A LIVING FROM THE LAND 



and approved, the contractor assembles the 

 necessary materials from local sources, builds 

 and equips the house and turns it over to the 

 buyer in completed condition. Under such a 

 procedure there is little application of mass 

 production measures which have reduced costs 

 and raised quality standards in many industries, 

 notably in automobile construction, for example. 

 Thousands of houses built to sell in the recent 

 construction era of the 1920*8 have proved 

 unsatisfactory and costly to the occupants as 

 the result of shoddy building methods. Such 

 methods seem to be typically American as 

 distinguished from the far more solid and 

 permanent Old World procedure. It now seems 

 likely that the problem of economical and 

 substantial housing will be met in the method 

 that is also American namely, by the pre- 

 fabricated house to which various natural re- 

 sources of the country contribute. The parts 

 of such houses are made under mass production 

 methods and easily assembled on the owner's 

 lot. The same idea can be applied with ease to 

 apartment house construction in any location. 

 The first step in this direction has already been 

 mentioned in the case of mail-order companies 

 which cut the lumber to fit and supply every 

 needed accessory to the last detail. 



48 



