March 1924

FRUIT, GARDEN AND HOME

I AM sure that you will all be interested in a conversation I had recently with one of our good friends. It answers a question which has, perhaps, occurred to many of you.

"Remove Not The Ancient Landmark"

Be a Pal to Your Boys!

What I Have Learned In a Life-time With My Boys

How to Spade the Garden

Spading Is a Fine Art If You Know How

"Personally Painted"

FOR the final coat I used fifteen percent ichthyol ointment; on my right wrist and forearm up to the elbow, I mean. This gives the human skin a neat brown-black, as if it had been rubbed on the bottom of a coffee-pot that had first been stood on a wad of lard. I then wrapped the whole forearm in an old handkerchief and went to bed. For the first coat I had used ten percent iodine, following this with a second coat of the same the next night.

That Booster Committee of Yours

I have just been reading a circular sent me by the Booster Committee of a Chamber of Commerce of a western town.

Making the Most of the Yard

How a Home Gardener Made His Yard Attractive and Useful

Growing Strawberries in the Garden

Every Garden Should Have a Strawberry Bed

How to Succeed With Garden Beans

You Can Grow This Vegetable Where All Others Fail

Homes of Famous Americans

DOUBTLESS we all have our own individual ideas of genius. To some one type of work we bow, because to us it symbolizes the highest kind of endeavor. It may be to something we cannot do ourselves that we award our homage-- the weak admire the strong; the unlettered, the cultured; the underling, the man of power; the laborer, the industrial captain; the followers, the leaders.

What I Did With Annuals

A LITTLE garden, so it seemed to me last March, as I looked out over an area filled fence-high with snow, planning with catalogs and paper what was to be planted therein, but long before the last planting had been made I realized it was quite a sizeable garden for one person to handle.

Strong New Plants via Slips

Useful Information In Regard to Growing Plants from Cuttings

Rose Notes From a Dream Garden

NO doubt a great many of the readers of this magazine, at some time or other, have dreamed, planned and hoped for a rose garden of their own, but few of those who live in the cities own more than a small portion of the surface of Mother Earth, and fail to see how a rose garden can possibly be made of proper size to fit into such a scheme of things.

How We Improved Our Garden

Ideas Which Will Help You Make Yours Attractive

A Real Screen Story

THIS is a screen story: a story of how to make the home homier, the kind of story that every screen writer knows pays. There are two big screen stories in these days-- the film screen and the bug screen! The screen movie is strictly pleasure; the screen movable is a necessity hedged in with pleasure if it be the right kind.

Henry Ford's "Sentiment"

How He Has Completely Restored His Mother's Home As It Was Long Ago

Our Complete Home-Planning Service

We are making this home-planning section just as practical and useful as possible. We do not feel that the presentation of house-plans is enough; landscaping the lot and decorating the interior to carry out the architectural atmosphere is still necessary to make "the house a real home." Each month we will follow thru with material of this kind, a recognized expert in charge of each feature.

The Adaptability of Plaster

IT is, as a general rule, unwise to definitely select materials for the construction of a house until some decision as to the architectural development has been arrived at. There are, tho, exceptions to every rule-- else how could any rule be proved?

Vegetable Planting Table

Planting the Home Garden

MARCH is the beginning of the busy season! No more idle hours for the home gardener and her-- or his-- family; rather, there are plenty of pre-planting activities to occupy all spare hours that might otherwise be idle.

Do your cement floors become damp?

Tempting the March Appetite

SOMETIMES on March days when appetites veer with the weathercock and there is apparently nothing new in foods under the sun, it seems to even the most faithful wife and mother that she must go mad, as Lewis Carrol's famous rabbit, and feed her family indefinitely on nothing but toast and tea.

A Charming Small-Lot Garden

THERE is something about the formal garden which appeals to the eye of every gardener, whether he be an amateur raising a few plants in a tiny back yard or a professional with a large estate to care for. There is a general feeling, however, that formal gardens belong entirely on large expanses of ground and can be produced only by a great amount of work and at a considerable outlay of money.

Are you using our Home Planning Service in solving building problems?

GOING TO BUILD

Tie the House to the Grounds

WITH the better house movement, the small house which spells home has come into existence. This is due, in part, to the opening up of undeveloped land in the suburbs, giving the city dweller an opportunity to enjoy life in the open within easy commuting distance.

Watering High Window Flower Boxes

No modern home is complete without its window flower boxes and often it occurs that the window most desirable, a high kitchen or second-story window, cannot be utilized for flowers because it is so inaccessible-- flowers need a great deal of care to keep them at their best. Screens are necessary at such windows and the customary swinging screen cannot be used because, in swinging out, it interferes with the plants growing in the flower box.

Garden Reminders

Fruit trees and bushes may be transplanted as soon as the frost is out of the ground.

I HEARTILY RECOMMEND IT

The article in the January issue about "Native Shrubs for Our Gardens" appealed to me, but the author has omitted to mention one shrub which I consider very attractive and, in addition, is very easy to transplant...

Lawn furniture should be kept well painted...

The honeysuckle can take care of itself, if you provide a support for it...

A few old barrels (watertight) sawed one-third off and sunk to the surface in a corner of the yard will open water lily possibilities for you

Nicotine will destroy green flies (all kind of aphids) or plant lice...

A small paint keg with a two inch hole cut in it makes an ideal blue-bird house. Be sure to place a perch under the entrance...

Routing Garden Pests

THE best part about insect and disease pests that affect our garden and fruit crops is that practically all of them can be controlled. There are a few, of course, for which control measures are not yet worked out, but the more serious ones can be kept pretty well under control with the aid of sprayer and spray dope, dusters and dust, or other measures.

Plantings for Poultry Pens

When Old Sol sends out his rays on a hot summer day he is no respecter of persons. He does not stop to figure out whether or not he is going to make it too hot for your chickens or mine; he expects us to figure on that. And figure we must if we anticipate any degree of success with poultry.

If you want real permanency in your fence posts, set them in concrete...

Keep the Hens Laying

Careful attention and feeding will keep the hens laying thru the midsummer. The chief causes for the slump in egg production at this season are a failure to supply a balanced egg ration, lack of succulent green food, and indifferent care. Proper feed, plus regularity in feeding, has more to do with consistent egg production thruout the summer months than anything else.

Transplanting Shrubs

ALWAYS SPEAKS A GOOD WORD FOR US

I am doing my best to get your magazine into the hands of as many flower growers as possible. I think it is fine and it certainly fills a long-felt need. It was just an accident that I became a subscriber to Fruit, Garden and Home. This is how it happened: My sister visited me in August and brought with her a copy of your magazine which came in the mail the morning she was leaving.

INSPIRED ME ONE HUNDRED PERCENT

MY DAHLIAS

I see so many excellent little things in your magazine, and especially enjoy the page you call "Among Ourselves," so I thought that perhaps a glimpse of my personal experience might be of interest and bring encouragement to some one of your readers. Five years ago I bought a small rundown place in the suburbs, and having very little cash to put down, bought it on the pay-as-rent plan.

AN OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN

PUSSY WILLOWS

AN ADVENTURE IN LANDSCAPING

When we moved into our present home in December, 1913, the house, situated on a beautiful knoll, was a typical deserted farmhouse surrounded by about twenty acres of land. In course of time we had the house painted white, added screened porches, casement windows, wired the house and out-buildings, besides many other minor improvements.

HELPED US IMPROVE

Music For Every Home

A QUESTION that is frequently asked by thoughtful parents is, "What substitute can I give my family for jazz?" There seems to be a misunderstanding as to what jazz really is and what part it has and will play in the future music of America. We are apt to designate all music of a cheap, so-called "popular" type as jazz, because this is the music which is usually most easily put out of joint, but jazz is not a type of musical composition-- it is the manner in which the music is played.

THE WETHERSFIELD ELM

Easy Embroideries For the Busy Housewife

Like springtime itself are the lovely tulip curtains illustrated at the right, made of unbleached muslin with tulips of pink and rose color gingham and leaves of green gingham. A two-inch band of the pink gives an interesting finish to the set. The flowers are put down with heavy outline or chain stitch in matching floss.

Carpets and Rugs

Piecrust Wrinkles

I DON'T imagine that many of us have learned to make puff paste or that, even if we have mastered this process, we often concoct this variety of pastry. It is too expensive as to time and materials for every day and every pie use.

Frost Damaged Bark

AFTER a freeze, growers are confronted with the question as to how to care for trees with the bark of the trunk cracked open. The experiences obtained from various methods of handling such cases, warrant the recommendation that where the injury is not extreme, steps should be taken at once to save this loosened bark.

Along the Garden Path

I LIKE to see March come. I can take the cover off the lily pool in the back yard, give the pool a thoro cleaning, and late in the month run in the water and put the goldfish outdoors. I can enjoy the crocuses on the front terrace and watch the tulips as they send up the stalks which a little later will hold such a treasure of bloom. I can go over the lawn with a bucket of grass seed and touch up the bare spots and put on the first coat of commercial fertilizer.