September 1924

BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS

MR. MEREDITH is away again on a long, hard trip doing all he can to make Better Homes and Gardens bigger and better than ever before. He didn't have time to write his usual "chat" for this page before he left, but he did say to me:

The House That Was a Barn

It Is Possible To Remodel Almost Any Place Successfully

Fall Planting for Spring Blooms

Now Is the Time to Prepare Next Year's Bulb Garden

Peonies for Your Little Garden

Now Is the Time to Plant Peonies for the Best Results

Get Your Family Roots Into Your Own Soil

A COUPLE of weeks ago I went out into my back yard and built one hundred feet of trellis fence and painted it green with my own hands, and tied my climbing roses to it. It wasn't John W. Crawford's back yard; it was my back yard. It wasn't the back yard I rented from John W. Crawford; it was the back yard I owned-- my own back yard.

I KNOW A MAN

He is a hard worker, for he has a job that he loves. Needless to say, his family is happy, contented, healthy. When he comes home at night, Ted and Julia, the two youngsters, are watching down at the corner. With shouts of welcome, they "hop" the running board, as he slows down the old bus, and ride up the block and into the driveway, their laughter and banter heard above the roar of exhaust and the squeal of brakes. When he climbs out, they attack by flank and front, until, overwhelmed, he capitulates and, laughingly, disgorges the gum or candy always found in his pockets.

How Shrubs and Flowers Add to Your Home

Homes of Famous Americans

IN Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, near William Penn's house some workmen were leveling off the broad terrace, preparatory to sowing grass seed. In the little garden at the rear of the ancient country seat, other men were pulling a few stray weeds. Somehow, that sight thrilled me and I said: "What a joke this is on the good folks 'who knew him when ...!'"

How Insulation Provides Comfort and Health

It is Just as Economical as Old Methods of Construction

Landscape Planning Service

THE irregular lot upon which the house illustrated on the opposite page is located affords some very interesting variations in the landscape setting.

The Renaissance of the Fireplace

TOWARD the middle of the last century, during what were, from the standpoint of architecture and interior decoration, exceedingly dark days, the fireplace temporarily lost its hold upon the home-building public; largely, perhaps, because of the strides which other means of household heating were making at that particular time. Both furnaces and stoves, for instance, were being improved upon and consequently vaunted to the skies by their makers on account of their greater distribution of heat and their freedom from the draft creating properties of the early fireplace.

Lighting the Garden

WHILE the sun and the moon light the garden unmatchably, artificial lighting is often most useful and ornamental at the same time, if discrimination is used in choosing and placing fixtures appropriately.

Relaxing After Meals

In Which the Dishwashing Problem Is Made Light of

Storage for Fruit and Vegetables

NO home is really complete without its fruit and vegetable storage cellar. During the winter months many families are forced to depend entirely upon retail stores for their supply of fruits and vegetables and buy them in very limited quantities, simply because they have no satisfactory place in which to keep them in good condition.

Garden Reminders

SEPTEMBER is the month in which we take advantage of the last days of summer to enjoy the results of this year's work and look ahead to the bigger things we hope to accomplish in our gardens another year. A good rule for early fall work is to do as much as we can now so that the busy days of next spring are not crowded too full.

Beware the Poison Ivy

THERE are two native vines which color gloriously in the autumn, and which every child should be taught to to recognize, poison ivy (Rhus radicans) and Virginia creeper (Ampelopsis quinquefolia). The latter has five leaves on one stem, and even constant cutting will rarely change its vine-like habit.

DAD'S PRACTICAL POINTERS

THE faucets at the kitchen sink often cause trouble because they are so exposed that now and then a dish is broken on them. At the ten cent store (and at others, too) you will find rubber tips used on canes and crutches which sell for five cents each.

Cherries in the Garden

Raspberries in a City Garden

I have one row of black raspberries about sixty feet long and a row of red raspberries about fifty feet long, used very much as a hedge on the edge of a terrace on a city lot to hide the alley.

Advantages of Plums

FALL PLANTED FRUITS

Success With Pears

Fruit Questions Answered

Dwarf Fruit Trees

Five Fruits on One Tree

An Inexpensive Bird Bath

From Garden to Table

BLESSINGS brighten as they take their flight," and surely the delectable vegetables with which the fall gardens overflow never seem so delicious or are valued so highly as just now, and a little later, when we feel that a sudden frost may at any moment put an end to them all.

A Backyard Poultry Flock

PRACTICALLY every householder has a back yard of some size and in a good many cases that back yard is growing weeds and other things that do not add to the value of the property or the prosperity of the property holder.

To prevent whitewash from peeling and thus providing a good hiding place for mites, add one pound of stick glue, dissolved in hot water, and a handful of salt to each five gallons of whitewash and apply warm...

Now is the time to be fattening some of the young cockerels for table use or for the market...

When inspecting chickens at night the flashlight is the best light to use since its rays will disturb only a few birds instead of the whole flock...

Are you planning on lighting your poultry house with artificial light this winter?...

Milk may be fed either sweet or sour with equally good results, but do not change from one to the other...

Music For Every Home

EVERY fall when school opens the same subject is likely to come up for home discussion: "How about music lessons?" The majority of American parents seem to have the attitude that music lessons are a question of age rather than the desire of the child to know music, and many parents still feel that music lessons should be given to talented children only.

Colorful Embroideries in Simple Designs

A home without lovely embroideries is like a yard without flowers-- and oftentimes the simplest embroideries are the most effective just as the simple old-fashioned flower holds a certain charm that is often lacking in the more pretentious one. Transfer pattern No. 156, blue, 20 cents, provides lovely waterlily designs sufficient for a bathroom set of one pair of curtains (at right) and two towels, illustrated below.

The Garden Seat

WE can't always find time, material or space to erect a full-sized summerhouse. But surely the smallest plot of outdoors belonging to us, whether it is the "back yard" or a garden, deserves a seat so that we can make the most of fresh air at home. A seat enticingly placed can be a vacation in itself.

Along the Garden Path

LOOKING back over the past year I can take a great deal of satisfaction in the progress made in my own back yard. The place is beginning to take outline and shape. The dream is beginning to come true. The work it has taken has been almost every spare moment I have had. Sometimes, in the hot sun, I have stopped and wondered; carrying dirt by the bucketful, the spadeful and the wheelbarrowful, is not "fun."