March 1923

A CHAT WITH THE PUBLISHER

THE other day one of my old friends, who is a subscriber to Fruit, Garden and Home, wrote me as follows: "Meredith, in an article in a recent issue you described a backyard poultry house. What I want to know is where I can buy one. My wife and son are worrying me to death about building one, and I am so busy I cannot get to it."

When the Backyard Garden Calls

We Need To Grow More Vegetables

Your Gardens Can be Planned to Supply Your Tables

Arranging a Program of Landscape Development

Why You Should Have a Plan and How to Make One

Homes of Famous Americans

IF you have never been to Springfield, you will find yourself, as the train approaches that city, eagerly watching the countryside from the car window and saying to yourself, "So this is the Lincoln country! So this is where Lincoln came as a youth from Indiana; this is where he split rails and kept store, studied law, rode the circuit and debated Douglas!"

How to Grow Sweet Peas

THE sweet pea is a most delicate little flower and it is, oh, so particular about the kind of treatment it receives from the hands of an expectant grower. It ever so often folds its sprouting leaves in early youth and withers away rather than be made to bloom in soil which is much too poor for its dainty diet or yet too damp for its especial comfort. Every spring thousands of amateur gardeners, attracted by the delicate fragrance and colorful tints of the sweet pea flower, start a little patch in their own front yard.

My Neighbor's Chickens

THE oldest conundrum in the world is "Why does a chicken cross the road?" It is so ancient I believe Adam must have invented it in order to give Eve the first intelligence test ever known. My own opinion is that Adam took a chicken-- probably a long-legged wide-winged variety-- and went down to the gate of Eden and threw that chicken hard and far over the fence. Instantly the chicken turned and scuttled back across the road, just missing a couple of snorting pterodactyls that were cavorting down the road, and squawked loudly as it ducked under the gate.

A Home Reflecting Comfort and Good Taste

IT is a comparatively easy matter to build an attractive home where funds or other facilities give plenty of leeway for developing ideas of design. But in the small or even medium sized house for the average sized lot, the problem is decidedly a more difficult one. Too few architects give serious thought to smaller houses because persons requiring the services of architects seldom want small houses.

The Part Paint Plays in the Home

HOW many times you have watched a mechanic make some repair on an engine and have said to yourself, "It's simple enough-- when you know how!" What probably did not occur to you at the time was that his 'knowing how' must have been backed up by a certain handiness and experience born of having done that job many times before.

The Right Picture in the Right Place

Careful Choosing and Placing of Pictures is Very Important

Getting Value Received For Storage Space

There Is Much Satisfaction In a "Place For Everything"

Growing Plants in Paper Bands and Pots

Florists' Methods Which Will Increase Your Gardening Results

What to Do With Dried Fruits

Twelve Delicious Recipes for Using Home and Commercially Dried Fruit

How, When and What to Plant

IF you have searched in vain on seed packets for detailed information on planting vegetables, you will find use for this backyard gardener's "manual of arms." The fads and fancies have been left out, just the how, the when and the what.

The Thread and Needle Fairy

QUITE by accident I came the other day upon a little home so lovely that I spent an enchanted hour wandering thru its cheerful rooms. When I entered the place I felt as if the narrow stairway I had just climbed was some kind of a magic carpet out of a fairy tale and that I had been transplanted into Fairyland.

Garden Reminders

Make your garden work easier by providing the proper tools. Have a hand plow, with handy attachments by all means, and any other special tools you may need. They are great conservers of time and energy.

Intensive Housekeeping

If you do not possess a regular weighted polisher for your waxed floors, a brick, wrapped thickly in woolen cloths, is a good substitute, sufficient for the spots in front of doors and between rooms that require frequent polishing.-- Mrs. H. C., Missouri.

A Family Treasure Trove

SEVERAL years ago, the oldest son of an interesting family of my acquaintance began, merely for their mutual entertainment, the editing, at spasmodic intervals, of a magazine gotten up mainly on the typewriter, and consisting of one copy to each edition. This periodical, which he christened "The Worldwide Squawk," was read and re-read by said members of his own clan with all avidity.

Old Copies Wanted

Vegetables You Should Have

Some Tips on Early Garden Vegetables

All in a Backyard Garden

Who loves a garden? It seems to me everyone does, for they visit me from babies to grandpas, and all seem to enjoy a brief stay-- if it's a nip of a favorite herb and a rest in the shade, a quiet peep at a nesting bird or the splash of one at his bath.

HAVE A FRIENDSHIP GARDEN

My mother is a subscriber to "Fruit, Garden and Home." All the members of our family think 1 that it is a fine little visitor and cannot understand how you can publish it at such a happy price. So many of the flower and home periodicals are elegant but their suggestions so impractical and so far beyond the attainments of the families of moderate circumstances that to find a companion like "Fruit, Garden and Home" is a real pleasure.

Vines such as the English and Boston Ivy should be thinned out a little now, but only as much as necessary to dress un a little and hold within bounds...

Strawberries in Hills

LAST season I raised a crop of strawberries the cash value of which was twenty-one dollars, on a little plot of ground which measured less than one-fiftieth of an acre. That is at the rate of over $1,000 per acre. I practiced the hill system with that patch and that system surely gave me great results.

My Backyard Flock

Five Hens Returned an Excellent Profit on Investment

If fences or buildings are not of neutral shades, care must be taken not to plant vines with strong colored flowers that will clash with the paint...

Lawn grass seed if sown in the spring should be done just as early as it is possible to work up the soil...

Plums for Fruitless Backyards

WHILE the Compass cherry is known far and wide for its hardiness, productiveness and early bearing, the Hansen Hybrid plums are comparatively little known, owing to their more recent introduction. They are, however, as hardy, bear as young, as the Compass cherry, and in size and eating qualities are equal to the very best.

PRUNING AND SPRAYING GUIDE

Plan your campaign against worms and insects and diseases in the garden and fruit patch right now.

Sodium Fluorid for Roaches

Favorite Flower Contest

My favorite flower is the violet. First, I love it for its personality. After all, that is why we love any friend. Because you are you, we say, we love you. Sweetness, quiet loveliness, modesty; that's the violet, with color of Heaven's blue, and odor of the good Earth.

The Rose

Nasturtium

Snapdragons

After fifteen years of successful amateur flower-growing, I unhesitatingly designate the snapdragon as my favorite flower.

The Columbine

My preference for the columbine is both practicable and sentimental. They thrive in most any soil, no matter how poor. Year after year they spring from the ground without replanting. Few hardy perennials give such unalloyed satisfaction, or repay us so largely for a little extra nursing.

Blue Flowers for the Garden

FLOWERS of blue are perhaps more scarce than flowers of any other color. Yet blue, the reflection of the sky, is most charming in the garden. It is the one color that is often lacking for contrast-- pale blue against delicate pink or purplish blue against bright yellow.

A Floral Friendship

I have attempted to cultivate the acquaintance of most seeds, plants and bulbs which flower so luxuriantly in the floral catalogs. Sad to relate, many of these acquaintances have proven disappointments and disillusionments, while very few have blossomed into friendships.

Verbenas

We know a woman who specializes in verbenas, for her own satisfaction. She had a rock bed made, of goodly dimensions, with sort of terraces or dirt ledges perhaps eight or ten inches in width. The basis of the rock bed, was first a pile of rich dirt. From year to year she covers this bed with scarlet and white verbenas, and she has a blaze of color the whole summer thru.

Did This Ever Happen in Your Kitchen?

Do you always slice your potatoes when you warm them over in a frying pan? This method if recommended instead by a reader of Fruit, Garden and Home: ''I find instead of chopping or slicing my boiled potatoes I can use my wire potato masher and just press down thru the potatoes once.

The Red Dead Nettle

FOURTEEN years ago when I first met the red dead nettle I studied its habits for two years before I was able to find any one who could tell me the correct name of this plant. In fact a prominent naturalist gave me its name, and a year later I discovered that he had made an honest mistake, and that it did hot bear that name whatsoever.

Eggs in Many Ways

CERTAIN people there are who think of a cooked egg in two or three thoughts, but adventurous cooks know more about them and realize that, in combinations with other foods, eggs can be served in such a variety of ways that they become one of the foundations of the menu.

Along the Garden Path

ONE of our good subscribers, Harry Welch of Phoenix, Arizona, sent in a letter boosting the magazine the other day. He wrote something across his date line which drove home an impressive thought I will never forget. What he wrote was this: "The Sun Is Shining Today at Phoenix, Arizona." If everyone in Phoenix is writing that slogan across the top of his letters, what a place it must be to live in!