February 1925

In March Many Important Features!

IN the March issue many good things are in store for each reader. Maxwell Droke contributes an important article for prospective home builders entitled, "Before You Buy or Build." Other phases of home building comprehensively treated include an account by Helen Head Simons of her own experiences in using wallboard, and Ethel R. Peyser discusses the entire subject of insulation in building.

A Dream Come To Pass Where Loveliness Dwells

When You Plan Your Castle In Spain

Six Thousand Home-Planners Were Consulted For These Suggestions

Wild Flowers In Domestic Gardens

Points On How to Select, Arrange and Transplant Wildings In Your Garden

Delphinium, Queen of the Blue Flowers

How to Use Them In Your Gardens to Best Advantage

Some Of The Better Hardy Perennials

No Flower Garden Can be a Success Without Perennials

Little Adventures in Super-Gardening

These Tips Will Help You Get More Out of Your Little Garden

Better Lawns That Last Longer

You Can Have a Good Lawn If You Obey These Simple Rules

How I Built My Rock Garden

"In Two Years I've Had One Hundred Years of Pleasure"

"... and Killing My Annabel Lee" Moaned Poe

Twenty-sixth Article in a Series On the Homes of Famous Americans

Grow Some Annuals in Your Yard

How You Can Have a Real Garden On a Trifling Outlay of Cash

Landscape Planning Service

THERE are three areas to be considered in the landscape of every home, no matter if it be the most spacious mansion or the most humble cottage. These three areas are the public area, the one your neighbors see every day in passing your home, the service area, the one the grocery boy knows intimately, and the private area, the family outdoor living room.

The Winning Ways of Wicker

WICKER is today a comprehensive term, applied alike to wicker, cane, reed, bamboo, rattan and willow: hence wickerware has now become synonymous with furniture and furnishings of an infinite variety in price and pattern, form and finish. As a result of this pronounced variation, wickerware has a winning way of adapting itself marvelously and equally effectively to the large house and the small, the elaborate interior and the simple, the costly home and the inexpensive. ...

RAISING ORIENTAL POPPIES

Favorite Flowers and How to Plant Them

EVEN tho your garden be small you will want to include at least some of the old favorite flowers which are listed in the tables below, this coming summer. These varieties are easily grown from seed in any locality, altho practically all of the plants may be purchased from your nurseryman if preferred.

How I Grow Head Lettuce

MY land! How do you grow such large cabbages in the wintertime? Aren't they the grandest heads!" So my aunt from the East expressed herself recently at the sight of an even row of Los Angeles Market head lettuce in my garden. It wasn't the first time that California head lettuce has been taken for cabbages, however, so she isn't such a poor guesser at that.

The Rejuvenation of Old Houses

THRUOUT the country, there are many forlorn-looking, even dilapidated old houses with grounds, that can be secured for the cost of the ground, and the outlay to rejuvenate and modernize apparently hopeless cases would seldom exceed the cost of a new building, as considerable parts of any old house usually have much that may be salvaged.

Folks Not Afraid Of An Idea

TEN houses, a store, a church and a grist mill; perhaps a hundred people if you could get them all together. Not much to hold a university graduate with dreams of accomplishment, and the far green field, you may say. But Miss Mary Connor of Token Creek, Wisconsin, ten miles out of Madison, didn't think so.

My Forty Years With Plants

Heathers May be Grown in Your Garden If Your Soil Is Right

How We Built a Bird Bath

ANY boy or man, whether he lives in town or in the country, who will take the trouble to make a bird bath will be well repaid by the pleasure of having many birds about his home.

New Peach Trees From Old

When Heeling Out Plants

Grape Pruning

Supporting Young Trees

Garden Reminders

IN February the back of the winter is broken," is the way an old almanac describes this shortest month of the year. It is also the month in which the enthusiastic gardener plans for a bigger and better garden the coming season. Make a diagram of your grounds and plan your work systematically; make the labels for the seed markers now; order your seed catalogs and make your selections from them so that they will be on hand when needed.

An Inexpensive Coop For the Small Flock

THE cost of feeding a dozen or fifteen hens is so little when compared with the retail price of the eggs they will produce that it is a pity for the average family to be without a small flock. But most people will immediately think that the considerable cost of the coop and the care of the chickens would more than offset the difference.

Flower Toys and Games

Games of Other Days and Times The Little Folks Will Enjoy

DAD'S PRACTICAL POINTERS

THE many letters that you folks write each month to this department help a great deal to determine what sort of material you like most. In other words, what you want most will be reflected each month in this department.

Gardening for House Bouquets

Plants, as well as People, Are Made for Service

Six Ways to Succeed With Roses

Subscribers Share Their Experiences With You

Spoiling Eleanor

The Grandmas Thought She was Ill, But the Doctor Had Another Idea

Making the Small Garden Pay

THE mark of a real gardener lies in producing an abundance of high quality vegetables from a limited space. Where conditions are favorable for large yields, high quality products are also likely to be grown. Our last summer's garden was 25x30 feet and produced sufficient vegetables for a family of five besides plenty for fall and winter.

The Negro Music of America

Harmony and Syncopation Are Chief Characteristics

Favorite Designs Used in New Ways

SPRING is coming," says the calendar. "Spring is here!" says the home decorator.

The Kitchen Bookshelf

NEXT to the tools of her trade-- the egg beaters and mixing bowls and all the other kitchen utensils-- there's nothing a housekeeper can make better use of than a bookshelf of ready-reference material. Let this bookshelf be in the kitchen for the sake of convenience, for it will contain books and files of recipes, books on nutrition and home nursing, on labor savers, on home furnishings and on the business of homekeeping.

Ancient Beds In Stately Linens

THE bed of beds is the four-poster. Fortunate is the household which possesses a really old one. It should be treated with a certain reverence. Great pains should be taken to give it the best of backgrounds, that it may display its quaint charms and pleasing dignity without the interference of the lesser furnishings in its own chamber. Within those four walls the four-poster, be it of really ancient lineage or a good modern copy, is entitled to reign supreme.

The Family Garden

SOME efficient and "prepared" people enjoy doing a lot of preliminary work in regard to the home garden. The vegetable plot is neatly planned with the pencil long before the hoe and rake are taken from their winter quarters, and the visionary garden is as neatly an actuality as is the real one later on.

Along the Garden Path

I AM sure that every reader having a backyard garden gets as much fun out of his garden as I get out of mine. I know this because of the hundreds of letters I read every month sent in by readers from all sections of the country. It has been great fun visiting with them about their gardens and their homes.

Forcing Frames Made From Window Backband

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

ISN'T this the finest issue of any home magazine you ever examined? All the way from that wonderful poppy cover by Van Vreeland back to this last page, there isn't a single article that we didn't think would help you make your home and garden just a little better in 1925. We have spent a lot of time and money in making this issue as good as possible. Won't you write and tell us just which articles have meant the most to you?