The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1919-07-30

House Costing Only $3.50 Per Month
Clean, Thrifty Gardening Practiced
in Some Sections.
The housing problem, especially for
employees in highly congested Industrial
| centres, has engaged the attention of
municipal and federal authorities in
many sections of the country, but little
has been said of the projects of private
corporations which have anticipated the
situation and are now in position to
take care of those in their employ with
out danger to the health and morals of
| the men, women and children directly
! dependent upon the industry. In many
| industrial centres there has been lot of
| quiet work done on permanent foun-
dations, and perhaps nowhere in the
whole country have there been greater
strides made within the last two or
three years than in the anthracite re-
gions of Pennsylvania.
| As the largest single interest in the
anthracite industry, the Philadelphia &
Reading Coal and Iron company, has
naturally put into effect the most extern
sive program, and what it has done typi-
fies, in general way, what is being
done throughout the whole coal region.
This company owns SOS blocks of double
houses and 2S4 single houses in Schuyl-
kill and Northumberland Counties, a
total of 1920 residences, which would
mean at the general average of five per-
sons per family, about 10000 persons
| living in company houses. These do not
| include houses which have been erected
| by holders of lands leased from the
Reading, and over which the company
has no control save at the actual owner
of the ground.
According to the mining people the old
orthodox conception of an anthracite
mining village was a squalid, tumble
! down collection of houses along a dirty
street with open drainage. That may
| have been correct years ago, but today
the mining village as built and owned
! by the mining company is model place.
A few miles east of Pottsville, for ex-
ample, is little settlement called
! Reevesville. Here the Reading has
! built six twin blocks, making twelve
! houses. On the wooded hill back of the
settlement is water reservoir, fed from
a never-failing spring, which supplies
i the houses with pure, cold water. The
village street is graded and the whole
settlement is carefully drained. The
lots are 40 feet by $50 feet, surrounded
4 by painted wooden fences
II Each house has seven rooms, and every
room-this is almost a cast-iron rule
with the Reading-has two windows
Each house is wired for electric light
current being supplied from the mine
at normal cost. There are cement
sidewalks in every yard and on the vii
lage street Maple trees have been
/ planted between sidewalks and curb
Other desirable features are hot and
cold water, and a hot-air furnace Rent
protiteers in the large cities will be in
terested In knowing that these Reeves
dale houses, as described, with then
seven rooms, rent for $3.50 a month
| this including the water tax. As gen
eral rule the Reading houses rent 70,
about s. per month per room, with tn,
water tax added to this amount
Most of the houses are heated bv ho
air furnaces of the ordinary type. Som,
have been equipped with steam heat ant
good results have been attained in 9th
ers with the pipeless furnaces, but tn,
ordinary hot air furnace is the favorite
Besides having made a success O.
building and renting model villages, tn,
Philadelphia & Reading has been sue
4 cessful in keeping them clean and whole
some. This has been accomplished il
large measure by the establishment of
free ashremover sytem. Once a weel
the collector comes for the ashes and oil,
tin cans, which must be placed, in sep
arate boxes or metal cans, at the rear o
the lot. Garbage is not removed. bu
the company insists that each tenan
shall burn all garbage regularly an
this is well observed. The dumping o
h ashes, cans, rubbish, or garbage in Q
around lots is strictly prohibited
By encouraging the cultivation of tn
liberal gardens provided for tenants. b
supplying fertilizer from the collier
stables and by affording free advic
from an agricultural expert, the con
pany has built up a sentiment in fave
of clean and profitable gardens, instea
of the rubbish heaped yards of olde
days. AS result, each year finds tn
hard coal regions of Pennsylvania a be-
ter place in which to live