. The more +porous this is, the greater should the distance be. This question as to +the source from which the water is to be taken is one which, more than +any other, calls for experienced judgment.</p> + +<p>Frequently the conformation of the surrounding country is such that, +even where there is no constant stream, it is possible by the +construction of dams to pond an amount of water, to be furnished by +surface washing, sufficient to supply the demands of the longest +drought. In this case, as in all others where reservoirs are used, it is +important to have a good depth of water, and not to allow, even toward +the edges, any considerable shallow area. So far as possible, the depth +should be everywhere great enough to prevent vegetation, and in all the +shallower parts the surface soil should be entirely removed. As a rule, +there should be a depth of at least fifteen feet of water, except near +the very edges of the pond, and as much more than this as circumstances +will allow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<p>The distribution of water for private use is a simple question of +construction; but, as a matter of taste, too vehement a protest cannot +be entered against the common misconception as to what is desirable in +the way of public fountains. An instance in point is furnished by the +public drinking-fountain in Newport. Some years ago there stood at the +foot of the Parade a grand old stone bowl, hewn out of a solid block of +granite, and filled by a pipe leading from a copious spring. This was a +good, sensible, substantial drinking-trough, perfectly adapted to its +use, unpretending and handsome. Later, a public-spirited gentleman, +desiring to leave a monument of his regard for the city, gave a +considerable sum to be used in providing a suitable drinking-fountain at +this point. Those who had the control of the fund lacked either the good +taste or the courage to refuse to expend it. The result is that this +granite horse-basin—one of the best of its sort—has been removed to an +obscure position; and there has been erected in its place a wretched +cast-iron combination of bad architecture and bad statuary, such as form +a conspicuous defacement of the public squares in Philadelphia, where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +they serve the double purpose of furnishing water to the people, and +advertising a cheap clothing establishment. The one compensation for the +violation of good taste inseparable from these constructions is to be +found in the fact that they must, sooner or later, lead the public to +realize the absolute unfitness of cast iron for monumental and +decorative uses. With the artistic influences which are now so active in +the instruction of the American people, it is not perhaps unreasonable +to look forward to the day when all of these piles of pot-metal shall be +relegated to the scrap-heap, and when less offensive fountains shall +take their place. We may even hope to see the iron statue and its +stove-like support which supplies water to the horses of Newport +condemned to the foundry, and its solid old predecessor restored to the +position which it ornamented for so many years.</p> + +<p>A wide margin may be allowed for the exercise of taste in the +arrangement of village fountains; and where private munificence enables +the expenditure of a considerable sum, a good amount of exterior +decoration may be admissible: but it should always be borne in mind that +so much of the outlay as is needed for the purpose should go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> to secure +a good artistic design. Especially should the use of cast iron be +avoided, as being from every point of view, and under all circumstances, +whether in the shape of cast-iron dogs or deer, or attempts at the +divine human form, absolutely and entirely inadmissible for artistic +uses. Better a dug-out log horse-trough, overflowing through a notch in +its side, as an ornament to the best-kept village green, than the most +elaborate pitcher-spilling nymph that was ever cast in an iron-foundry. +So far as the mere construction work of public drinking-fountains and +horse-troughs is concerned, not much need be said except in connection +with the overflow. In cold climates, there is apt to be from all such +structures a spilling of water which covers the ground for some distance +with ice. This may be avoided by carrying the overflow by a vertical +pipe descending through the body of the water by some well-protected +channel directly into a drain in the ground, at a depth beyond the +direct action of frosts. If the stream is constant, this depth need be +nothing like that to which frost penetrates into the soil,—for the +constant movement of the water will prevent its freezing, even if +covered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> only a foot deep, though to something more than this depth it +will be desirable to have the metal pipe enclosed in a larger pipe of +earthenware, giving a space of enclosed air.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Where there is no public supply of water, it is better in most cases +(considering the nearness of wells in villages to cesspools and +privy-vaults), to depend entirely upon cisterns. In our climate, where +rain is abundant during a considerable portion of the year, the water +falling upon the roof of any house, if properly collected and stored, is +ample for the whole supply of the family which that roof shelters. This +water as it falls is ordinarily free from any impurity that can affect +its taste, and from every source of serious fouling; though, after a +long-continued drought, it is well to divert and discharge upon the +surface of the ground the first ten minutes' flow of a shower, so that +the impurities of the air and the dust of the roof may first be removed. +After this first dash, lead to the cistern all that follows. Even with +this precaution, the water will be more agreeable for use if filtered. +There are numerous systems for making filters in cisterns, but no other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +is so simple nor so durable and satisfactory as the separation of that +part of the cistern from which the suction-pipe leads by a wall of brick +and cement. It is simply necessary to build a wall of brick set on edge +(two and a half inches thick), so as to include about one-quarter of the +area of the bottom, sloping it back so as to terminate against the side +of the cistern at a height of from four to six feet. This wall should be +so well cemented at its joints that water can only pass through the +material of brick, and for strength its form should be slightly bulging. +A wall of this sort, measuring say six feet at its base, and rising to a +height of six feet at its highest point, will transmit an amount of +water sufficient to supply the demand of the most constant pumping that +any domestic use can require.</p> + + +<h4>SQUARES AND PUBLIC SPACES.</h4> + +<p>As a rule, the open spaces in a country village are subject to no other +criticism than that of neglect; but the exceptions are not rare where an +attempt at improvement has resulted in a sort of cemetery look that +gives any thing but a cheerful, pleasure-ground aspect.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> + +<p>There is not much danger that persons who are enthusiastic for the +improvement of the town in which they live will err on the side of too +great simplicity. The public squares and parks of large and wealthy +cities are regulated and maintained at great cost and under skilful and +artistic management; and they cannot fail to strike country visitors as +being in all ways desirable. So indeed they are. They are a chief +element of the city's beauty, and, from an æsthetic point of view, their +influence is the best to which its people are subjected. But their +beauty and their æsthetic influence are both the result of a +well-directed expenditure of large sums of money. It is quite natural +that an enriched manufacturer or merchant, proud of his native village, +should be ambitious to perpetuate the memory of his benefaction by +providing for some corresponding decoration of its public green, and +that he should attempt to reproduce there, on the smaller scale +proportionate to the circumstances, the sort of magnificence that he has +seen in the city park. If left to his own sweet will,—as he often is if +he is willing to spend money for the public benefit,—he will, unless a +rich man of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> rarer sort, succeed only in producing a conspicuous +imitation.</p> + +<p>A park-railing of artistically-worked wrought-iron will be represented +by a cast-iron substitute of much more elaborate device; and there will +probably be "piled on," here and there, an amount of cheap ornamentation +which at the first glance will have a certain imposing effect. In the +matter of planting there may be an amount and variety of foreign +shrubbery and sub-tropical plants, which, under proper care, would be of +great value and beauty, but which, with the neglect to which they are +doomed in their village home, are quite certain to abort. In fact, we +may expect to see, what indeed we may now see, in painful degree, in +many of our smaller towns, a halting attempt at the outside show of the +city park, which, in the absence of those elements of artistic selection +and appropriateness to the conditions which are to prevail, develop, as +time goes on, into an ignominious failure.</p> + +<p>The trouble is, that, in all expenditures of this sort, we are apt to +begin at the wrong end. In the making of a park, every step that is +taken,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> whether the park be large or small, is a costly one; and, if +taken in their reverse order, every step is a wasted one. The chief +reason why the final decoration of a city park is so satisfactory is +that it is only the crowning work of many processes which have had the +best and most careful attention from the outset. The wrought-iron +grille, the architectural fountain, the bronze statue, the delicate +trees and shrubbery, and the smoothly-finished walks and drives, depend +for their success upon a vast amount of costly fundamental work, and a +provision for constant skilful care, which have cost a deal of money, +and which look to a large permanent outlay. The elaborate fence must +stand on no unstable foundation; the fountain must be only the +ornamental central point of artistic and well-kept lawns and approaches; +the statue must stand amid appropriate surroundings; and all but the +simpler native vegetation must have its suitable soil, and be insured +its needed protection and care at all seasons. The degree to which these +more ornamental features may be given to the village green with any hope +of satisfaction will depend almost entirely upon the thoroughness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> with +which it has been prepared to receive them. Could the enthusiastic +members of the improvement association be brought face to face with the +cost that is needed for quite hidden fundamental work in order to +prepare their green for the more elaborate artistic decoration, they +would be deterred at the outset from attempting any thing so ambitious. +Could they know the cost of the mere work of grading and subsoil +cultivation, under-draining, manuring, laying the deep foundation for +foot-paths, and securing that perfect growth of grass without which all +park-like ornament is robbed of half its value, they would set their +faces resolutely against all propositions on the part of public-spirited +citizens to veneer their unprepared grounds with misplaced exterior +adornment.</p> + +<p>If money enough can be provided to do the work thoroughly well from its +very foundation, then of course nothing more is needed than that its +direction be placed in accomplished hands; but unless this is fully +assured, if—as is nearly always the case,—economy is the first thing +to be considered, then the rule of action is fully stated in two words, +<i>simplicity</i> and <i>thoroughness</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<p>Avoid all fantastic ornament, and all decoration of every sort, that +would be appropriate only to work of a more complete and substantial +character. Let whatever is done be done in the most thorough way. If the +ability is only enough to secure good grass, then do every thing that is +necessary to furnish the best conditions for the growth of grass, make +suitable provision for its care, and attempt nothing further. Good +lawn-like grass surfaces, crossed only by foot-worn pathways over the +turf, will be more beautiful and more satisfactory than will poor grass +and cheaply made and ill-kept walks.</p> + +<p>If something more than securing the best grass is possible, then let the +next expenditure be in the direction of paths, applying to the +construction of these the principles set forth in what has hitherto been +said about sidewalks. In the case of level walks, with imperfect means +of drainage, it is often desirable to secure the better foundation that +is given by filling in to the depth of a foot or more with small stone.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Whatever may be the natural character of the soil, unless always well +drained by a porous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> subsoil, the first step toward establishing a good +lawn is to secure perfect underdrainage. Establish a good outlet at the +depth of three and a half or four feet below the surface at the lowest +point of the area to be drained, and then, selecting the necessary lines +for main drains, lay out parallel lines (thirty feet apart at a depth of +three and a half feet, or forty feet apart at a depth of four feet) to +include the whole area, and on these lines lay well-constructed drains +of small open-jointed tiles. Cover these tiles with the most compact +earth that has been excavated, and, after filling to a depth of one +foot, tramp or ram this earth tightly. Then fill the rest of the trench, +heaping over the lines any excess of material that may need the settling +effect of heavy rains to work it into place.</p> + +<p>The next step is to reverse or thoroughly mix the whole soil to a depth +of at least fifteen inches. This work can be completely done only with +the aid of hand-shovelling, but the aid of the plough will greatly +facilitate it. Its purpose is to secure such an admixture of the organic +matter of the surface soil with the more compact material of the subsoil +as will make it sufficiently porous and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> fertile for the easy +penetration of roots. It is best that this work should be done in +autumn; and, if the land is level, that the freshly raised subsoil +should be left exposed in its rough and lumpy condition—without +harrowing—to the frosts of winter. If washing is to be apprehended, +then sow the ground thickly with rye, harrowing in the seed only +roughly. If the seed is sown early enough, the growth will be sufficient +to protect the surface from washing. During the winter, let the whole +surface be heavily covered with stable-manure,—the more heavily the +better, as there is no limit to the amount of coarse manure that may +with advantage be used for the establishment of permanent grass. In the +spring, as soon as the ground is dry enough to work easily, plough in +the manure with as shallow furrows as will suffice to cover the most of +it; then harrow repeatedly, bringing the surface to as true a grade as +possible, and sow it heavily with a mixture of Rhode Island bent grass, +Kentucky blue grass, and white clover. As soon as the seed is well +sprouted, showing green over the whole ground, roll the area repeatedly +and thoroughly until it is as smooth and hard as it is possible to make +it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> As soon as the grass has attained the height of three inches, let +it be cut with a lawn-mower, and let the cutting be repeated at least +weekly throughout the season of rapid growth, and as often as necessary +until the end of autumn.</p> + +<p>If paths are to be made, it will simplify matters to make them after the +grass has become well established, supposing only a good surface footway +of ashes or concrete to be needed; for the small amount of excavation +necessary under either of these systems may be scattered over the grass +spaces without injury. But if the more thorough system is adopted of +underlaying the walk with a foot or more of stones, then the work, +except the final dressing of gravel or ashes, should be done in the +autumn, or, in any case, before the final preparation of the soil for +seeding.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Concerning trees and ornamental shrubbery for parks and open spaces, it +is not possible to give detailed directions here, beyond recommending, +as in the case of roadside plantations, that, unless the work is to +remain permanently in the charge of an experienced gardener, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> the +necessary appliances for the care and protection of the more delicate +specimens, the arrangement and the selection should be confined to the +more hardy and vigorous trees and shrubs which experience has shown to +be adapted to the climate and soil of the locality.</p> + +<p>For roadsides, and largely in parks and village greens, the world offers +no tree that can compare in dignity and grace with the broad-spreading +American elm; though, for the sake of variety, and for the sake of an +earlier effect, many other trees may be added.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VILLAGE_SANITARY_WORK" id="VILLAGE_SANITARY_WORK"></a>VILLAGE SANITARY WORK.</h2> + + +<p>It is a recently recognized but an old and universal truth, that human +life involves the production of refuse matters, which, unless proper +safeguards are taken, are sure to become a source of disease and death. +The danger is not confined alone nor chiefly to that element of +household waste which is most manifestly offensive, but in almost equal +degree to all manner of organic refuse. It is true that fæcal matters +are often accompanied by the inciting agent of the propagation of +infectious diseases. For convenience, and as indicating the more +probable means for disseminating infection, we may call this agent +"germs." It has not yet been demonstrated with scientific completeness +that a disease is spread by living germs whose growth in a new body +produces a corresponding disorder; but all that is known<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> of the +circumstances of infection, and of the means for preventing it, may be +fully explained by this theory. Typhoid fever, cholera, epidemic +diarrh[oe]a, and some other prevalent diseases, are presumed by the germ +theory to be chiefly, if not entirely, propagated by germs thrown off by +a diseased body. So far as these ailments are concerned, there is +therefore a very serious element of danger added in the case of fæces to +the other evil effects which are produced by an improper disposal of any +refuse organic matter. That any one or all of these diseases can +originate from the decomposition, under certain circumstances of fæcal +matters, is not clearly determined. There is, however, good reason for +believing that one common effect of the gases arising from improperly +treated matters of this kind is to debilitate the human system, and so +to create a disposition to receive contagion, or to succumb to minor +diseases which are not contagious.</p> + +<p>The same debilitating effect and the same injurious influences often +result from the neglect of other organic wastes. The refuse of the +kitchen sink is free from fæcal matter; but it contains, in a greater or +less degree, precisely the kind of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> organic material which has gone to +make up the more offensive substance. If its final disposition is such +as to contaminate the water that we drink or the air that we breathe +with the products of their decay, the danger to life is hardly less than +that from the decomposition of fæcal accumulations.</p> + +<p>It is proposed now to set forth, in the simplest way and without much +discussion of principles (which may be studied elsewhere), the methods +and processes by which village households and communities may be +protected against the influences that come from an excess of +soil-moisture, from damp walls, and from imperfect removal or improper +disposal of organic filth.</p> + +<p>We will assume that a village has a water supply sufficient to admit of +the use of water-closets in all houses, and to furnish a good flushing +for kitchen sinks, &c. A necessary complement of this work—indeed, it +should properly precede it—is the establishment of a system of sewers +by which all of this liquid outflow may be carried safely away. It would +be out of the question in a small or scattered community, especially +where roadways are unpaved, to establish any system<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> which should +include in its working the removal of surface water. The moment we +undertake to make sewers of sufficient capacity to carry away the storm +water of large districts, then we enormously increase the scale and cost +of the work.</p> + +<p>So far as the removal of house sewage alone is concerned, the work need +by no means be very costly. If a tolerable inclination can be given to +the line of sewers,—say a fall of one in two hundred,—a six-inch pipe +will have a capacity quite up to the requirements of a village of two +thousand inhabitants using one hundred gallons of water per day per +head. It will, however, be safe to use a pipe of this size only when it +is true in form and carefully laid, so that there shall be no retarding +of the flow at the joints from the intrusion of mortar, or any other +form of irregularity. Unless the joints are wiped quite smooth, the +roughness remaining will serve as a nucleus for the accumulation of +hair, shreds of cloth, and other matters which will hold silt and +grease, and form in time a serious obstruction. Nothing smaller than +six-inch pipe should be adopted for a street sewer. Unless the work is +to be most carefully done, for all but the branch lines,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> for a +population of five thousand, or less according to the fall of the sewer, +it will be safer to use eight-inch pipes. These pipes must be laid with +great accuracy as to grade and direction. All corners should be turned +with curves of large radius and regular sweep, and with an additional +fall to compensate for the increased resistance of curves. The weight of +the pipe should not be supported upon the sockets (see Figure 3), partly +as a question of strength, and partly because any irregularity of form +or thickness of the socket would change the inclination of the sewer. +The bottom of the trench being brought exactly to the required grade, +let there be dug out a depression greater than the projection of the +socket, the pipe resting upon its finished bottom for its whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> length. +(See Figure 4.) Too much care cannot be given to the thorough filling +with cement of the space between the socket and the pipe inserted into +it; the whole circle being well flushed and wiped, so that there may be +no possibility of leakage.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/i0071.jpg" width="450" height="93" alt="FIG. 3 PIPES RESTING ON THEIR SHOULDERS." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 3 PIPES RESTING ON THEIR SHOULDERS.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/i0071b.jpg" width="450" height="102" alt="FIG. 4. PIPES RESTING ON THEIR FULL LENGTH." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 4. PIPES RESTING ON THEIR FULL LENGTH.</span> +</div> + +<p>The objection to leakage is twofold: sewage matters escaping into the +soil might contaminate wells and springs; and it would also rob the flow +through the pipes of water needed to carry forward the more solid +contents. The continued efficiency of these small drains for carrying +away the solid or semi-solid outflow of the house is dependent very +largely upon the presence of sufficient water to create a scouring +current. While eight-inch pipes are admissible as a safeguard against +imperfect laying, they are liable to the grave objection, that, where +the service to be performed is greatly less than their capacity, the +stream flowing through them will not be sufficiently concentrated to +carry forward the more solid parts of the sewage. Up to the limit of +their capacity, six-inch pipes properly laid are greatly to be +preferred, as insuring a deeper stream which will more generally attain +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> velocity of three feet per second, needed to move the heavier +constituents of the sewage. The difference in cost between six-inch and +eight-inch pipes will be sufficient to cover any extra cost of the most +careful workmanship. However much attention may be given to the +cementing of the joints, it will be impossible to prevent the running +into the pipes of a certain amount of mortar; and the workman should +have a swab or a disk of India rubber of the exact size of the bore of +the pipe, with a short handle attached to its middle, to draw forward as +each joint is finished, and so scrape away any excess of mortar before +it hardens.</p> + +<p>Wherever it is, or may probably become, necessary to attach a +house-drain or land-drain, there should be used a length of pipe having +a side branch, oblique to the direction of the flow, to receive such +connection. The location of these branches should be accurately +indicated on the plan; and they should be closed with a flat stone or a +bit of slate, well cemented in place.</p> + +<p>It will at times be necessary to use larger conduits than even an +eight-inch pipe. Up to a diameter of fifteen inches, it is cheapest to +use<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> pipes, but for eighteen inches or more, brick-work is cheaper; and +at that size—a considerable regular flow of water being insured—the +slight roughness of brick-work offers no serious objection. The use of +oval or egg-shaped sewers will rarely be necessary under the +circumstances that we are considering; but there may be exceptional +conditions where the covering-in of a brook, or storm-water course, +cannot be avoided; and in such cases the volume of water may vary so +greatly that there will at times be a mere thread of a stream, and at +times a torrent. Here the oval form is the best, as concentrating a +small flow within a narrow and deep channel, and still giving the +capacity needed for exceptionally large volumes. All bricks used for +sewers, man-holes, &c., should be of the very hardest quality, and true +in form. The general rule is to be kept in mind, that the thickness of +the wall of a brick sewer should not be less than one-ninth of the inner +diameter; that is to say, that up to a diameter of three feet the +thickness of the wall should equal the width of a brick,—four inches. +This applies to circular sewers only: the oval form, being less strong, +calls for a wall of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> thickness equal to one-eighth of the largest +diameter.</p> + +<p>Connecting drains leading from houses to the sewer are to be made at +private cost; but they should be made in accordance with plans furnished +by the public authority, and by a workman acceptable to that authority.</p> + +<p>The householder might be permitted to take the responsibility of the +finishing of his drain, but for the fact that the working of the public +sewer calls for the largest amount of water in proportion to the amount +of solid matters that it is possible to secure, and thus makes it +imperative that this drain should be absolutely tight, so that the +liquid parts of the house outflow shall not trickle away through its +joints, leaving only the more solid parts to flow into the public sewer.</p> + +<p>Properly graded and smoothly jointed, a four-inch pipe will carry more +water than even the largest boarding-house or country hotel is likely to +discharge. There is, however, a tendency in all house-drains to become +filled in the early part of their course by the accumulation of grease +and solid matters caught in the grease. Where no form of grease-trap is +used, there is a certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> argument in favor of the use of six-inch pipes +for the upper part of house-drains. The use of a grease-trap, however, +should always be insisted upon; and with its aid these obstructing +matters will be retained, and the outflow may be perfectly carried by a +four-inch pipe.</p> + +<p>So far as the public sewer is concerned, it makes little difference what +is the size of the house connection drain through the greater part of +its course; but the junction with the sewer should, under no +circumstances, where six-inch sewer-pipes are adopted, be more than four +inches. I should even insist on four-inch connections with an eight-inch +sewer. Through neglect, or by reason of improper management, many kinds +of rubbish find their way into house-drains; and a four-inch opening +will admit as many of these into the sewer as it will be able to carry +away. If, by reason of bad construction or neglect, an obstruction is to +be caused at any point, it should be in the drain, which the person +responsible for it must cleanse or repair.</p> + +<p>The grease-trap referred to above may be any form of reservoir which +will retain the flow from the kitchen sink until it has time to cool, +when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> its grease will be solidified, and will float at the surface. The +outlet from this trap should be at such a distance below the surface of +the water, that there will be no danger of its floating matter passing +in with the discharge. A very simple device for this purpose is shown in +Figure 5. From a trap of this sort the flow is constant whenever +additions are made to its contents.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 282px;"> +<img src="images/i0077.jpg" width="282" height="178" alt="FIG. 5.—GREASE-TRAP. I, Inlet; V, ventilator; O, +outlet." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 5.—GREASE-TRAP. I, Inlet; V, ventilator; O, +outlet.</span> +</div> + + + +<p>Figure 6 shows the invention of an English engineer, Mr. Rogers Field, +which has the effect of retaining all of the outflow from the kitchen +sink until it is entirely filled,—say thirty gallons. When filled, any +sudden addition of a few quarts of water, as from the emptying of a +dish-pan, brings into action a siphon whose entrance is near the bottom +of the tank; and this siphon rapidly discharges all of the contents +above its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> mouth in a flow having sufficient force to carry forward not +only any solid matters which it may contain, but also any ordinary +obstructing accumulations in the drain below. The soil-pipe, carrying +the discharge of water-closets, should not be delivered into the +flush-tank, but at a point farther down the drain, so that any solid +matter it may deposit shall be swept forward by the next action of the +flush-tank. The more often the flush-tank is filled, and the greater the +proportion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> of its water to its impurities, the more efficient will be +its action. Therefore the slop closet waste leading from the upper +story, and even the outlet pipes of bathing-tubs, may with advantage be +delivered into it.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 413px;"> +<img src="images/i0078.jpg" width="413" height="331" alt="FIG. 6.—FIELD'S FLUSH-TANK. + +A, Receiver; B, grating; C, ventilator; D, siphon; F, entrance to drain; +I, delivery from sink." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 6.—FIELD'S FLUSH-TANK. + +A, Receiver; B, grating; C, ventilator; D, siphon; F, entrance to drain; +I, delivery from sink.</span> +</div> + +<p>Although the flush-tank may receive no fæcal matter, and even though the +housemaid's sink may not deliver into it, it will contain in the +discharge from the kitchen alone an amount of organic matter which will +produce offensive and dangerous gases by its decomposition. To provide +for the safe removal of these gases, a ventilating pipe should be +carried up to some point not near to any window or chimney-top.</p> + +<p>From the time the sewers are ready for service no accumulation of fæcal +matter or other organic household waste should be allowed to remain in +the village. All old vaults and cesspools should be filled with earth, +and disinfected by the admixture of lime with the upper layers of the +filling. The use of water-closets in all houses should be made +imperative; and the construction and arrangement of soil-pipes and of +all outlets should be regulated by the health authorities.</p> + +<p>It is not worth while here to discuss the details<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> of the construction +of water-closets and other interior plumbing work, except with reference +to soil-pipes and such drains as may deliver the outflow of soil-pipes +to the public sewer. The soil-pipe should be of cast iron, carefully +jointed with lead, not less than four inches in diameter, and carried by +the straightest course possible up through the roof and generally higher +than the ridge-pole. Its open top must not be near any window, and if +within ten feet of a chimney it should be at least one foot below the +level of the top of that chimney. There should be no trap in the +soil-pipe, and no trap in a private drain between the outlet of the +soil-pipe and the sewer. The reasons for this rule are twofold:—</p> + +<p>1. No matter what amount of water may be used for flushing out the +soil-pipe, its sides will always be more or less coated with organic +filth; and, however slight this coating, there will be a certain amount +of decomposition. The decomposition of all such matters must be rapid +and complete, not slow and partial. A necessary condition of complete +destructive decomposition is an abundance of atmospheric air to supply +the oxygen which complete decomposition demands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> If the soil-pipe is +closed at its top, or if it is obstructed by a trap in the lower part of +its course, there can be no such circulation of air as safety requires.</p> + +<p>If there is an opportunity for the free admission of air from the +well-ventilated sewer to feed the upward current almost constantly +prevailing in a soil-pipe open at both ends, the gases resulting from +the decomposition will be of a different and less injurious character +than where the air is confined,—and by the mere volume of air passing +through the pipe they will be so diluted that even were they originally +poisonous their power for harm will be lessened.</p> + +<p>The gases formed by the decomposition of organic matter in the sewer +itself, or in the soil-pipe, have a certain expansive force which is +greatly increased by the elevation of temperature, caused, for example, +by the discharge of hot water into the pipe or sewer. If the soil-pipe +is open at its upper end this expansion will be at once relieved; but if +the top of the pipe be closed there will always be danger of the forcing +of the feeble barrier offered by the ordinary water-seal trap of a +branch pipe leading<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> from a wash-basin or sink. Then, too, the +sealing-water of the trap readily absorbs any foul gases presented at +its outer end, toward the soil-pipe, and gives it off in an unchanged +condition at the inner or house end. Such traps retard, but do not +prevent, the entrance of sewer gases into the house. Water-seal traps +which are unused for any considerable time are emptied by evaporation, +and thus open a channel through which the air of the soil-pipe may find +its way into the house.</p> + +<p>It is usual in modern plumbing to relieve the pressure of gas in the +soil-pipe by what is called a "stench-pipe." This is a pipe from one to +two inches in diameter, leading from the highest point of the soil-pipe +to the outside of the roof, where it is bent over to prevent the +entrance of foreign matter, or is closed at the top and perforated with +holes to allow the gas to escape. This small stench-pipe is inadequate +for the necessary work. It is very important that there be the freest +possible channel for the movement of air; and nothing will suffice for +this save the continuing of the pipe, at its full size, to its very +outlet. Indeed, angles and bends in a pipe by increasing friction form a +serious obstruction.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<p>The arrangement of the soil-pipe here indicated, although excellent and +efficient, is susceptible of further improvement by the use of a +ventilating cowl or hood at its top. There are many forms of such cowls +in use which are effective whenever there is a sufficient current of +wind; but most of them require a certain force to bring them into +action, and when this force is absent they usually retard the flow they +are intended to increase. This is true of a recent invention known as +"Banner's ventilating cowl," which so long as the wind blows is a most +effective device. When the air is perfectly still, however, it offers by +its curved air-way a certain resistance to the current, and in the case +of baffling winds and flaws the air may blow directly into its opening.</p> + +<p>Among the various inventions of this sort nothing seems so free from +objection as the old arrangement known as the "Emerson" ventilator, +shown in Figure 7. This gives a straight outlet, protected by a disk far +enough above it not to prevent its delivery of air; and it becomes an +effective suction cowl, with the least movement of the wind from any +side or from above or below<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>. No eddy caused by the angles of gable +roofs can give it a backward draught; and if a pipe armed with it be +held toward the strongest gale a puff of smoke blown into its other end +will be instantly drawn through. As the patent for this invention has +run out, it is competent for any tinsmith to make it, and it is a common +article of manufacture.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 288px;"> +<img src="images/i0084.jpg" width="288" height="275" alt="FIG. 7.—THE EMERSON VENTILATOR." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 7.—THE EMERSON VENTILATOR.</span> +</div> + +<p>2. What is said above concerning the ventilation of the soil-pipe from +end to end relates to the interest of the private owner. The interest of +the public gives an equally strong argument in its favor. The sewer +should be as far as possible removed from the condition of an +"elongated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> cesspool." There must be no halting of its contents, and no +deposit of filth or silt at any point. Within the shortest time +possible, every thing received into the sewer must be passed on and +delivered at its outlet. Still, however perfectly this may be +accomplished, there will always be a certain adhesion of slime to the +walls of the sewer; and this slime must always be in a state of +decomposition, a constant source of offence and possible danger. The +only way to avert this danger is to give the sewer such a thorough +ventilation that the decomposition shall be rapid and safe, and that the +resultant gases shall be at once diluted with fresh air.</p> + +<p>This may be measurably accomplished by the simple ventilation of the +sewer itself, through open-topped man-holes; but such ventilation is +less effective in the case of small sewers than of large ones. In the +case of either large or small sewers, it will be vastly increased if we +compel every householder who makes a connection with the sewer, to carry +a drain and soil pipe, nowhere less than four inches in diameter, from +the point of junction with the main line to the open air above the roof. +Where houses are near enough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> to make the use of a public sewer +advisable, the aggregate of these soil-pipes, having almost constantly +an upward current, will make such a draught upon the sewer, to be +supplied by a downward current through the man-hole covers, as will +maintain a perfect and continuous ventilation.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Important as it is to secure the proper arrangement and construction of +sewers and house-drains, it is still more important to provide for the +safe disposition of the sewage.</p> + +<p>We must begin at the outset with the understanding that all sewage +matters not only are of no value to the community, but that it will cost +money to get rid of them.</p> + +<p>There is hardly an instance, after all the efforts that have been made, +of the <i>profitable</i> disposal of the outflow of public sewers. The +<i>theoretical</i> value of the wastes of human life is very great, but the +cost of any method for utilizing them seems at least equally great. The +question of cost is so much more important (to the community) than the +question of agricultural value, that the practical thing to do is to +make such disposition as will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> cost the least, while fully meeting the +best sanitary requirements.</p> + +<p>So far as village sewage is concerned, there are three means open for +its disposal: to discharge it into running water or into deep +tide-water, to use it for the surface irrigation of land, or to +distribute it through sub-irrigation pipes placed at little distance +below the surface of the soil. Experiments are being made with more or +less promise of success in the direction of the chemical treatment of +this liquid so as to purify its effluent water, and retain in a solid +form, and in combination with certain valuable added ingredients, all of +its undissolved impurities. None of these processes can as yet claim +consideration in regulating public works.</p> + +<p>The cheapest way to get rid of sewage is to discharge it into a running +stream or into tide-water. So far as the community itself is concerned, +this is often the best way; but there will very often arise the +objection that the community has no moral or legal right to foul a +stream of which others make use in its further course. Where the amount +of water constantly flowing is very large, and where the discharge is +rapid,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>—any given part of the sewage reaching the open air within a few +hours from the time of its entering the pipes,—and where it flows in +moving water for a considerable distance before reaching others who may +have occasion to use the stream, no practical danger is to be +apprehended. But where the sewage is more foul, more sluggish, or +exposed in the open current for a shorter time, the danger may be +serious. The pouring of sewage into tide-water is always admissible +where floats show that there is no danger of a return and deposit of +solid filth; but the delivery at all stages of the tide, in the +immediate neighborhood of salt marshes and mud flats, and in land-locked +harbors, is to be avoided.</p> + +<p>Where an unobjectionable natural outflow cannot be provided, the +irrigation of agricultural lands affords the best relief. The action of +vegetation, the oxidation which takes in the upper and well-aërated +layers of soil, and the well-known but not yet fully explained +disinfecting qualities of common earth, are effective in removing the +dangerous and offensive impurities, and in converting them into a more +or less important source of fertility. Precisely how far this system<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +may be available during winter, it is not easy to say. While the earth +is locked with frost, there must be very little, if any, infiltration; +but, as an offset, the action of a low temperature upon the sewage +matters will clearly be antiseptic; and it is only necessary to provide +against an undue washing away of the surface of the ground during thaws, +and against the flowing of the sewage beyond the proper limits.</p> + +<p>Generally in the neighborhood of villages it will be easy to find lands +over which the delivery may be carried on throughout the year without +objection. The sewer, or some form of covered channel, should lead far +enough from any public road to avoid offence. From this point it may be +led by open gutters to the land over which it is to be spread,—or +rather through such a system of surface gutters as will enable us to +deliver it at different parts of the field, according to the +requirements of the crops, and so as to use fresh land at frequent +intervals, leaving that which has been saturated to the purifying +processes of vegetation and atmospheric action.</p> + +<p>The gutters having been made, it is easy, by the use of portable +dams,—of thin boiler-iron,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> like broad shovels,—which may be set in +the course of the flow, to divert the current into any branch channel, +or to stop it at any desired part of this channel. All the gutters +having sufficient descent to lead the sewage rapidly forward, it is +usual to set a dam near the far end of the gutter, and allow the sewage +to overflow and run down over the surface until it has reached as far as +the formation of the ground and the quantity of the liquid will allow it +to spread. This portion having received its due amount of the liquid, +the dam is moved to a higher point, and the overflow is allowed to +spread over a second area. In this way, step by step, we irrigate all +that may be reached by a single gutter. Then the moving of the dam in +the main line turns the water into another gutter, and this is proceeded +with in like manner. In practice it is found best to begin the overflow +at the farthest end of the lowest-lying gutter, working back step by +step until the higher parts of the field are reached. It would be better +that there should be land enough to require the irrigation of any given +area not oftener than once in one or two weeks. The amount required for +a given population cannot be determined by any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> fixed rule,—so much +depending on the amount of water used <i>per capita</i>, and on the +absorptive character of the irrigated soil. In the case of villages, one +acre to each five hundred of the population would generally be found +ample.</p> + +<p>There are several instances of the successful use of a much smaller area +than is here indicated, by the use of intermittent downward filtration. +The most noted success in this direction is that at Merthyr-Tydvil in +Wales, a large mining town, where the allowance is only one acre to each +two thousand of the population. There are two filter-beds of light loam +over a gravelly subsoil thoroughly underdrained with tiles at a depth of +six feet. One of these beds is cultivated with some crop like Italian +rye-grass, which bears copious irrigation; and the other by some crop +like wheat, which, in the absence of irrigation, will thrive on the +fertility left over from the previous season. The volume of sewage is +very great, but the action of the six feet of earth in removing its +impurities seems to be complete; the water flowing out from the drains +having been proved by analysis to be really far purer than the standard +fixed by the Rivers Pollution Commission.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is an important condition of this system that the sewage, where its +quantity is small, shall be stored in tanks until a large volume has +accumulated, and that it then be rapidly discharged over the soil. There +is no objection to an actual saturation of the ground, provided the soil +is not of such a retentive character as to be liable to become puddled, +and so made impervious. The tanks being emptied, the flow ceases until +they are again filled. During the interval, the liquid settles away in +the soil, by which its impurities are removed. Its descent is followed +by the entrance of fresh air, and the oxidizing action of this, +accompanied during the growing season by the purifying effect of the +growing crop, leads to an entire decomposition or destruction of all +organic matters.</p> + +<p>The third system—the distribution of sewage through irrigation-pipes +laid at a depth of ten or twelve inches below the surface of the +ground—has its efficiency attested by numerous instances in private +grounds. I have adopted this system for disposing of the sewage of the +village of Lenox, Mass., where there was no other means available short +of cutting an outlet, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> great expense, through a considerable +elevation. This method is an extremely simple one, and is available in +every instance where even a small area of land lying slightly below the +level of the outlet is to be commanded. The arrangement of the +sub-irrigation pipes is easily made: Suppose that in land having an +inclination of about one in two hundred, occupied by grass or other +growth, a trench be dug twelve inches deep, that there be laid upon the +bottom of this trench a narrow strip of plank to insure a uniform grade, +and that upon this plank is laid a line of common agricultural +land-drain tiles, say two inches in diameter. However carefully these +tiles may be placed, there will be at their joints a sufficient space +for the leaking out of any liquid they may contain; the tiles being laid +either with collars around the joints, or with bits of paper laid over +them, to prevent the rattling in of loose earth during the filling. The +excavated earth is to be returned to its place, well compacted, and +covered with its sod. Suppose this drain to have a cross-section equal +to three square inches, and a length of one hundred feet, its capacity +will equal about sixteen gallons, or a half-barrel. If this amount of +liquid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> be rapidly discharged into the drain, the inclination being +slight, it will at once be filled or nearly filled for its whole length, +and the liquid will leak away in tolerably uniform proportion at every +joint along the line, and will saturate the surrounding earth. The plan +adopted at Lenox, and recommended for all small villages which cannot +secure a better outlet, is simply a multiplication of these drains to a +sufficient extent.</p> + +<p>A description of the manner in which the Lenox work is arranged will +illustrate the adaptation of the system to its circumstances. As +circumstances vary, the adaptation must be modified. (See Figure 8.)</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> +<p>The main outlet sewer delivers at a distance of about one-half mile from +the last junction with a branch sewer. It is a six-inch pipe five feet +below the surface of the ground, and it delivers into a flush-tank like +that shown in Figure 6, but having a capacity of about five hundred +cubic feet. This tank stands at the upper side of a field having an +inclination of seven in one hundred. There is a branch from the main +sewer, above the tank, supplied with a stop-cock, by which, in case of +need, the sewage may be carried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> on down the hill without going into +the tank. The outlet from the chamber below the siphon leads off in +another direction down the hill, and has a stop-cock and a branch which +will allow its flow to be diverted. The discharge of this diverted +stream and the discharge through the branch of the main above the tank, +both deliver into a horizontal surface gutter to be well grassed, and +lying at the top of the land to be irrigated. By this arrangement, +should repairs become necessary in the tank, the flow may be turned into +the gutter; or, should it be desired for any reason to use the outflow +of the tank for surface irrigation, the second branch outlet will +deliver it into the same gutter, where, the outflow being uniform along +the whole length of five hundred feet, the stream will pass in a thin +sheet off on to the descending ground. The hill-side, immediately below +the gutter, is brought to a true grade and covered with grass. As its +inclination is much greater than would be admissible for sub-irrigation +drains, these are laid <i>obliquely</i> in parallel lines at intervals of six +feet from one end to the other over the whole graded slope. These drains +are connected at their upper ends with the direct outlet-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>pipe leading +from the siphon chamber. They have an aggregate length of about ten +thousand feet. The method of operation is as follows:—</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/i0095.jpg" width="600" height="399" alt="FIG. 8.—DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING MANNER OF SEWAGE DISPOSAL +AT LENOX, MASS." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 8.—DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING MANNER OF SEWAGE DISPOSAL +AT LENOX, MASS.</span> +</div> + +<p>The capacity of the tank is supposed to equal about two days' discharge, +or about thirty-five hundred gallons; and the whole capacity of the +drains is about half that of the tank, so that the rapid emptying of the +whole volume into them will insure their being pretty thoroughly filled +from end to end. This arrangement will provide for the saturation of the +soil about once in two days, and will leave a sufficient interval +between the periods of saturation for the thorough dispersal and +aëration of the filth.</p> + +<p>The extent to which this system will be interfered with by frost, it is +impossible to say. This will probably be less than would be supposed, +for the reason that the ground would often be covered with snow, and +that the sewage will have sufficient warmth to exert considerable +thawing influence. Whenever the discharge of the liquid through +irrigation pipes is shown to have become obstructed by freezing, it will +only be necessary to divert the flow, and turn it into the surface +gutter to be distributed over the ground.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is possible that in this case, as in the one which has been under my +observation for six years past, there will be no interruption of the +working because of cold; but, should the interruption become serious, I +shall propose the planting of evergreen trees in parallel rows midway +between the drains. The protection that would thus be afforded, both by +the trees and by the drifting snow which they would gather, would +probably keep the ground free throughout the winter. Incidentally to the +chief advantage of this system, there will be, so long as the land is in +grass, quite an addition to its product.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 306px;"> +<img src="images/i0100.jpg" width="306" height="324" alt="FIG. 9.—SETTLING BASIN." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 9.—SETTLING BASIN.</span> +</div> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 379px;"> +<img src="images/i0103.jpg" width="379" height="505" alt="FIG. 10." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 10.</span> +</div> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>moving the product at frequent intervals, would be so great as to +constitute an insurmountable obstruction.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 suffi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>cient 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> matters added in the use of my material contained 230 pounds of +nitrogen.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> 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 unaërated 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FARM_VILLAGES" id="FARM_VILLAGES"></a>FARM VILLAGES.</h2> + +<p class="center">"God made the country, and man made the town."</p> + + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 æsthetic 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> side the influence of a +complete social organization, and on that the sweet breath of mother +earth.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In Europe, as here, the methods of living have grown from natural +causes. There it was a necessary condition of agricultural industry, +that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I am not so enthusiastic as to believe that a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>For this latter, the illustration is taken from an actual accurate +survey<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> 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.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> A map of the United States Coast Survey.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The division of the agricultural land is as follows:—</p> + + + +<div class='centered'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="40%" cellspacing="0" summary="division of the agricultural land"> +<tr><td align='right'>4</td><td align='center'>farms of</td><td align='left'>160</td><td align='center'>acres</td><td align='right'>640</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>16</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>80</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>1,280</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>12</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>40</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>480</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>12</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>10</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>120</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p>in all, 44 tracts, aggregating 2,520 acres, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 460px;"> +<img src="images/i0122.jpg" width="460" height="479" alt="FIG. 11.—DIVISION OF FOUR SQUARE MILES WITH CENTRAL +VILLAGE." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 11.—DIVISION OF FOUR SQUARE MILES WITH CENTRAL +VILLAGE.</span> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 468px;"> +<img src="images/i0124.jpg" width="468" height="486" alt="FIG. 12.—DIVISION OF THE CENTRAL VILLAGE." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 12.—DIVISION OF THE CENTRAL VILLAGE.</span> +</div> + +<p>The spaces set apart for these buildings, as well as the village green, +should be surrounded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The larger farmers, having the most cattle,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Taking the whole area at 2,560 acres, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> population at 350 +persons, we have an area of about 7⅓ acres to furnish the support and +home of each member of the community,—an amount ample for the purpose.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 397px;"> +<img src="images/i0129.jpg" width="397" height="600" alt="FIG. 13.—DIVISION OF THE CENTRAL OPEN SPACE OF THE +VILLAGE." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 13.—DIVISION OF THE CENTRAL OPEN SPACE OF THE +VILLAGE.</span> +</div> + +<p>The foot-path indicated for the village green<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> 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 <i>plus</i> the wear of +constant use and frequent pleasure.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>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 <i>farm</i> boundaries. The field boundaries and +roads are exact.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 481px;"> +<img src="images/i0131.jpg" width="481" height="469" alt="FIG. 14.—PRESENT DIVISION AND SETTLEMENT OF TRACT IN +RHODE ISLAND, TWO MILES SQUARE." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 14.—PRESENT DIVISION AND SETTLEMENT OF TRACT IN +RHODE ISLAND, TWO MILES SQUARE.</span> +</div> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 480px;"> +<img src="images/i0133.jpg" width="480" height="468" alt="FIG. 15.—THE RHODE ISLAND TRACT, WITH ITS BUILDINGS +GATHERED INTO A COMPACT VILLAGE." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 15.—THE RHODE ISLAND TRACT, WITH ITS BUILDINGS +GATHERED INTO A COMPACT VILLAGE.</span> +</div> + +<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>This part of the subject is, however, foreign to the present purpose. If +the <i>desirability</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The church and the schoolhouse, being placed in broad recesses opposite +the central point of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> street, would gain importance from their +position; and, these main features being attended to, the <i>character</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +breathe of homely influences and moral peacefulness.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 476px;"> +<img src="images/i0137.jpg" width="476" height="600" alt="FIG. 16.—PROPOSED ARRANGEMENT OF THE RHODE ISLAND FARM +VILLAGE." title="" /> +<span class="caption">FIG. 16.—PROPOSED ARRANGEMENT OF THE RHODE ISLAND FARM +VILLAGE.</span> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Having now considered the methods by which farmers may congregate their +homes and their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> farm-buildings, and live in villages, let us take up +the more important question of policy.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>attractive</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Under the present system the women have the worst of it. They have the +confinement and se<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>clusion 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 <i>not</i> to have the +heavy end of life's log to carry.</p> + +<p>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 <i>less</i> than the cost of +the "driving" that is now done, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 coun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>try. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>versus</i> 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> final decision with his own judgment, formed +after a fair consideration of what is herein suggested.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The social benefits, and the facilities for frequent neighborly and +informal intercourse, are obvious. To say nothing of the companionships +and intimacies among the young people, their fathers and mothers would +be kept from growing old and glum by constant friction with their kind; +and, in so far as a more satisfactory social relation with one's +fellow-men gives cheerfulness and the richness of a wider human +interest, in that proportion would the village life have a wholesome, +mellowing effect that is not to be found in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> the remote farmhouse, nor +even in the sort of neighborhood we sometimes find in the country where +several farmhouses are within a quarter of a mile of each other. The +habit of "running in" for a moment's chat with a neighbor is a good one, +and it gets but scant development among American farmers. This view of +the case will suggest itself quite naturally on the first consideration +of the subject.</p> + +<p>If the first need of the rising generation—the men and women of the +future—is education, then the village beats the farm by long odds. The +country school-district, sparsely settled and chary of its taxes, is apt +to obey the law in the scantiest way possible. Three months school in +winter and three months more in summer, under the supervision—it can +hardly be called the instruction—of a young miss who is by no means +well educated herself, and who is entirely often without training as a +teacher, gathers together all of the school-going children of a wide +neighborhood. Big and little, boys and girls, are huddled together in a +sort of mental jumble, where the best that the most skilful manager can +hope for is to regulate the instruction and the discipline<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> to suit the +average of the scholars. The best result attainable is to secure a good +amount of <i>schooling</i>: the word "education" would be quite misapplied +here.</p> + +<p>In the village, the number of scholars would be sufficiently large to +warrant the establishment and to bear the maintenance of one good +school, with one, if not more, teachers, regularly employed, and worthy +to be called teachers rather than "school-marms." Pupils would be graded +according to their ages and acquirements, and a due use could be made of +the stimulus of competition. A real school, a real instrument of +education, would take the place of the noisy congregation of +uncontrolled boys and girls, who, in the country district-school, are +apt to acquire less of valuable learning than of the minor viciousness +that prevails among country children.</p> + +<p>In this connection, I was forcibly struck with the announcement of a +German farmer once in my employ, whose reason for leaving me, after his +children had reached the ages of seven and eleven, to return to his +little village in Germany, was that it was impossible in this +country—and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> this, be it remembered, was in New England—to secure +satisfactory instruction for them. He thought that in their experience +at school here they had gained little beyond a familiarity with English, +and with a large admixture of "bad words" at that. At home they would +have, within the elementary range of a primary-school education, a +thorough training and a severe drilling which he could not hope for +here, and without which he was unwilling that they should grow up. I +have seen his village school in Germany, and the cloud of tow-headed +children who fill it; and I am prepared to believe that his preference +was not without foundation. Of course we have all the material for as +good or better schools in this country. What we need is longer terms, +better trained and educated teachers, graded classes, and better books +and appliances. These cannot be afforded in the small country +school-district. They can be had in their perfection in even a small +village; and this consideration alone, even if this were all, should be +a controlling argument in favor of village life.</p> + +<p>But this is by no means all. Another great benefit is to be found in the +post-office near at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> hand, with its daily mail as an encouragement to +correspondence and to interest in the affairs of the outside world. A +village, such as is here pictured, could afford its weekly or +semi-monthly public lecture, furnishing a means for instruction and +entertainment, and for frequent gatherings. The church, too, would +probably be conducted in a more satisfactory way than is usual in the +country; and the conditions would be the best suited for fostering that +interest in the collateral branches of the church, the Bible-class, the +Sunday school, and the Dorcas society, by which the women of the +community get, aside from the other good that they receive and do, +advantages of a character somewhat corresponding to those which men get +from their clubs.</p> + +<p>I should hope further, as an outgrowth from the community of living, for +a modest village library and reading-room. Indeed, if I could have my +own way, I should not confine the attraction and entertainment of the +village to strictly "moral" appliances. It would probably be wiser to +recognize the fact that young men find an attraction in amusements which +our sterner ancestors regarded as dangerous; and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> would not eschew +billiards, nor even, "by rigorous enactment," the milder vice of social +tobacco. Better have a little <i>harmless</i> wickedness near home and under +the eye of parents than to encounter the risk that boys, after a certain +age, would seek a pretext for more uncontrolled indulgences in the +neighboring town.</p> + +<p>One might go on through the long range of incidental arguments—such as +lighted streets, well-kept sidewalks, winter snow-ploughs, and good +drainage, and a wholesome pride in a tidy, cosey village, until even the +most close-fisted of all our class would confess that the extra cost +would bring full value in return, and until he would recognize the fact +that the attractions of such a home as the village would make possible +would be likely to insure his being succeeded in his wholesome trade by +the brightest and best of his sons,—a result that would surely be worth +more than all it would cost.</p> + +<p>But my purpose has been only to suggest a scheme which seems to me +entirely, even though remotely, practicable, and in which I hope for the +sympathy and help of the country-bound farmers' wives and daughters,—a +scheme which promises<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> what seems the easiest, if not the only, relief +for the dulness and desolation of living which make American farming +loathsome to so many who ought to glory in its pursuit, but who now are +only bound to it by commanding necessity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LIFE_AND_WORK_OF_THE_EASTERN_FARMER" id="LIFE_AND_WORK_OF_THE_EASTERN_FARMER"></a>LIFE AND WORK OF THE EASTERN FARMER.</h2> + + +<p>We are all familiar with the lavish praise bestowed—especially when +votes are to be secured—upon the "bone and sinew of the country;" but +the farmers themselves are very far from accepting as true, even if +sincere, the estimate of their qualities which the editor and the public +speaker so loudly profess.</p> + +<p>The average farmer is precisely what any other average man would be who +had grown up under the same conditions. There is no mysterious charm +belonging to his occupation which removes him beyond the reach of the +influences by which all mankind are controlled. Coming from the same +original stock and inheriting the same peculiarities of race, he is +essentially the same as men in other vocations. The character of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +work, the necessities of his financial condition, and the social +surroundings amid which he has been reared, have had the same influence +in moulding his character that similar conditions have had in moulding +the characters of others.</p> + +<p>Farming is in a certain sense the basis of all individual and national +prosperity; but the case would be more fairly stated were we to say that +farming happens to be the first step in an industrial process, many +steps of which are alike essential to civilization. The farmer produces +raw material, and without raw material the world must come to a stop; +but the butcher, the baker, the spinner, the weaver, and every artisan, +render as essential service in the development of this raw material into +the forms demanded by modern life, as does the farmer in growing it.</p> + +<p>As a member of the farmer class, I hasten to disclaim for it any +<i>especial</i> consideration given it because of its contribution to the +welfare of mankind. We are as useful as any other hard-working people, +no more and no less. We claim no higher appreciation for muscular effort +exerted in swinging the flail than for that applied to the wielding of +the hammer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> + +<p>The controlling motive of a farmer in performing his work and carrying +on his business is the hope of material gain. He works for the money +that he expects to earn, and not with any conscious reference to the +service he is rendering to the world. In this capacity as a farmer he is +neither a philanthropist nor a patriot, only a man of business. If we +wish properly to estimate his character and his value as a factor of +modern civilization, we must not be misled by sentimental considerations +as to his relation with nature and his "noble" occupation.</p> + +<p>The conditions of Eastern farming and of Eastern farm life are the true +index, as they are the true cause, of the character of the Eastern +farmer. These conditions are constantly varying, and their effect is +always modified by individual qualities.</p> + +<p>It may be possible to strike such an average as shall afford a tolerably +good suggestion of the real character and condition of the farmer, and a +hint as to his future; that is to say, certain prevalent influences tend +to mark the type, and certain modifications of these influences may lead +to its improvement. Any attempt to portray the class<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> as a whole would +be met by such a list of exceptions as would seriously affect the +result; but the following may be considered true in a large number of +cases, and applicable, with minor changes, to many more.</p> + +<p>Let us take the case of an outlying farm in New England, of one hundred +acres,—a farm that has been in cultivation from the earlier settlement +of the country, and which is of the average degree of improvement, with +the usual division into arable, mowing, pasture, and wood land. It lies +two or three miles away from a considerable town or village, and its +chief industry is the selling of milk in the town. With an allowance of +two acres per cow for summer pasture, and of one and a half acres of +mowing-land for winter feeding, the cows it keeps number about a dozen. +For team-work on the farm and for road-work and pleasure-driving, there +are kept two horses and two oxen. In addition to these there will be a +greater or less amount of young stock and the usual swine and poultry, +and perhaps a few sheep. The farmer himself is the chief workman on the +place, and he has the regular help of a hired man or a grown son. An +extra hand during the work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>ing season is usual; but in winter the farmer +and his one assistant will do all of the work of feeding, milking, +delivering the milk, hauling out manure, etc.</p> + +<p>A few years ago the housework was done almost entirely by the mother of +the family and her daughters, or by a girl taken to "bring up;" but +latterly the more troublesome element of an Irish girl in the kitchen +has become general, for the daughter of the farmer has aspirations and +tastes which disqualify her for efficient household drudgery. In spite +of all modern appliances, much of the work of the farmer's household +must be so characterized. The life of American farm women is, however, +not now under discussion: the subject is a fruitful one, and has +important bearings upon the development of the race; but what we are to +consider here is simply the work and condition of the farmer himself. +The milk-selling farmer—and this industry is one of the most +wide-spread in Eastern farming—is more regularly employed than any +other. Winter and summer his cows must be milked twice a day. Evening's +milk must be cooled and safely kept until morning; and morning's milk +must be ready<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> for early delivery. It is usual for the farmer to rise at +three every morning, winter and summer, to milk his cows,—with one +assistant,—and to start as early as five o'clock to deliver his milk. +Returning about the middle of the forenoon, he is able to attend to the +details of barn-work in winter and field-work in summer, until half-past +two or three o'clock in the afternoon, less the brief interval needed +for the consumption of food. Early in the afternoon the cows must be +again milked, and the cans of milk must in summertime be set in spring +water for cooling. Then comes the feeding of the stock and the greasing +of axles, the mending of harness, the repairing of tools, and the +thousand and one odds and ends of the farmer's irregular work. In the +winter, save for the early rising and the work of cold mornings, life is +by no means hurried; and after a very early supper there is often a +stroll to the corner store or to a neighbor's house, for a little +wholesome idleness and gossip,—the latter not invariably wholesome. At +about the hour when the average reader of "The Atlantic" has finished +his after-dinner cigar, all lights are extinguished, and the farm +household is wrapped in heavy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> slumber; for such early rising as the +milk-farmer is condemned to must needs trench upon the valuable evening +hours for requisite rest and sleep.</p> + +<p>In summer the conditions of life are immeasurably hardened. The farmer +himself is necessarily absent several hours every morning with his +milk-wagon; but, although he cannot lend a hand at the early field work, +this work must go on with promptness, and he must arrange in advance for +its proper performance. From the moment when he has finished his late +breakfast until the last glimmer of twilight, he is doomed to harrowing +and often anxious toil. There is no wide margin of profit that will +admit of a slackening of the pace. Land must be prepared for planting; +planting must be done when the condition of the ground and the state of +the weather permit. Weeds grow without regard to our convenience, and +they must be kept down from the first; and well on into the intervals of +the hay-harvest the corn-field needs all of the cultivation that there +is time for. Regularly as clock-work, in the late hours of the night and +the early hours of the afternoon, the milking must be attended<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> to; and +the daily trip to town knows no exception because of heat, rain, or +snow. At rigidly fixed hours this part of the work <i>must</i> be done; and +all other hours of the growing and of the harvest seasons are almost +more than filled with work of imperative need. These alone seem to make +a sufficient demand on the patience and endurance of the most +industrious farmer; but, aside from these, he is loaded with the endless +details of an intricate business, and with the responsibility of the +successful management of a capital of from fifteen to twenty thousand +dollars, upon the safety and the economical management of which his +success entirely depends; he must avoid leakage and waste, and make +every dollar paid for labor, or seed, or manure, or live stock, bring +its adequate return.</p> + +<p>Probably no occupation in the world can compare with farming in the +opportunity that it offers for the <i>losing</i> of money. Nothing is so +enticing as slate-and-pencil farming. Ten acres of land can be ploughed, +manured, and planted with corn, and the crop can be well cultivated and +harvested for so many dollars. Such land with such manuring and +cultivation may be trusted to yield so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> many bushels of corn to the +acre; and, after making due allowance for chance, the balance of the +calculation shows a snug profit. In like manner we may figure out a +corresponding return from the hay-fields, from the root-crops, from two +or three acres of potatoes, and from a patch of garden-truck for which +the neighboring village will furnish a good market. Then the poultry +will return a profitable income in eggs and in "broilers;" and +altogether it is easy for an enthusiastic person to show how interest on +invested capital and good compensation for labor are to be secured in +agriculture.</p> + +<p>But when the test of practice is applied to our well-studied and proven +scheme; when we see how far our allowance for "chances" has fallen below +what is needed to cover the contingencies of late springs, dry summers, +early frosts, grasshoppers, wire-worms, Colorado beetles, midge, weevil, +pip, murrain, garget, milk-fever, potato-rot, oats-rust, winter-killing, +and all the rest; when we learn the degree of vigilance needed to keep +every minute of hired labor and team-work effectively employed; and when +we come finally to the items of low markets and bad debts,—we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> shall +see how far these and similar drawbacks have undone our arithmetic, and +how often our well-contrived balance must be taken into the footings of +the other column of figures.</p> + +<p>The regular work of the farmer, as indicated in the foregoing sketch of +his occupations, and as perceptible to the summer boarder who watches +his work from the piazza, although arduous and exacting, may be quite +compatible with a happy life; and, when we estimate the promise of the +occupation as offering a pleasant livelihood, no able-bodied man need be +deterred by it. But when we add this long list of contingencies, and +consider the ceaseless anxiety that they bring, we may well hesitate +before adopting such a life for ourselves or desiring it for our +children. No true estimate of the developed character of the farmer can +be formed without giving due value to this uncertain factor in the +calculation.</p> + +<p>Instances are hardly exceptional where a clear natural intelligence, an +indomitable courage, and great industry, have turned themselves into a +real source of mental and moral strength. Success achieved in spite of +such drawbacks is all the sweeter and all the more inspiriting because +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> them. But if we take the case of the average farmer with average +human weaknesses, we cannot fail to see, that, however well he may have +borne up against the more obvious requirements of his work, he has been +warped and cramped, and often made in many ways unlovely, by the hard +and anxious toil through which his halting success has been attained.</p> + +<p>In nearly every other occupation than farming, the hardest worker finds +a daily relief from his toil, and from the suggestion of toil, in a home +that is entirely apart from his industry. However arduous and anxious +and long-continued the work, there comes a time when it is laid aside, +and when the workman goes into a new sphere, where the atmosphere is +entirely changed. His home is a place of rest and pleasure, or at least +a place of change. The pen and the hammer are left in the counting-room +and in the shop; and, however far the home may fall below his desires +and ambition, it is at least free from the cares of the day's +occupation.</p> + +<p>The American farmer has no such relief. His house is a part of his farm; +his fireside is shared by an uncongenial hired man, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> family circle +includes too often a vulgar and uninteresting servant; and from one year +to another, his living-room being the kitchen and work-room of the busy +farmhouse, he rarely knows what it is to divest himself of the +surroundings of his labor and business, and to give himself over to the +needed domestic enjoyment and recreation. It is this feature of his +life, more than any other, which seems objectionable. If it is +objectionable for him, it is infinitely more so for his wife and +daughters, who, lacking the frequent visit to the town or occasional +chat with strangers, and the invigorating effect of open-air work, yield +all the more completely to depressing cares. They become more and more +deficient in the lightness and cheerfulness and mental gayety to which +in any other occupation the chief toiler of the family would look for +recreation at his own fireside.</p> + +<p>So far as interest in his business is concerned, the farmer's condition +is in every way elevated when he devotes himself to some improved form +of agriculture, or to some special industry which gives him better +compensation for his work. This benefit by no means generally results +from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> an attempt at "scientific" agriculture, nor is the adoption of a +special industry by any means generally successful. Failure in either of +these directions is disheartening and discouraging to those who are +watching his example. There are many well-tried improvements upon the +old methods of our fathers which are universally adopted, especially in +the direction of the use of better implements and more judicious care in +the application of manure. But the average agricultural newspaper, while +doing great good, has naturally led enthusiastic men to see a chance for +ameliorating their condition by the adoption of processes which are not +suited to their circumstances, or which they themselves are not +qualified to carry out. It is this that has led to the outcry—much more +prevalent a generation ago than now—against "book-farming." On the +whole, whatever may have been the influences of agricultural writers +upon the fortunes of their early converts, they have vastly modified and +improved all modern farm-work, and have greatly benefited the more +recent farmer.</p> + +<p>The conditions of the industry are hard, chiefly because the business of +farming is a laborious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> one, and one in which an enormous population is +working, with dogged industry, for a moderate reward. However +enterprising and intelligent a farmer may be, when he goes to market to +sell his crops he finds himself in active competition with men who are +working for their bare subsistence.</p> + +<p>Much is said about the competition of the farmers of the rich West as a +serious obstacle to success at the East. This is the case only in so far +as the Eastern farmer attempts to compete with the Western in the +production of crops which will bear storage and long transportation. As +a business proposition, it seems clear that this drawback is to be +overcome only by the cultivation at the East of such products as it is +not within the power of Western competition to supply, or only such as +our situation and the good quality of our land will enable us to produce +at low cost. Milk, fresh butter, and hay are the three most promising +staples, for which so large a demand exists as to furnish employment for +the whole farming population. Hay from its bulk does not bear a very +long transportation. Milk will always bring a higher price when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +produced near to the point where it is to be consumed. Butter-making is +not an especially profitable industry if we depend upon the average +grocery-store demand; but it is possible for any farmer at the East, who +will take the trouble to make and to retain a good reputation for his +dairy, to secure a price enough higher than that of the regular market +to constitute a good margin of profit.</p> + +<p>So far as relief in Eastern farming is to be achieved with no material +change in the character of life and work, it must apparently be sought +in these directions. In his relation to Eastern civilization, past, +present, and prospective, it may fairly be questioned whether the +influence of the Eastern farmer is increased since the general +introduction of railroads; and we are justified in looking with some +anxiety to the relative position which he is to hold hereafter.</p> + +<p>There are well-known influences at work which are not promising. The +desire of the sons and daughters of the farmer to obtain some other +means of livelihood, and the too frequent yielding to this temptation on +the part of the more intelligent of these young persons, is the most +obvious danger to the future of the industry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> + +<p>Much has been said of the dignity and independence which come of the +ownership of land; but it is possible that this influence has been +over-estimated, and that our ideas of it have been derived more or less +from our European traditions. Perhaps, after all, we ought to and do +attach the most importance to that which is the most rare. In England, +where the ownership of land carries with it a certain social dignity, +and where the mere possession of money has a less marked influence in +this direction, there is no doubt that the title-deeds to broad acres +constitute a certain sort of patent of nobility. In this country, where +land is plenty and cheap and where large fortunes are rare, a farmer +gets consideration less for the amount of land that he himself owns, +than for the sum-total of the mortgages which he holds upon his +neighbors' land. That is to say, it is better to be rich in money than +in land; and instances are comparatively rare, even among those who are +cultivating their ancestral acres, where the farm would not be gladly +sold for a sum of which the income would secure a better and easier mode +of life. The farm is not regarded with especial affection: it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> is mainly +regarded—along with its stock and tools—as an instrument for making +money.</p> + +<p>The American farmer is distinguished from the English farmer chiefly by +having his capital invested in the land which he cultivates, rather than +in the tools and live stock and working capital needed to carry on his +business. As a general rule the farmer's whole fortune is invested in +his land. Often his farm is mortgaged, and he has little loose money +with which to improve his system of work. The necessity for making a +living and paying interest, without sufficient capital for the best +management, makes the life of the farmer too often a grinding one. If he +is skilful and industrious and prudent, he may hope with certainty to +free himself from debt, and to accumulate a respectable support for his +old age.</p> + +<p>When we consider any class of working people, as a class, this is +perhaps all that we can hope for under any circumstances. The unhopeful +thing about it all is that while farmers work less hard than their +fathers did, and while they get a better return for their work, the +surroundings of their life have not improved as have those of men +engaged in other industries, so that although<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> actually much better off +than their ancestors were, they are relatively less well off in the more +attractive conditions of other classes of workmen; and this deficiency +is driving away the children on whom they ought to depend for assistance +and for succession.</p> + +<p>In the abstract, farming is a dignified occupation, and in proportion as +it borrows aid from science it becomes more dignified. So far as the +casual observer can see, it combines more of what is desirable than does +any other pursuit. While it promises no brilliant reward, it insures a +steady, reliable, and sufficient return for the capital and labor +invested in it. It promises a sure provision for old age, and it secures +the wholesome pride that comes of the ownership of visible property. +Indeed, look at it and argue about it as we may, it is not easy to see +why it is not the best occupation for a wholesome and intelligent man.</p> + +<p>Those who know the condition of the art intimately, and who have studied +the influences of its work and its life upon those who are engaged in +it, recognize serious drawbacks which must in some way be removed unless +it is to fall away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> still more from its original character, and is to be +given over to German and Irish immigrants, who, during one or two +generations, will be contented with what it has to offer. It is +difficult even to theorize as to the means of relief, if farming must be +considered, first of all, as a means for obtaining a livelihood and for +making money; and no effort to improve the situation of the farmer will +be successful which does not keep this prime necessity always in view. +It is easy to see how the condition of any farmer's family might be +improved by a large additional income; but there is no obvious source +from which this increase is to be drawn, nor will he adopt any scheme +that will endanger the income that he now receives.</p> + +<p>If we could convert the farmer into a chemist and physiologist, and give +him the satisfaction that comes of controlling the combinations of +physical and chemical materials according to laws which he understands, +and of securing his results with scientific accuracy, we should +accomplish our purpose; for no man with such scientific knowledge, +realizing its relation to his daily work, could fail of an enthusiastic +fondness for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> his profession. But the worst of it is that all efforts in +this direction have generally ended in producing a "smatterer," whose +theories are baffled by constant disappointment, and whose worldly +prosperity is lessened by his mistaken experiments.</p> + +<p>Successful farming implies, first of all, steady and dogged hard work, +coupled with prudent and watchful skill. When the hopes of enthusiastic +agricultural reformers are considered with the practical eye of cold +common sense, they must inevitably be condemned to disappointment. In so +far as they constitute an incentive towards improvement, they work great +good; but the success of the future is to be attained too often through +the distressing failure of the present. The art is an experimental one, +and the temptations to extend experiments are enticing. Unfortunately, +novel processes depend for their success upon contingencies which are +likely to be disregarded at the outset; and, however much any +improvement may be destined to prosper after its application shall have +been practically tested and modified, it is altogether likely that its +first introduction will result in failure. The mere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> money losses coming +of these failures are not so serious; but the discouragement and +disappointment that they entail exert the gravest influence where what +is chiefly needed is the encouragement of success.</p> + +<p>It is something to know the direction that improving effort should take; +and it seems to be generally conceded that what American agriculture +needs, at the East and at the West, but especially at the East, is <i>an +improvement in the character of its personnel</i>. There is everywhere +ample opportunity for the profitable and successful introduction of +modified processes and of new industries. There is, too, hardly an +instance where the processes and industries now pursued are not +susceptible of great improvement of detail. There are few farms so well +managed and so successful, that if given into the hands of better, more +intelligent, and more enterprising farmers, they would not produce +better results. The father is working according to his light, and is +directing his work by such intelligence as his natural capacity and his +training have given him. His brighter son, with more natural +intelligence, with a better education, and less trammelled by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> +traditions and prejudices, might so modify the same industry as to make +it more certain, more profitable, and in every way more satisfactory.</p> + +<p>The change that is now taking place, especially in New England, is +toward the greater economy of living, and the harder work and closer +management of business, that comes with immigrant proprietorship; and +this element is by no means to be depended upon for the improvement of +our farming. It may result in a more money-making agriculture, but it +will supplant our best political element by the introduction of what has +thus far seemed to be one of the worst.</p> + +<p>Look at this question as we will, it is difficult to see how else than +by improving the race of American farmers we are to accomplish any +result whose good effect will be radical and lasting. This brings us +around to that threadbare subject of the vague discussion of +agricultural writers: "How to keep the boys on the farm."</p> + +<p>The devices recommended for accomplishing this result have thus far +failed of their object. The average farmer boy is not a sentimentalist, +and he is not likely to be moved by the sort of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> talk so often lavished +upon him. To use a vulgarism, he has an extremely "level head." He fails +to realize the attraction and the dignity which are implied by what he +is told of the nobleness of his father's calling, of the purifying and +elevating influences of a daily intercourse with nature. He is not to be +caught with this sort of chaff. His cultivation has not been of that +æsthetic character that he has an especial drawing toward nobleness, or +purity, or elevation. Nature, as he knows it, shows at times an +unattractive side; and he fails to recognize precisely what is meant by +Mother Earth as a source of dignity. To him Mother Earth is an exacting +parent, calling for constant and regular toil, and whipping him on day +by day with weeds to be hoed, dry gardens to be watered, snowdrifts to +be shovelled, and an almost endless round of embarrassments to be +overcome. As for the purity and simplicity of the farmer's life, he +knows very much better than to pin his faith to it. To him the farmer's +house is too often a place where the mother is overworked, tired, +wearied with constant annoyance, and made peevish and fretful. The +conversation of hired men and young neigh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>bors and brothers is not +marked by refined delicacy and simplicity, as he understands these +terms. At the end of all our preaching he will say, at least to himself, +that this is probably the sort of talk that we consider appropriate to +the occasion, but that, if we knew what he knows about farming, we +should see how little effect it is likely to have. If he sought our +motive in saying it, he would conclude that we were interested in +keeping up the supply of farm labor; and that so far as <i>he</i> was +concerned, since he must work for a living, he would work at some other +industry if he could get a chance, and leave those who were less +fortunate to work on the farm.</p> + +<p>The more sentimental and more influential considerations governing in +this matter were very well set forth by Dr. Holland in a paper on Farm +Life in New England, published in "The Atlantic Monthly" some twenty +years ago. While acknowledging the frequency of bright exceptions to the +rule, he does not hesitate to set it down as a rule that the life +described is in every way a hateful one; where every member of the +family, from father to child, is driven by the lash of stern necessity, +and where many conditions which are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> deemed requisite in the life of all +other classes of the same wealth are comparatively rare; where the +expectant mother of the child is worked without stint to her last day, +while the mother of the colt is relieved from all hard toil and treated +with consideration throughout the last months of her time; where, in +short, whether from interest or from a mistaken idea of necessity, hard +work long hours, poor food, and dismal surroundings are the rule of the +farmer's household.</p> + +<p>Since that time there have been noticeable modifications, involving the +introduction of more or less tastefulness, because of the cheap +literature and cheap music of these later days. But, much as these have +done to affect the individual characters of the younger members of the +family, they have only aggravated the evil, so far as farm-work is +concerned, by creating a desire, born of knowledge, for the pleasanter +manner of life which the town has to offer. The young girls whom one now +sees about railway stations in the most distant part of the country are +dressed after the instructions of "Harper's Bazar" and "Peterson's +Magazine;" and they know more than their older sisters did of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +difference between their own life and that of their city cousins. They +are certainly not to be blamed if they long for some vocation in which +they can more freely indulge their growing ideas of luxury, and gratify +their growing desire for better dress and more interesting +companionship.</p> + +<p>All that has here been said is seriously true and important. The +circumstances described are so generally prevalent as to constitute, +with constant minor variations, an almost universal rule. Where we are +to look for relief, is the most serious problem. Relief must be found, +or the character of our farming class must assuredly degenerate. In one +way or another we must change, in a radical degree, the conditions of +the farmer's life. We can perfectly understand why it should be +distasteful to any young person of ordinary ambition or intelligence; +and we know, from the constant flocking of farmers' sons and daughters +to even the least attractive employments of the town or village, that +this distaste is everywhere a controlling one.</p> + +<p>It is easy to say that the farmer's life must be made more cheerful, +attractive, and refined, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> less arduous; but it is by no means easy +to see how the improvement is to be brought about. The cardinal defect +is the loneliness and dulness of the isolated farmhouse. Intelligent and +educated young women, brought up among the pleasantest surroundings, +marry young farmers, and undertake their new life with the determination +that, in their case at least, the more obvious social requirements shall +be met. During the earlier years after marriage they adhere to their +resolution, and are regular in attendance at the church and public +lecture; and they keep up, so far as possible, social intercourse with +their neighbors. But as time goes on, as the family increases, as toil +begins to tell on health and strength and energy, they drop out, little +by little, from the habit of going abroad, until often for weeks +together they never exchange a look or thought with any human being +outside of their own households. Aside from the overworked members of +their own families, their companionship is confined to hired men who +smell of the stable, and to hired girls with whom they are yoked in the +daily round of household duties.</p> + +<p>Having given much consideration to the sub<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>ject, I have come to believe +that the agriculture of Continental Europe is far more wisely arranged +than ours; for there, almost as a universal rule, isolated farm-life is +unknown. The reward of the cultivator is less, and his labor is at least +as great. The people are of a very much lower order, and are lacking in +the cultivated intelligence which distinguishes so many of our own +farming class. Women and even young girls perform rude labor in the +field and in the stable; and those aspirations which are born of a +universal diffusion of periodical literature are almost unknown. At the +same time, when the hard and long day's work is over, there comes to all +the inexpressible relief and delight of the active social intercourse of +the village, where the tillers of the country for a mile around have +gathered together their homes and their herds, and where the most +intimate social life prevails.</p> + +<p>Observation even indicates that the habit of out-of-door labor has had +no injurious effect upon the women of these villages. The "nut-brown +maid" grows too fast into the wrinkled-brown woman; but better a +sunburnt and weather-beaten cheek than that pallor that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> comes of +anthracite and in-door toil. Better the broad back and stout limb of the +peasant mother than the hollow chest and wasted energy of the American +farmer's wife.</p> + +<p>I by no means intend to say that our own farming class is not far +superior to the peasantry of Europe; but I do believe that if a good +system of village life for farmers could be adopted here under the +modifying influences of the more refined and intelligent American +character, we should have gained a most important step in advance. We +have in New England many villages almost exclusively of +farmers,—villages where the old-time settlers gathered together for +defence against the Indians, and for the protection of houses and stock +and store from river floods. These villages are as different as it is +possible to conceive from the ordinary European cluster of unattractive +cottages, lining both sides of a street which is filled for one-half of +its width with manure-heaps. It may be naturally assumed that any +adaptation of the village system among us would be governed by the same +refining influences which have made our few existing agricultural +villages so beautiful and attractive.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> + +<p>That which most distinguishes American people is the general spread of +education among them; but it is, after all, an education which soon +reaches its limit, and, so far as the district-school of a +sparsely-settled country neighborhood is concerned, it goes little +beyond the simplest rudiments. An inexperienced young miss holds school +for not more than one-half the year in an unattractive and inconvenient +room, in which are gathered together most of the boys and girls of the +school-going age from all the farms about. The books and other +appliances of instruction are inadequate. There is no grading of the +pupils, and the frequent change of teachers prevents the possibility of +experienced instructions. Even in the meanest peasant village of +Germany, a village always prolific in children, an inexorable law +compels all between the ages of five and fourteen to attend regularly +the teaching of a master, an officer of the state, who has generally +adopted his profession for life, and who adds to a certain specified +degree of capability the advantages of long experience.</p> + +<p>No thoughtful person can fail to be convinced, after a due consideration +of the argument in its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> favor, that, if the social influences +inseparable from village-life could be secured to the American farmer, +the greatest drawback of his life would be done away with. It remains, +unfortunately, a serious question, how far such a radical change is +practicable. There is little doubt that the family would naturally drift +into some more costly style of living; and the necessity for hauling to +a distant home all the crops of the fields, and of hauling out the +manure made at the homestead, would add somewhat to the expenses of the +business.</p> + +<p>In the case of the individual farmer now cultivating land upon which he +lives, it is not unlikely that he would find a certain pecuniary +disadvantage in the change. But, as a broad question of the future +benefit of our agriculture, it must be conceded that whatever will tend +to make the occupation more attractive cannot fail, by enlisting the +services of more intelligent minds, to insure its very decided +improvement. As the case now stands, the farmer's son will become a +clerk or a mechanic rather than remain a farmer, because clerks and +mechanics live in communities where there is more to in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>terest the mind, +and where, too, the opportunities for enjoyment and amusement are +greater. The farmer's daughter will marry the clerk or the mechanic +rather than a farmer, because she knows the life of a farmer's wife to +be a life of dulness and dearth, while she believes that the wife of the +clerk or mechanic will be condemned to less arduous labor, and will have +much more agreeable surroundings. I have no means of judging what may +have been the experience in Deerfield, Mass., for instance; but I am +confident that many a mechanic's daughter, and indeed many young women +of much higher position in life, would consider her lot a fortunate one +in becoming the wife of a farmer whose homestead lay on the beautiful +street of this old village.</p> + +<p>All that is here said is, to a certain extent, mere theory; but the +subject is one that has not thus far met any practical solution, and in +which, therefore, nothing except theorizing is possible. The broad fact +is that the farming class in this country is degenerating by the +withdrawal of its best blood; and still more serious injury is being +done to it by the introduction of the lower class<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> of foreigners. It may +well be doubted whether it is possible so to modify the manner of life +of the isolated farmhouse as to make it materially more attractive to +American boys and girls. All that can be done is to rob it of its +isolation by withdrawing its people, and placing them under better +conditions of life.</p> + +<p>In a word, the only way that seems to offer to keep the boys on the farm +is to move everybody off of the farm, bringing them together into snug +little communities, where they may secure, without abandoning the +manifest advantages of their occupation, the greater social interest and +stimulus which they now hope to enjoy by going into other callings whose +natural advantages are less. That such a course as this would restore +the farmer to his former position as a leading element in Eastern +civilization, cannot be questioned. That he will retain even the +relative influence that he exercises to-day, unless some radical change +is made, is at least very doubtful.</p> + +<p>In considering the questions here suggested, we must never lose sight of +the fact that the controlling element is economy. The farmer exists +because he is needed. The world de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>mands the products that he produces, +and the world must needs pay him a living compensation for them. No +change will be possible which disregards this; and all who know the +present circumstances which control the reward of the farming class know +that these circumstances would be inadequate to maintain him in a life +of greater ease, while calling for greater expense. This gives the added +embarrassment that we must not only change the mode of life, but must +also increase the ratio of profit, if this is possible. This is possible +only through a reduction of the area cultivated, the cultivation of this +reduced area in a more thorough and profitable way, and the turning of +farming industry into channels better adapted to securing a profitable +return.</p> + +<p>To discuss a modification of the whole system of farming would involve +far more detail than is possible in this paper, since such a discussion +must include the consideration of features which would change with +changing locality; but, by way of illustration, we may take the +previously supposed case of a farmer owning one hundred acres of land, +and milking a dozen cows, selling the milk as before in the distant +town. Assume that he and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> his neighbors within a radius of about a mile +are living in a central village, from which his land is one mile +distant. During the working season, say from the middle of April until +late in October, he must, with his teams and assistants, spend the whole +day on the land. The cows are milked and all stable work done before +breakfast, and some one drives them out to pasture. The men remain +a-field until an hour before sunset. They must be content with a cold +dinner, as is the usual custom with mechanics and laborers. The cows are +driven home in time for the evening milking, and are put into the +barnyard at night with green fodder brought home by the returning teams. +After the "chores" are done, and a hearty and substantial supper is +eaten,—the principal meal of the day,—all hands will be too weary for +much enjoyment of the evening, but not so weary that they will not +appreciate the difference between the lounging places of a village and +the former dulness at the farm. Other farmers in the neighborhood will, +many of them, also be milk producers; and, as the stables are near +together, they will naturally co-operate, sending their milk to market +with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> single team, employing the services of a single man in the place +of five or six men and teams heretofore needed to market the same milk. +I have recently received an account of this sort of co-operation, where +the cost of selling was reduced to a fraction over eight cents for each +hundred quarts.</p> + +<p>This arrangement will have the still further benefit of allowing the +farmer to remain at home and attend to his more important work, leaving +the detail of marketing to be done by a person especially qualified for +it and therefore able to do it more cheaply than he could do it in +person. During the working season there will be enough rainy weather to +allow the work of the stable, the barnyard, and the woodshed to be +properly attended to. There will of course be sudden showers and +occasional storms, and other inconveniences, which will make the farmer +regret at times that he lives at such a distance from his field work; +but he will find more than compensation in the advantages that come +naturally from living in a village.</p> + +<p>For his wife and children the improvement will be absolute; and it will +be no slight argu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>ment in favor of the change, that both in doors and +out of doors a better class of servants will be available, because of +the better life that can be offered. It will be easier to secure the +services of laborers who are married and who live in their own houses, +and so avoid the serious annoyance to the household that attends the +boarding of hired men.</p> + +<p>To make this radical change in any farming neighborhood as at present +constituted, would be impracticable. It would probably take a generation +to convince the farmers of a community of its advantages; it would cost +too much, even if not entirely impracticable, to move the house and +stables to the central point; and it would involve such a change of +habits of labor and of living as must necessarily be the work of time. +However, if the principle commends itself to the leading men of the +neighborhood, and especially to young men about to marry, the nucleus of +a village may be established, and sooner or later the present or the +coming generation will find a way to come into the fold.</p> + +<p>If we assume that by this or some other means the more intelligent of +the young men are in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>duced to remain farmers, it is interesting to +consider in what way their greater intelligence is to be made to tell on +their work so as to secure the necessary improvement. It would not be +unreasonable to suppose that young men of the class we have in mind, +those who now seek occupations which afford a better field for their +intelligence, and who seek them because of their intelligence, would +establish such centres of discussion and interest in improved farming as +would not only mitigate the worthless gossip now so common at the +country store, but would awaken a real enthusiasm in better processes +and systems.</p> + +<p>Not only would there be this tendency toward improvement; but where +farmers are close neighbors, and are able to conduct their interests in +such a way as to help each other, there would naturally grow up some +sort of co-operative business. By the establishment of a butter-factory +or cheese-factory, or by the common ownership of a milk-route, or where +tobacco is grown by the undertaking of its manufacture as an employment +for winter, or by the raising of honey or of poultry, or by the +establishment of some valuable breed of live stock with a reputation for +excellence that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> will cause it to be sought for from abroad, or by some +other combination, they would secure profitable business.</p> + +<p>Of course all the farmers in New England cannot within the next ten +years move into villages; but what is suggested is that the farmers of +some one community should try the experiment. Their success might induce +others to follow the example; and little by little, in proportion to the +promise of a good result, more and more would seek the advantages which +the system would offer, so that sooner or later the benefits which are +now experienced in village life in Europe might be felt here in the +higher degree which greater intelligence and greater freedom would be +sure to produce.</p> + +<p>While advancing these suggestions, with much confidence in their +practical value, I would by no means confine the outlook for Eastern +farming to this single road to success. Co-operative industry may be +largely adopted among farmers living at some distance from each other. +The cheese-factory has become an institution. The better quality of the +product when made in large quantities, and the better price that its +quality<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> and the improved system for marketing have secured, constitute +a very decided success in our agriculture. Butter-factories are coming +into vogue with a promise of equally good results.</p> + +<p>A very good substitute for the co-operative management of a milk route +is in very general adoption throughout New England, where some single +farmer who devotes himself to selling milk buys the product of his +neighbor's dairies for a certain fixed price, taking upon himself the +labor, the risk, and the profit of marketing. The co-operative breeding +of live stock cannot as yet be said to have become well established, but +its possibilities of success are considerable. A community can afford to +buy and keep a thorough-bred horse, or bull, or boar, or buck, which +would cost far too much for the means of a single owner, and thus +gradually give to the stock of the whole neighborhood a superiority that +will secure it a wide-spread reputation and insure good prices. Let us +keep always in view the important principle of making two blades of +grass grow where but one grew before; but let us remit no effort which +may tend to make one blade worth what two were worth before.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> + +<p>Incidentally, there may be combinations to secure good outlet drainage +for tracts of land belonging to different owners, and later a provision +for the general irrigation of these lands.</p> + +<p>It is not to be hoped, that, either as a whole or in its details, +agricultural improvement is to be advanced with any thing like a rush. +Farmers are generally "conservative" in the worst sense of the term. +They have during the past generation adopted many improvements and +modifications in the methods of their work, the mere suggestion of which +would have been scouted by their fathers; but they are themselves as +ready as their fathers were to scout any further new suggestion, and it +is only by iteration and reiteration that the shorter steps of tentative +experiment can be urged upon their acceptance.</p> + +<p>In reviewing what is written above, the thought arises that the one +impression that it will surely produce will be that its writer fails to +appreciate the better influences that cluster around the better class of +farmers' homes. Such an inference would be quite unjust. Knowing as I do +the intrinsic worth and the charming qualities of very many of these +households, I appeal to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> best of the thoughtful men and women whom +they include, to confirm my statement that they find many elements of +their life to be pinching and hard, and that however admirable they may +now be, they would be in no way injured, but in many ways improved, by +more frequent intercourse with their equals, and especially with their +betters.</p> + +<p>That the picture I have sketched of the average farmer's family is not +overdrawn, I appeal to every country clergyman and physician to bear +witness. The truths suggested are patent to all. They are set forth in +no spirit of hypercriticism, and with no other view than to help to +ameliorate the condition of those to whom they refer. Knowing the farmer +more intimately than does the average editor or orator, I am confident +that my estimate of his character and of his life will strike him as +being more just, if not more honest.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="centerbox"> +<h4>BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</h4> + + +<p><b>A FARMER'S VACATION.</b> Sketches of Travel in Europe; with a very complete +Account of the Drainage of the Great Haarlem Lake in Holland; Notes on +Dutch Farming; a Journey in Normandy and Brittany; and an Elaborate +Description of the Channel Islands,—their Agriculture, Social Customs, +Scenery, &c. Beautifully illustrated. Price $3.00.</p> + +<p><b>WHIP AND SPUR.</b> Papers reprinted from the "Atlantic Monthly,"—largely +about Army Experiences; and certain Horses, at Home and in the Field. +Price $1.25.</p> + +<p><b>THE ELEMENTS OF AGRICULTURE.</b> A work of Practical Science for Farmers. +Price $1.00.</p> + +<p><b>THE SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS.</b> Illustrated. Price $2.00.</p> + +<p><b>DRAINING FOR PROFIT, and DRAINING FOR HEALTH.</b> Complete Directions for +the Drainage of Agricultural Lands, Swamps, Malarious Districts, &c. +Fully illustrated. Price $1.50.</p> + +<p><b>THE HANDY BOOK OF HUSBANDRY.</b> A Manual for American Farmers. Fully +illustrated. Price $2.50.</p> + +<p><b>THE SANITARY CONDITION OF TOWN AND COUNTRY HOUSES.</b> Price 50 cents.</p> + +<p><br /><span class="smcap">In Press.</span> <i>THE BRIDE OF THE RHINE; Two Hundred Miles in a Mosel +Row-boat.</i></p></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Village Improvements and Farm Villages, by +George E. Waring + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VILLAGE IMPROVEMENTS *** + +***** This file should be named 26801-h.htm or 26801-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/8/0/26801/ + +Produced by Tom Roch and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from +images produced by Core Historical Literature in Agriculture +(CHLA), Cornell University) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0029.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0029.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a35ca0 --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0029.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0042.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0042.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a383505 --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0042.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0071.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0071.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2b632d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0071.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0071b.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0071b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bc162f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0071b.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0077.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0077.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d85a90a --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0077.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0078.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0078.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2e99e2a --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0078.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0084.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0084.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d34f54f --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0084.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0095.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0095.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a323615 --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0095.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0100.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0100.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ce8d69d --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0100.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0103.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0103.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d64e6b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0103.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0122.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0122.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c84950 --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0122.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0124.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0124.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..75bf031 --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0124.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0129.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0129.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b437615 --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0129.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0131.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0131.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9ec9753 --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0131.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0133.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0133.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b0658a --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0133.jpg diff --git a/26801-h/images/i0137.jpg b/26801-h/images/i0137.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e22e72 --- /dev/null +++ b/26801-h/images/i0137.jpg |
