188 City Homes on Country Lanes 



If this be true, then more than half of us have some- 

 thing very serious to think about. Nothing is more 

 terrible than an unprovided old age. For many people, 

 the garden home is the best possible provision, and 

 when we shall have the right sort of national policy 

 this provision for a decent, comfortable, and interesting 

 old age will be brought within the reach of almost 

 everybody. For many it will be the richest period of 

 their lives. Of course, it is possible for a man to out- 

 live his usefulness, even in a garden home; but the 

 best place for him to be when that time comes is in a 

 neighborhood of sympathetic people, and the best asset 

 to possess is a well-developed garden home, where he 

 may readily find companions, or a family that is will- 

 ing to occupy the place (purchase it, perhaps), in 

 return for the care of its feeble owner. That is better 

 than dependence on "friends, relatives, or charity." 

 Indeed it is not dependence in any proper sense. It 

 is paying for what you get in the kind of coin that is 

 worth its face. 



The care of such a place is not beyond the strength 

 of healthy old age. With no rent to pay, with plenty 

 of vegetables, berries, fruit, milk, eggs, and consider- 

 able meat, the cost of living is small. It is quite feasible 

 to have a little surplus to exchange for cash, especially 

 of such things as eggs, chickens and rabbits. The 

 average old man would be far happier and better off 

 in every way in such a home of his own than in a public 

 institution, even of the better sort. In considering the 

 personal equation, the ageing person may well ask him- 

 self if he knows of any better provision to make in the 



