Village Improvements and Farm Villages

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. 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. The wide-spread and growing interest in the topics considered makes it seem worth while to give these short essays a more permanent form. G. E. W., Jr. Newport, R.I. , June, 1877. CONTENTS. Village Improvements 11 Village Sanitary Work 69 Farm Villages 114 Life and Work of the Eastern Farmer 159 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Fig. 1.--Drainage of Hill-Side Foot-Path 31 Fig. 2.--Section of Road with Drains 44 Fig. 3.--Pipes resting on their Shoulders 73 Fig. 4.--Pipes resting on their Full Length 73 Fig. 5.--Grease-Trap 79 Fig. 6.--Field's Flush-Tank 80 Fig. 7.--The Emerson Ventilator 86 Fig. 8.--Diagram illustrating Manner of Sewage Disposal at Lenox, Mass. 97 Fig. 9.--Settling Basin 102 Fig. 10.--Arrangement of Absorption Drains , 105 Fig. 11.--Division of Four Square Miles with Central Village 124 Fig. 12.--division of the Central Village 126 Fig. 13.--Division of the Central Open Space of the Village 131 Fig. 14.--Present Division and Settlement of Tract in Rhode Island 133 Fig. 15.--The Rhode Island Tract with its Buildings gathered together into a Compact Village 135 Fig. 16.--Proposed Arrangement of the Rhode Island Farm Village 139 VILLAGE IMPROVEMENTS. 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 par excellence 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. As a rule, these more…