FIG. 7.—THE EMERSON VENTILATOR.FIG. 7.—THE EMERSON VENTILATOR.
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 "elongatedcesspool." 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.
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 enoughto 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.
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.
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.
There is hardly an instance, after all the efforts that have been made, of theprofitabledisposal of the outflow of public sewers. Thetheoreticalvalue 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 willcost the least, while fully meeting the best sanitary requirements.
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.
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,—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.
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 systemmay 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.
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.
The gutters having been made, it is easy, by the use of portable dams,—of thin boiler-iron,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 anyfixed rule,—so much depending on the amount of water usedper capita, 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.
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.
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.
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, atgreat 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 liquidbe 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.
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.)
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 carriedon 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 laidobliquelyin 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-pipe leading from the siphon chamber. They have an aggregate length of about ten thousand feet. The method of operation is as follows:—
FIG. 8.—DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING MANNER OF SEWAGE DISPOSAL AT LENOX, MASS.FIG. 8.—DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING MANNER OF SEWAGE DISPOSAL AT LENOX, MASS.
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.
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.
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.
There are hundreds of villages, with and without a water supply, where the houses are too scattering and the street lengths too great to make it advisable that the cost of any form of public sewerage should be assumed. In all such villages, the public authority or the active influence of the village improvement association should be exerted to secure a regular and systematic adoption of some more perfect system for the private disposal of household drainage than is usual. Fortunately, the best system is the cheapest.
No form of cesspool, no leaching vault, and no cemented tank, should be allowed under any circumstances. Neither should there be permitted any form of the old-fashioned out-of-door privy with a vault. Every household should be supplied with water-closets or well-arranged earth-closets, to which reference will be made below.
The foul water discharge of kitchen sinks, or of whatever form of slop-sink is used for the water of bedrooms, should discharge into a flush-tank, and should be led from this by a tightly cemented four-inch drain to a tight settling basin in the ground beyond. If water-closets are used, the soil-pipe should deliver into the drain between the flush-tank and the settling basin. The settling basin should be constructed as shown in Figure 9; and this, as well as the flush-tank, the soil-pipe, and the connecting drains, should be amply ventilated. The outlet from the settling basin should be carried by well-cemented vitrified pipes (four-inch) to the connection with the subsoil irrigation pipes. The flush-tank discharging at each operation of its siphon about thirty gallons of liquid, two hundred feet of drain,unless the soil is very compact, will dispose of the whole discharge with sufficient rapidity. The tank being emptied, the flow ceases; and within a very short time the drain becomes empty of its contents, which are absorbed by the sponge-like action of the earth, and are subjected to the combined influence of the roots of plants, and of the concentrated oxygen contained among the particles of the soil. They will soon have their character entirely changed, so that the earth will become purified, and will be ready to receive the next discharge from the tank. In the case ofmy 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.
FIG. 9.—SETTLING BASIN.FIG. 9.—SETTLING BASIN.
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 ofthis means of disposal, under the most liberal allowance of prices, will not exceed thirty-five dollars. Ordinarily, especially where neighbors combine to buy their material in larger quantities, it will hardly exceed one-half of this amount. This, be it understood, is for a complete and permanent substitute for the expensive and nasty cesspool now so generally depended upon in the country.
A piece of ground fifty feet square, having ten rows of tile five feet apart and fifty feet long, will suffice for even a large household with an abundant water supply. For the better illustration of the arrangement of this system, I give in Figure 10 a plan for the work in the case of a lot fifty feet wide, with a depth of open ground behind the house of somewhat more than fifty feet. The leaching drains may safely begin at a distance of even ten feet from the back of the house, requiring for the whole a clear area of only fifty feet by sixty feet. With small households, the length of drain may be very much shortened. In my own case, where water-closets are not used, the total length of irrigation drain is, as before stated, only two hundred feet.
FIG. 10.FIG. 10.
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 withless general favor. Two companies with large capital, after expending all their resources, have been obliged to abandon their attempts to build up a profitable business. Having been actively interested in the enterprise from its inception, and having given constant attention to the merits of the system, I am to-day more than ever convinced that the solution of one of the most difficult problems connected with country and village life is to be sought in its general adoption. The public reports of sanitary officers in England, who have investigated the subject to its foundation, fully confirm every thing that has been claimed by the advocates of the earth-closet, unless perhaps in connection with the incidental question of the value of the product as a manure.
The only thing which now deters the authorities of some of the larger manufacturing towns of the North of England from adopting the dry-earth-system as a means of relief, under the sharp exaction of the law that prohibits their further fouling of water-courses, is the belief that the labor of bringing into the town the enormous amount of earth required to supply such an immense number of closets, and the labor of removing the product at frequent intervals, would be so great as to constitute an insurmountable obstruction.
Prof. Voelcker, in a paper published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, shows pretty conclusively that even the use of the same earth four or five times over, although perfectly successful in accomplishing the chief purpose of deodorization, fails to add to it a sufficient amount of fertilizing matter to make it an available commercial manure. Extended experience in small villages and public institutions seems to confirm his view, that, if the earth-closet is to be adopted by towns, they cannot depend either on farmers buying the manure, or undertaking the labor of supplying and removing it. It is estimated, that, for a population of one hundred thousand persons, there would be required seventy-five tons of earth per day, to say nothing of heavy refuse matters which would be thrown into the closets, and would increase the amount to be removed. Even the quantity required for a village of a few hundred inhabitants, if it were to be brought in and carried out, would entail a considerable cost for handling.
I have recently concluded an experiment of six years' duration, the result of which seems to show that this objection to the adoption of the earth-closet system may be set aside, or at least reduced to such proportions as to make it unimportant. In the autumn of 1870 I had brought to my house, where only earth-closets are used, two small cart-loads of garden earth, dried and sifted. This was used repeatedly in the closets; and, when an increased quantity was required, additions were made of sifted anthracite ashes. I estimate that the amount of material now on hand is about two tons. We long since stopped adding to the quantity, finding that the amount was ample to furnish a supply of dry and decomposed material whenever it becomes necessary to refill the reservoirs of the closets.
The accumulation under the seats is discharged through simply arranged valves into bricked vaults in the cellar. When these vaults become filled,—about three times in a year,—their contents, which are all thoroughly decomposed, are piled up in a dry and ventilated place with a slight covering of fresh earth to keep down any odor that might arise. After a sufficient interval these heaps are ready for further use, there being no trace, in any portion, of foreign matter nor any appearance or odor differing from that of an unused fresh mixture of earth and ashes. In this way the material has been used over and over again, at least ten times; and there is no indication to the senses of any change in its condition.
A sample of this material has recently been analyzed by Prof. Atwater, at the Connecticut Agricultural Station at Middletown. The analysis shows that it contains no more organic matter than Prof. Voelcker found in fresh earth prepared for use in the closet,—say about two hundred pounds,—nearly all of which organic matter it undoubtedly contained when first made ready for use. In my case, there was an addition, at a moderate calculation of at least, 800 pounds of solid dry matter during the six years' use by an average of four adult persons. Prof. Voelcker's analysis showed that the unused earth contained about twelve pounds of nitrogen. Prof. Atwater's analysis shows that my two tons contained only about eleven pounds of nitrogen. By calculation, the 800 pounds of solid drymatters added in the use of my material contained 230 pounds of nitrogen.
Doubtless the constitution of Prof. Voelcker's sample was somewhat different from the original constitution of my own; but practically, except perhaps for the addition of a trifling amount of residual carbon remaining after the decomposition, they were about the same; and, after being used ten times over, the whole of the 800 pounds of organic matter added, including 230 pounds of nitrogen, seem to have entirely disappeared.
It becomes interesting and important to know what has become of this added matter. That it was absorbed into the particles of the earth, is a matter of course; and the result proves that after such absorption it was subjected to such a chemical action of the concentrated oxygen always existing in porous dry material as led to its entire destruction. Porous substances condense gases—air, oxygen, etc.—in proportion to the extent of their interior surface. The well-known disinfecting action of charcoal—the surface of the interior particles of which equal from fifty to one hundred square feet to each cubic inch of material, and all of which surfaceis active in condensing oxygen—is due not simply to an absorption of foul-smelling odors, but to an actual destruction of them by slow combustion, so that the same mass of charcoal, if kept dry and porous, will continue almost indefinitely its undiminished disinfecting action.
The earth used in the closet is a porous material, sufficiently dry for the free admission of air or of oxygen. The foulest materials when covered with dry earth at once lose their odor, and are in time as effectively destroyed by combustion (oxidized) as though they had been burned in a furnace. The process is more slow, but none the less sure; and it is clear that in the case of my dirt-heap the foul matters added have thus been destroyed. The practical bearings of this fact are of the utmost importance. Earth is not to be regarded as a vehicle for the inoffensive removal beyond the limits of the town of what has hitherto been its most troublesome product, but as a medium for bringing together the offensive ingredients of this product, and the world's great scavenger, oxygen. My experiment seems to demonstrate the fact that there is no occasion to carry away the product from theplace where it has been produced, as after a reasonable time it has ceased to exist, and there remains only a mass of earth which is in all respects as effective as any fresh supply that could be substituted.
The quantity necessary to be provided can be determined only by extended trial. My experiment proves that the amount needed does not exceed one thousand pounds for each member of the household, and that this amount once provided will remain permanently effective to accomplish its purpose.
With a suitable public supply of water for the purpose, and with a suitable means of disposal, nothing can be better and nothing is more easily kept in good condition than well-regulated and properly ventilated water-closets. Where these are available, with enough water for their flushing, their use is to be recommended. Where there is not sufficient water, there a well-regulated system of earth-closets seems to be imperatively demanded. By one process or the other we must prevent the fouling of the lower soil, and the consequent tainting of wells and springs, and the ground under houses and adjoining their cellars.With a system of sub-irrigation pipes which deliver foul matters into earth that is subject to the active operation of oxidizing influences, we need fear no contamination of the deep and 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.
"God made the country, and man made the town."
Cowper's view of the charm of country life as compared with life in the town is a very natural one. The same view suggests itself to every cultivated denizen of the city who finds himself in the country on a beautiful June morning, or under a warm September sun, or during the time of brilliant autumn foliage, or when the sun sets with a warm glow, gilding the clean, bare boughs of November trees, or when the whole countryside is covered with spotless snow, or when grass and leaves and buds and birds first feel the awakening warmth of spring. The scene is full of a charm and a novelty which appeal to him most strongly; and he believes, for the moment at least, that nothing could make him so entirely happy as to spend his life away from the noiseand confusion of the town, and amid such scenes of rural peace and beauty. Filled with this enthusiasm, one builds with reference to a magnificent view, and without regard to the practical inconveniences of the site, fancying that true happiness requires only a continuance of the novel charms which have enraptured him.
The cultivated countryman, too,—one who has learned to use his eyes, and to see what nature has to offer him,—appreciates even more thoroughly, if not so keenly, the never-ending and ever-changing interest by which he is surrounded. His admiration and enthusiasm, however, are tempered by familiarity with some disadvantages of country life,—just as the romantic house-builder finds on closer acquaintance that, magnificent though a hill-top view may be, a hill-top residence is not without its grave drawbacks, nor free from annoyances and practical objections which too often throw a veil over the most majestic outlook.
A blue-sided, white-capped mountain, reflected in a broad, placid, shimmering lake, and framed between fleeting clouds, graceful trees, and verdant lawn, is beyond compare the strongestinducement and the best reward one can offer to a visiting friend; but vile roads, distant neighbors, discontented and transitory servants, and all the thousand and one obstructions to the machinery of domestic life, soon blind the eye of the unhappy householder to the beauty which lies ever before him, until at last the one great good thing which commands his constant thought is that romantic and pecunious friend who shall come some happy day to purchase his estate.
There is another class, and a very large one, whose opinion concerning the godlike character of the country it is our especial purpose to consider here. The farmer and the farmer's family may or may not be cultivated persons. Cultivation does not come by nature; and the incessant and increasing duties of farm life leave one, however well disposed, but little time and but scant strength for 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 attachthemselves to the home, find their development on the farm as well as in the town. Sentimentally considered, it matters little whether the object of these emotions be on the farm, in the wilderness, in the village, or in the city. Fortunately, man is by no means a creature of emotion alone; and the satisfaction and good of living are less a matter of feeling than of activity, industry, and intelligence. The place in which one lives is more or less satisfactory in proportion as it facilitates and encourages the better and more useful living.
Just as the citizen feels the attractions of the country, which are so novel to his town-bred taste, so the countryman finds a charm in the novelty of the town. As one is led toward the quiet and solitude of the fields and woods, so the other is drawn by the life and interest of the community.
As a rule, at least in America, where the facilities for pleasant country living are far less than in England, the countryman who goes to town is less likely to wish himself back on the farm than is the town-bred farmer to long for the comforts and conveniences of his former condition.
"Man is a social animal," and the aphorism is especially true of his wife and daughter. As the lives of the wife and daughter are much more confined to the immediate surroundings of the domicile than is that of the man himself, so the question as between town and country should be considered more especially with reference to them.
There is a certain amount of truth on both sides of every question; and the one which we are now considering is not to be answered by a decision in favor of the heart of a great city, or of the entire solitude of an outlying farm. As is so often the case, its solution lies between the two extremes. If one may be permitted to imagine the conditions best suited to the perfect physical, intellectual, and social development of the human being, one would naturally think of a small town or a large village where society is sufficient, where the facilities for instruction are good, where communication with the large centres is easy, where the conveniences and facilities for household economy are complete, and where the country with its beauty and quiet and freshness is close at hand,—where one feels on thisside the influence of a complete social organization, and on that the sweet breath of mother earth.
Unfortunately, these imaginings can never be freed from the practical bearing of the bread-winning and money-making interests. Men must live, not where they prefer to live, but where their interests compel them to live. The town and the country have their mutual economic duties by which their life must be controlled. All that we can hope to do is, on one hand, to ameliorate the hardness and solitude of country living, and, on the other, to bring the citizen into nearer relation with the invigorating fields and woods and boundless air of the country.
Devising no modern Sybaris, where all possible good of life may follow from the unaided operation of a perfect social and industrial organization, I propose to confine myself to the simple question of the best practical development of village life for farmers. The village or its immediate vicinity seems to me to offer the urbanist the nearest approach to the country that is available for his purposes; and in like manner village life, so far as it can be made to fit his conditions,offers to the farmer as much of the benefit of town life as the needs of his work will allow him to obtain. If those who now seek the pleasures of retirement in costly and soul-wearying country-seats would congregate into spacious and well-kept villages, and if those who now live in the solitary retirement of the mud-bound farmhouse would congregate into villages, we should secure far more relief from the confinement of the town and a wider-reaching attractiveness in agricultural life; this latter leading to the improvement of our farming by a solution of that long-mooted problem, "How to keep the boys on the farm."
Nearly everywhere on the Continent of Europe those who are engaged in the cultivation of the land live in villages. An observation of the modes of life and industry of these villages has led me to consider whether some similar system might not tend to the improvement of the conditions of our own farmers, and to the amelioration of some hardships to which their families are subjected.
In Europe, as here, the methods of living have grown from natural causes. There it was a necessary condition of agricultural industry, thatthose who tilled the soil should be protected by the military power of their lord or chief; and their houses were clustered under the shadow of his castle wall. The castles have crumbled away, and the protecting arm of the old baron has been replaced by the protecting arm of the nation.
The community of living, which grew from necessity, having proved its fitness by long trial, is still maintained; but there seems to have been no general tendency toward the formation of such little communities here. Save in a few exceptional cases,—as in the old villages of the Connecticut Valley, where protection against Indians or safety from inundation compelled the original settlers to gather into communities,—the pioneer built his cabin in his new clearing, and, as his circumstances improved, changed his cabin for a house, and his small house for a larger one, and finally established his comfortable home in connection with his fertile fields. This method has been adopted throughout the whole country; and the peculiarly American system of isolated farm-life has become almost universal throughout the length and breadth of the land.
I am not so enthusiastic as to believe that aradical change from this universal system is to be hoped for at any early day; but I believe that it is worth while for farmers to consider how far they may, without permanent harm to the interests for which they are working, secure for themselves, and especially for their families, the benefits of village life.
To this end are adduced the following examples, both of which are of course purely imaginary. The first has reference to a new settlement of wild land, where, by the Government's system of division, the boundaries are rectangular, and where the political subdivisions are of uniform measurement. The second relates to the necessary change of conditions now existing in the longer-settled parts of the country.
For this latter, the illustration is taken from an actual accurate survey[1]of a purely agricultural district in Rhode Island, showing the roads, houses, and field boundaries as they now exist, followed by a suggestion as to the manner in which the same division of estates might be made to conform to the assembling of their owners into a village.
[1]A map of the United States Coast Survey.
[1]A map of the United States Coast Survey.
The Government division is into townships six miles square. It is proposed to divide each township into nine settlements, giving to each a square of two miles, or 2,560 acres. Each of these settlements should have its whole population concentrated in a village at its centre. A suitable method of division would be that indicated in Figure 11, where a public road crosses the middle of the tract north and south, and east and west. The outside of the tract, for the width of half a mile all around, is laid off in farms of 80 acres and 160 acres. These are bounded on the inner sides by a road. Inside of this road again is a series of smaller farms (40 acres), and inside of these a tier of still smaller places (10 acres), separated from the central village by a narrow road. The village itself occupies 40 acres.
The division of the agricultural land is as follows:—
4farms of160acres64016"80"1,28012"40"48012"10"120
in all, 44 tracts, aggregating 2,520 acres, andaveraging 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 wouldvary. 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.
FIG. 11.—DIVISION OF FOUR SQUARE MILES WITH CENTRAL VILLAGE.FIG. 11.—DIVISION OF FOUR SQUARE MILES WITH CENTRAL VILLAGE.
What is attempted is chiefly to show how four square miles of land may be so divided that its occupiers may be conveniently gathered into a village; and it may fairly be assumed, that, except in the more remote grazing and grain-growing regions, the population (including laborers) would generally be about one household for each sixty acres. In the more thickly settled regions, this limit is exceeded now; and, as population increases, this condition will extend. In any case, the principle advanced remains the same, whether there be thirty households or sixty.
A suitable division of the village is shown in Figure 12. Its centre is occupied by a public square at the intersection of the main roads. The road surrounds a piece of ornamental ground, containing about one acre. North and south of the square are the sites of two churches, a schoolhouse, and a store and public house. This is again arbitrary; the purpose is to havethese 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.
FIG. 12.—DIVISION OF THE CENTRAL VILLAGE.FIG. 12.—DIVISION OF THE CENTRAL VILLAGE.
The spaces set apart for these buildings, as well as the village green, should be surroundedby regularly planted trees, such as will grow to a large size, like the American elm. But the whole open space should remain otherwise free from planting. Smooth, well-kept grass, and large trees planted in formal lines, with an entire absence of fences, posts, chains, bushes, and all decorations, will give a dignity and character which an excess of ornamentation would spoil. A certain amount of judicious bedding would be permissible, but it would be best that even this should be confined to private places. Any fund available for embellishing the village green will be best used in keeping its grass cut and its walks clean,—entire neatness and simplicity being its most effective characteristics.
On the streets leading east and west from the green there are shown sixteen lots 100 X 250 (one-half acre), eight 50 X 250 (one-quarter acre). These lots all open on narrow lanes at the rear. On the streets leading north and south there are twelve lots 50 X 650 (three-quarters acre), and eight lots 100 X 650 (one and one-half acres). These are the village lots proper, but the twelve ten-acre tracts which front on its surrounding street would be the residences of their owners;and these semi-detached houses—the most distant not a quarter of a mile from the green—would form a part of the village, and come within the operation of its rules of association. Probably the blacksmith, the wheelwright, and the builder would occupy these outlying places, with an "annex" of farming to supplement their trades.
The village lots proper are all large enough for a kitchen-garden, barn, barn-yard, &c.; and all have means of access from the rear, so that their street fronts may be kept for ornamental purposes.
It would be a good rule that no house should stand nearer to the street line than thirty feet, and that no fence should be made nearer to the street than sixty feet. This would add very much to the largeness of appearance of the whole village; would decorate every street with the ornamental fronts of the houses and with their plants and shrubbery, and would, at the same time, shut off from the ornamental parts every thing belonging to the working department of the village life. Even the baker and the shoemaker should conform to this rule, and their shops should be made to help the neatness of appearance of the village.
The larger farmers, having the most cattle,would occupy the largest lots, which would readily accommodate their larger needs. The more ambitious of them would probably buy land, for night pasture or for cultivation, from a ten-acre neighbor opposite their rear line.
The village population would be somewhat as follows: two clergymen, one doctor, one teacher, one baker, one shoemaker, one tailor, two store-keepers, one carpenter, one wheelwright, one blacksmith, one dressmaker, one innkeeper, forty-four farmers: total, fifty-eight heads of families. Probably, including hired laborers and servants, the average would be six persons to each household. This would make the population of the village about 350. No part of the whole scheme is more arbitrary than this arrangement of its human element; and no part of it would be more modified in different cases by the element of human nature. Still, this sketch of the industrial division of the community would probably be approximated in any purely agricultural village of this size,—with such changes in the detail as would come from individual enterprise or indolence.
Taking the whole area at 2,560 acres, and thepopulation 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.
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.