Village Improvements and Farm Villages

by George E. Waring

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

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

FIG. 16.—PROPOSED ARRANGEMENT OF THE RHODE ISLAND FARM VILLAGE.

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

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

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

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

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