SOCIAL SIDE OF COUNTRY LIFE 293 



able progress, as inventions multiply, not only in 

 number but in cost. Mr. Edison's concrete house 

 that is to be cast in a mould and served up to each 

 family, much as grave stones are furnished to the 

 dead, has also some features to commend it. Its 

 adoption would at least serve to get rid of many 

 of the unmeaning structures which are now occupied 

 by country home makers as mansions. 



Intensive farming we understand to be the tillage 

 of a small lot in such a way as to get as much from 

 it as others get from ten times the acreage. This 

 brings us very much closer together. Big pastures 

 disappear and great meadows are cut in slices, while 

 the mile long corn fields are subdivided into apple 

 orchards, berry gardens, and truck patches. It is a 

 grand fact about American tillage that great cattle 

 ranges are passing out very rapidly, while the same 

 number of cows are fed by green soiling and silage. 

 From these small homesteads, asparagus, lettuce, and 

 celery, followed by beans, potatoes, and melons, keep 

 the cars loaded nearly all the year round. 



As the century gets into the twenties and thirties 

 there will be double and then treble the number of 

 country residences. Our cities will not grow smaller, 

 except relatively. If you believe the present con- 

 gestion is to be tolerated, I am confident that you 

 are mistaken. Cities will widen out and open with 

 great rifts of trees and sodded playgrounds, beside 

 gardens innumerable. Skyscrapers are a mood, not 

 a need, and will follow the tower of Babel. The fu- 



