734 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the fields, and to double the production of the soil, is to substitute suit- 

 able buildings at the centre of an agricultural township for unsuit- 

 able, straggling farm-houses and barns, and to replace solitary labor 

 on farms by the modern method of organized industry, applied to the 

 cultivation of a domain large enough to permit selection of soils and 

 the use of adequate machinery. This question, " How can we keep 

 the boys on the farm? " has just received a thoughtful answer from 

 Colonel George E. Waring, in an " Ogden Farm-Paper," in the April 

 number of the American Agriculturist. 



What we need, in order to harmonize our household system with 

 other branches of modern industry, is a Federative Homestead, owned 

 by those inhabiting it, in which the great entries or halls may be con- 

 sidered as streets under cover, and the individual or family domiciles, 

 houses under a common roof. For such buildings a new architecture 

 and new machinery are needed. The Peabody tenement-houses in 

 London, the family club-houses in England and on the Continent, the 

 family hotels in this country, and the Familist6re at Guise, though 

 furnishing valuable architectural suggestions, have solved as yet but 

 few of the problems of construction of the " People's Palace," as it has 

 been called. Invention also has done comparatively little to furnish 

 labor-saving machinery for agriculture and the household on account 

 of the segregated and slovenly character of these industries. 



The most obvious form of the People's Palace in the town is a hol- 

 low square, surrounded with streets, with inclosed and surrounding 

 gardens the space in the centre being large enough to give air and 

 a pleasant outlook to the inner domiciles. To further this object, one 

 side of the square might be left open, or devoted to w T ork-rooms, only 

 a single story in height. In the country the building might take the 

 form of a cross, giving an open view on all sides with public rooms 

 and halls, or a conservatory under glass (a winter garden) in the 

 middle, and gardens surrounding. 



The economies would increase, and also the independence of the 

 occupants, with the increase of numbers within certain limits. While 

 the edifice might be of equal size for rich or poor, the separate domi- 

 ciles would naturally be smaller and more numerous where the means 

 of the proprietors were less. In the same building the various domi- 

 ciles would differ in value according to situation and size, and thus 

 would suit persons of different means. Not less than one hundred 

 nor more than four hundred families may be assumed for illustration as 

 probable limits of number. 



A building of architectural beauty, favorably situated in country 

 or town, to contain one hundred domiciles, would cost, including land, 

 not more than two-thirds as much as one hundred separate houses of 

 the same class, giving to each family the same amount and quality of 

 habitable room. The edifice should be fire-proof, safer from intrusion, 

 better drained, better ventilated, freer from offenses of all kinds, than 



