January 1925

A Chat with the Publisher

I AM sure that every subscriber likes to see January come. I do. No matter what the old year has brought forth, we look forward to the New Year with anticipation and eagerness because it gives us a chance to do better. Of course, it is not necessary to wait for January to come to have this feeling; every day is the beginning of a New Year.

February Issue Is the Biggest and Best Yet!

This, Then, Is the Real Doorway of Life!

"We Build Grandfather's House"

How We Secured Real Colonial Features at No Additional Cost

Making the Most of the Backyard

Pointers Which Will Help You Make Yours Just Right

Amateur Water Gardening

How It Helped Us Bring Nature to Our Door

Furnishing the Small House

WHENEVER one hears the word "home" mentioned, one's thoughts naturally turn to a cozy little white painted house, with green shutters, set snugly in a well-kept green lawn. There are boxes of flowers and a red chimney that sends twirling smoke up to the skies from a crackling grate fire in the big living room below. To hundreds of happy families "home" means just such a place; to others, "home" consists of three or four rooms in a city apartment house, and to still others, "home" is a house of more generous proportions.

Gunston Hall, the Home of George Mason

Where Lived and Died the Foremost Political Philosopher of All Time

Firing Your Garbage

ONE of the greatest menaces to health today is the fly and other insects, together with various putrefactions which take place due to the too slow and unsure disposal of waste. To do away with the fly the screen of course is necessary beyond all doubt, but to do away with the lure to the fly-- the waste and garbage of your home-- is just as necessary.

Does Your Budget Budge Much?

ONE of the wisest men I know-- he is the man who asked me to write this article-- wrote me the other day and said: "I'm not much on statistics, but I imagine that 99 44-100ths percent of average Americans probably spend as much time thinking about the money question as about anything else."

The Charm of Decorative Iron

IT is quite probable that if iron were not an age old commodity of much varied usefulness, its wonderful possibilities as a decorative asset would be far more generally appreciated by modern householders. Iron was, of course, much used by primitive people for the fashioning of many household furnishings and also freely employed by our own forefathers in their pioneer abodes, tho rather more for utilitarian than for decorative objects.

Making a Small Lot Productive

My Garden Is Only 20 x 30 Feet in Size But It Pays Well

A Little House of English Type

SUBSTANTIAL exterior walls of hollow tile, coated with rough-textured plaster, assure for this delightful little house of English type a structural permanency that is quite in line with the newer national attitude toward home building. In the days of our country's quickest growth, home builders were all rather apt to consider almost anything suitable for a home that both afforded shelter from the elements and the necessary amount of room.

My Forty Years With Plants

Who Doesn't Remember the Old Haw Tree and Its Fruit?

At the bottom of this page are shown "before and after" pictures of one backyard.

Folks Not Afraid Of An Idea

CHARLES LATHROP PACK is a quiet, intense individual who headed the American Forestry Association for years. His hobby and lifework can best be summed up in his quick and nervous speech as "Grow things!" This has been his hobby ever since he earned his first shining dollar in Cleveland by growing bigger, rounder and redder tomatoes than anyone else could grow.

Under the Library Lamp

Garden Guide (The Amateur Gardener's Hand Book), De La Mare Company. This comprehensive hand book for the small gardener has reached the fourth edition and several printings. It completely covers every phase of flower, vegetable and fruit gardening, together with a number of suggested layouts for landscaping the ordinary city lot.

DAD'S PRACTICAL POINTERS

SO many of you folks have written in asking that the blue print feature be continued that we have decided to make it a permanent part of this department, featuring one print each month.

Destroying Fireblight Out of Season

THE chief trouble with the average grower, or gardener, lies in his inability to recognize the winter breeding quarters of the fireblight of the apple. These winter spots are usually found on the trunks of the trees, but occasionally one is found here and there on the main branches and even on a twig.

Fitting In the Chickens

Where to Put the Fowls on a City Lot

Twenty-Five Ways to Improve the Old Home

"Something You Can Do Now to Make Your Home More Comfortable"

Flowers for Gifts

ALTHO we are all interested in flowers as they grow in our gardens, we do not always think, of their practical utility as gifts. We proudly exhibit a fine specimen of a blooming rose bush, an attractive border or an unusual plant, but we do not always consider the many ways in which we may bring pleasure to others with these same flowers.

The Music of the American Indians

There Is Melody in It as Well as Marked Rhythm

Fascinating Embroideries for the New Year

Transfer pattern No. 172, blue, 20 cents, provides motifs for a five-piece luncheon set, the runner and one plate doily being illustrated at left. The pieces shown on this page are made of creamy Italian linen and finished with a dainty crochet edge. Lace or blanket-stitching may be substituted, if preferred. The design is carried out in medium blue floss and the effect is decidedly artistic and the work quite simple.

Along the Garden Path

MY daily mail brings me many pleasant surprises. The other day a subscriber in Porto Rico sent in the subscriptions of several friends and commented very highly on Better Homes and Gardens. Today a letter came from a subscriber in far-away China, which has made the day just a little brighter. Her name is Mrs. Mary Walmsley and she was for thirty years head of the English department in one of the large Eastern colleges for women.