THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA 



advantages of town life, or at least of neighborhood as- 

 sociation. This was accomplished by assembling the 

 houses in a central village, laid out, in accordance with 

 a beautiful plan, with residences grouped on an out- 

 side circle touching the farms at all points. This plan 

 brought the settlers close together on acre-lots "homo- 

 acres" thus preventing isolation, and giving them the 

 benefit of school, church, post-office, store, library, and 

 entertainments. 



The Plymouth settlers have been contented and pros- 

 perous from the first, and have had less than the usual 

 share of early trials and disappointments. They testify 

 that the social advantages of the colony plan, as com- 

 pared with the drawbacks of individual and isolated set- 

 tlement, are alone sufficient to warrant its use. 



Each of the early sources of Idaho's growth left its 

 driftwood along the slender stream of the State's devel- 

 opment. The "old-timer" is an influential element in 

 its citizenship. Later comers, perhaps forgetting the 

 distance which has been covered since the days of the 

 primeval wilderness, and, in their impatience for prog- 

 ress, belittling the hardy heroism which made it pos- 

 sible, sometimes complain that the "old-timers "are con- 

 tent to live in the memory of "the early days" while 

 contributing little, either of enthusiasm or capital, to 

 further development. The obvious truth is that differ- 

 ent classes of people are required for different classes of 

 work. If the men who filled the role of pioneers are 

 not well suited by taste and temperament to solve the 

 problems involved in the evolution of a complex indus- 

 trial life, it is doubtless equally true that the element 

 which enters enthusiastically and intelligently upon this 



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