Our Country Villages .TJ7 



or a single plan formed calculated to embody past experi- 

 ence, or to assist in any way the laying out of a village or 

 town.* 



We have been the more struck by this fact in observing 

 the efforts of some companies who have lately, upon the 

 Hudson, within some twenty or more miles of New York, 

 undertaken to lay out rural villages with some pretension 

 to taste and comfort, and aim, at least, at combining the 

 advantages of the country with easy railroad access to 

 them. 



Our readers most interested in such matters as this (and, 

 taking our principal cities together, it is a pretty large class), 

 will be interested to know what is the beau-ideal of these 

 companies who undertake to buy tracts of land, lay them 

 out in the best manner, and form the most complete and 

 attractive rural villages, in order to tempt those tired of the 

 wayworn life of sidewalks into a neighborhood where, with- 

 out losing society, they can see the horizon, breathe the 

 fresh air, and walk upon elastic greensward. 



Well, the beau-ideal of these newly-planned villages is 

 not down to the zero of dirty lanes and shadeless roadsides; 

 but it rises, we are sorry to say, no higher than streets lined 

 on each side with shade trees and bordered with rows of 

 houses. For the most part those houses - - cottages, we 

 presume - - are to be built on fifty-foot lots; or if any buyer 

 is not satisfied with that amount of elbow room, he may 

 buy two lots, though certain that his neighbor will still be 

 within twenty feet of his fence. And this is the sum total of 

 the rural beauty, convenience, and comfort, of the latest 

 plan for a rural village in the Union. f The buyer gets 

 nothing more than he has in town save his little patch of 



* Since 1850, when this was written, town planning has become known 

 as an art, a science and a profession, and the many glorious achievements 

 in this field would greatly warm the spirit of Andrew Jackson Downing. 

 Let us believe that in these good works his spirit is still marching on. - 

 F. A. W. 



t We say plan, but we do not mean to include in this such villages as 

 Northampton, Brookline, etc., beautiful and tasteful as they are. But 

 they are in Massachusetts! A. J. D. 



