THE COUNTRY HOME [chapter 



I see no reason why adjacent farms shall not 

 build their houses within calling distance of one 

 another. This is all the more easy now that ten to 

 twenty acres is held to be enough for good tillage. 

 What can be done with two farmhouses can be 

 done with three or four forming a group of houses 

 near adjacent corners. This intimacy would re- 

 quire good neighbors, but it would tend to develop 

 neighborliness. It would cultivate a rivalry in the 

 way of well-kept lawns and orchards, and create a 

 comparison of methods and results. A letter, de- 

 scribing something of this kind, says, "When sud- 

 den illness occurs, somebody is near by to help. Of 

 course we can quarrel more easily, but the quarrel 

 is not likely to be as lasting as if we lived farther 

 apart." This whole question of cooperation in 

 country life is still an unfinished problem. Co- 

 operation in the way of building, harvesting, and 

 domestic industries is taking a new and broader 

 sweep. Cooperative marketing will follow co- 

 operative production. This will require a more 

 accurate system of grading our products, and will 

 develop a higher degree of economic education. 

 Individualism cannot be satisfied to end with it- 

 self. Emerson says, "Your millennium is in your 



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