of the more difficult problems confronting the water works operator of today is the necessity for considering and acting upon the many requests for water service by real estate dealers and individual property owners owning property located beyond corporate limits. Requests of this character have been on the increase during the last decade. Previous to the 1931-32 depression, the population movement was from the rural to the urban areas ; now it is from urban to suburban areas. From 1930 to 1940, the population of Cleveland, Rochester, N.Y., Portland, Me., San Francisco, and other large cities, remained practically stationary inside the city limits, and the adjacent areas increased in population from 10 to 45 per cent. Before the advent of cheap transportation, water supplies generally served compact, closely built-up areas requiring a minimum of distribution system expense for a maximum number of customers. This condition is rapidly changing so that now water operators find that their cost of investment per customer is steadily increasing from year to year. The requests for suburban water lines originate primarily from real estate operators proposing the development of new subdivisions from individual property owners who have built outside the city, and from local health authorities who are desirous of cleaning up some health menace adjacent to the city proper, that may be eliminated by supplying pure water. The health authorities feel that a case of typhoid fever just outside the city is just as dangerous as one within city limits. In the consideration of this type and character of requests for suburban water service, many factors have to be taken into account before the installation of the water line. Principal among these are capital cost, operating cost, depreciation and anticipated