The Improvement of Country Villages 337 



amount lo an area of fifty acres for every man, woman, and 

 child in the commonwealth, there should not be found space 

 sufficient to lay out country towns so that the streets shall 

 be wide enough for avenues and the house-lots broad enough 

 to allow sufficient trees and shrubbery to give a little privacy 

 and seclusion, is one of the unexplained phenomena in the 

 natural history of our continent, which, along with the 

 boulders and glaciers, we leave to the learned and ingenious 

 Professor Agassiz. Certain it is our ancestors 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 numbered 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 

 common enjoyment of the inhabitants in the case of grace- 

 less villages, where there is yet not a shade-tree standing in 

 one of the streets. But this will come gradually; and all 

 the sooner, just in proportion as the apostles of taste mul- 

 tiply in various parts of the country. Persons interested 

 in these improvements and who are not aware of what has 

 been done in some parts of New England, should immedi- 

 ately visit New Haven and Springfield. The former city 

 is a bower of elms; and the inhabitants who now walk be- 

 neath spacious avenues of this finest of American trees 

 speak with gratitude of the energy, public spirit and taste 

 of the late Mr. Hillhouse, who was the great apostle of taste 

 for that city, years ago, when the streets were as bare as 

 those of the most graceless villages in the land. And what 

 stranger has passed through Springfield and not recognized 

 immediately a superior spirit in the place, which long since 

 suggested and planted the pretty little square which now 

 ornaments the town? 



But we should be doing injustice to the principle of prog- 

 ress, to which we have already referred, if we did not men- 

 tion here the signs of the times which we have lately noticed; 

 signs that prove the spirit of rural improvement is fairly 



