post-office within
five minutes' walk. In such a settlement as is contemplated, most of the
business needs of the farmer would be amply supplied, and he would find
the companionship at hand even more satisfactory, because more familiar,
than that which he now finds in the town.

It is not worth while to calculate the cash saving that would come of
this reduction of road-*work. It is enough to consider it as an
important offset to the cost of carrying men and manure to the field and
of bringing crops to the village.

Under the present system the women have the worst of it. They have the
confinement and seclusion and dulness. Under the village system the men
would have the discomfort, and this is why it will be less easy to
secure its adoption; for the men control, and prefer _not_ to have the
heavy end of life's log to carry.

Under either of the plans given herewith, the greatest--not the
average--distance from the house to the farm would be about one mile,
and it would have to be travelled only during the working weather of the
warmer months, and during the good wheeling of winter. In summer, all
hands would have to set off early, and come home late, often carrying
their dinner with them as mechanics do; but when field-work did not call
them out, as during rains, or when the ground is too wet to be
disturbed, their barn-work and shop-work would be at home; and, all the
winter through, the only road-work to be done would be to send the teams
to haul out the manure, and to bring home the hay, which would be best
stored under "Dutch hay-barracks" in the fields when it was made. This
work would be systematic and simple; and it may fairly be questioned
whether it would not, in many cases, amount to _less_ than the cost of
the "driving" that is now done, and which in the village might be
foregone. Especially would this be the case when all the heavy farm-work
is done by oxen, which when idle, instead of eating their heads off like
horses, are accumulating valuable flesh. With sufficient ox-power to do
the work easily, the whole transportation of tools and men, and all the
hay-tedding and hay-raking, would be easily done by one horse, with
leeway enough to allow for a fair amount of business or pleasure travel.

So far as the presence of the farmer himself is concerned, it is to be
considered that if his farm and cattle are near his house in the
village, he will be within easy reach of them very often at times when
his v