ville is one of the most beautiful villages in the world, largely
again because of the potentialities of a new site acquired for the
definite purpose of building thereon a village in which overcrowding
shall be deliberately and permanently prevented, [Page: 121] and in
which work inside the factory may be varied by work in the garden. Now
that these successful experiments have been carried out in this country,
is it not time that the idea of establishing new industries on new
sites, and of surrounding those industries with healthy homes, should be
carried forward on a larger scale, with wider and more concerted
aims--carried forward, too, in such a manner as to make it possible for
the small manufacturer to take part in a movement which has proved to be
so beneficial alike to employer and employed? It is out of this thought
that the Garden City idea has grown, an idea now in course of being
fulfilled. Three thousand eight hundred acres of land, or nearly ten
times the area of Bournville or Port Sunlight, have been acquired in
Hertfordshire, two miles west of the town of Hitchin, and on the branch
line of railway between that town and Cambridge. State aid has not been
sought; that would indeed be weary work. But a company has been formed,
through the untiring efforts of the Garden City Association; plans for
the town have been carefully prepared, plans which, of course, have
regard to the contours of the land (which were first taken, showing
every change of level of five feet), to the preservation of its natural
beauties--its trees and the picturesque villages of Norton and Willian;
to the necessity for railway sidings and railway station, now, thanks to
the Great Northern Railway, already provided; to the making of roads of
easy gradient and of suitable width, affording access to different parts
of the estate, actual work on which is progressing; the careful guarding
from contamination of our water supply, already proved to be abundant;
the provision of a reservoir of suitable elevation, now in course of
construction; a system of drainage, about to be started with; the
provision of parks and playgrounds within the town, as well as a wide
belt of agricultural land around it; sites for homes for 30,000 persons,
with good sized gardens. About six cottages have already been built, not
by the Company but by private enterprise, while many others are just
about to be started upon; the setting apart of sites for schools,
churches