ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF COUNTRY VILLAGES. 



54*? 



cheap sketch from a competent architect, 

 as a guide. Persuade your neighbor, who 

 is about to build, that even if his house is 

 to cost but S600, there is no economy that 

 he can practice in the expenditure of that 

 sum, so indisputable, or which he will so 

 completely realize the value of afterwards, 

 as $10 or $20 worth of advice with a few 

 pen or pencil marks to fix the ideas upon 

 paper, from an architect of acknowledged 

 taste and judgment. Whether the house 

 is to look awkward and ugly, or whether it 

 is to be comfortable and pleasing for years, 

 ail depend upon the idea of that house 

 which previously exists in somebodi/s mind, 

 — either architect, owner or mechanic, — 

 whoever, in short, conceives what that 

 house shall be before ii becomes "a local 

 habitation," or has any name among other 

 houses already born in the hitherto geace- 



LESS VILLAGE. 



It is both surprising and pleasant, to one 

 accustomed to watch the development of 

 the human soul, to see the gradual but cer- 

 tain effect of building one, really good and 

 stasteful house in a graceless village. Just 

 as certain as there is a dormant spark of 

 the love of beauty, which underlays all 

 natures, extant in that village, so certain 

 will it awaken at the sight of that house. 

 You will hear nothing about it ; or if you 

 do, perhaps you may, at first, even hear all 



kinds of facetious comments on Mr, ^'s 



new house. But next year you will find 

 the old mode abandoned by him who builds 

 a new house. He has a new idea; he 

 strives to make his dwelling manifest it; 

 and this process goes on, till, by-and-by, 

 you wonder what new genius has so changed 

 the aspect of this village, and turned its 

 neglected, bare, and lanky streets into 

 avenues of fine foliage, and streets of neat 

 and tasteful houses. 



It is an old adage, that " a cobbler's 



family has no shoes." We are forced to 

 call the adage up for an explanation of the 

 curious fact, that in five villages out of six 

 in the United States, there does not ap- 

 pear to have been room enough in which 

 properly to lay out the streets or place the 

 houses. Why, on a continent so broad 

 that the mere public lands amount to an 

 area of fifty acres for every man, wo- 

 man, and child, in the commonwealth, 

 there should not be found space suffi- 

 cient to lay out country towns, so that 

 the streets shall be wide enough for ave- 

 nues, and the house-lots broad enough to 

 allow sutficient trees and shrubbery to give 

 a little privacy and seclusion, is one of the 

 unexplained phenomena in the natural his- 

 tory of our continent, which, along with 

 the boulders and glaciers, we leave to the 

 learned and ingenious Professor Agassiz. 

 Certain it is, our ancesters did not bring 

 over this national trait from England ; for 

 in that small, and yet great kingdom, not 

 larger than one of our largest states, there 

 is one city — London — which has more acres 

 devoted to public parks, than can be num- 

 bered for this purpose in all America. 



It may appear too soon to talk of village 

 greens, and village squares, or small parks 

 planted with trees, and open to the com- 

 mon enjoyment of the inhabitants, in the 

 case of GE AGELESS VILLAGES, where there 

 is not yet a shade tree standing in one 

 o[ the streets. But this will come gra- 

 dually; and all the sooner, just in propor- 

 tion as the apostles of taste multiply in 

 various parts of the country. Persons in- 

 terested in these improvements, and who 

 are not aware of what has been done in 

 some parts of New-England, should imme- 

 diately visit New-Haven and Springfield. 

 The former city is a bower of elms ; and 

 the inhabitants who now walk beneath spa- 

 cious avenues, of this finest of American 



