ment of its private places which would spoil its beauty. Neatness
and a reasonable care in the matter of house-gardening, the planting of
flower-beds, vines, etc., are all that would be needed.

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

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

[Illustration: 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