March 1925

The April Issue Better Than Ever Before!

So many good things are coming in April that we hardly know where to start! Present indications are that this will be one of the largest issues of Better Homes and Gardens to date, but regardless of the size, you'll vote it the best yet in instructiveness and value.

This Is the Forest Primeval!

Consider These Factors Before Building

A CERTAIN expert has estimated that not more than forty percent of the eight million American home owners are really satisfied with the location of their property. I don't mean to convey an impression that the remaining sixty percent of our home-owning families are entirely dissatisfied. They appreciate that a home-- almost any kind of home-- of their very own, is preferable to renting property from month to month.

Efficiency in the Vegetable Garden

VEGETABLE growers very often practice some little innocent "tricks of the trade," practices that save time and labor that ordinary farmers and home gardeners know but little about. From my own experience I would regard intercropping as being of the most importance, and the anticipation of this practice should enter into the preliminary calculations in the planning of every garden.

There's Fun in a Garden Diary!

KEEPING a garden diary is both pleasant and profitable, according to Mrs. Ben T. Whitaker of Boone, Iowa, who lives intimately with one of the prettiest small flower gardens in this part of the country, comprising, as it does, more than sixty varieties of flowers and shrubs. Mrs. Whitaker has made a close and careful study of the flowers under her tillage and her rather familiar record is simply chock-full of things that should be of interest to flower growers.

American Hedges for America

PRIVACY there must be. But I don't want just formal hedges about my home. They're English. My dooryard must be American!" These were the words of a landscape critic as he planned his own home grounds a short time ago.

The Double Row System for Vegetable Culture

It Has Many Advantages Over Level Planting

And Now We Have Our Fence!

How We Got a Real Frame For Our Yard at Less Money

Roses in the Little Garden

Plan for a Few Roses This Spring In Your Garden

Do You Grow Popcorn in Your Garden?

A Few Rows Will Insure Many Happy Evenings Next Winter

Homes of Famous Americans

Waynesborough, the Home of General "Mad" Anthony Wayne

Tomatoes Are My Garden Hobby

How I Get Good Results and Some Things I've Learned

Dahlias in the Central West

How to Succeed With "The King of Annuals"

Making a Start With Bees

SPRING is the best time for the novice to begin beekeeping. The active season is just ahead and there are fewer problems to meet at this season.

When Enough Is Too Much

THE crisis appeared to materialize that early fall morning, following a spell of warm days and cool nights. I had made my rounds of the vegetable garden. Now I placed on the kitchen table the heavy basket, high heaped with the fruit of its rows, and moved on to the window. Yet I saw nothing. Suspense gripped me as I sensed Marie by my side, lifting out the succulent late lettuce, the last of the corn, the red ripe tomatoes, and then the--.

Gold Dollars at Seven Percent

THE other day on a street car I overheard two men of my acquaintance discussing investments. "Well," said the one, "I put a thousand dollars in Central Power and Light bonds today.

Spraying the Garden

What to Spray and What to Use

Succeeding With Garden Peas

How to Select, Plant and Grow Them Successfully

How We Solved Our Building Problem

THE story of our home really begins with our honeymoon. We spent all of May in leisurely journeying among the old cities of the Southeast. And most of the charm these places had for us, who had been "reared" in the Middle West, was due to the homes. Here they had been built to stand centuries as the habitations of generations; "out our way" too many houses were "built to sell" after short occupancy by the builder.

New Comfort for Old Houses

Insulation Can Be Added To Increase Comfort Factor

An Unusual Dutch Colonial

Landscaped for a Corner Lot

In Praise of Painted Furniture

THERE is an element of sheer joyousness inherent in painted furniture of gay color that few contemporary householders can wholly resist when equipping either new homes or old. There is, too, a sense of the picturesque-- almost a suggestion of exotic charm-- in the hues and in the forms which painted furniture now so frequently assumes. And that these qualities should be appealing to so many modern homemakers would seem to indicate that a primitive love of color is by no means extinct in the human breast, even in this most practical of eras!

My Forty Years With Plants

In Which We Become Acquainted With the Chinese Gooseberry

Folks Not Afraid of an Idea

A NUMBER of years ago there was graduated from the Iowa State College at Ames, a horticultural student whose graduation thesis dealt with the hybridizing of our native fruits. Little perhaps did he realize that efforts along the line suggested by this thesis would be a very important feature of his life-work and make his name known far outside the confines of the state in which he labored.

A Border of Blue and Gold

A BORDER of blue and gold. Why not? Vivid color combinations in the home are much in vogue and the same ideas can be produced in the garden if one is daring, experimental and understands the grouping of perennials and annuals.

How to Get a Little More Home

THERE'S nothing in this home-owning business. It doesn't pay. Considering taxes, depreciation and everything else, I'd rather rent." Haven't you heard people talk that way? And haven't you seen those same people surreptitiously scan the For Sale advertisements in the papers and the notices in real estate offices, meanwhile pretending to be looking for the evasive five-room apartment which shall have sunny bedrooms, a yard for Junior to play in, a fireplace in the living room, a sunny breakfast room and countless other things seldom found in the average priced apartment?

How to Prune Ten Fruits

VARIOUS causes render pruning necessary: the reduction of the annual growth to correct the habit of the plant; the removal of branches to prevent the breaking or disfigurement of the tree in later years; removal of branches and fruit spurs for protection against infectious diseases; and the reduction of the annual growth to reduce the crops in proportion to the size and strength of the tree or shrub.

How to Use the Pastry Bag

Recipes and Directions for Using an Interesting Tool

Garden Reminders

MARCH is the month of promise, and even the most indifferent gardeners are stirred to action during these first days of spring. This year in addition to planning and planting your garden, try progressing. Plan your work systematically now; plant your seeds intelligently, and progress just a little more with the garden game than you did last year.

Garden Onions That are Better

ONION seeds and onion sets-- onions, red, yellow, and white. I remember that father used to grow "black-seed" onions; we believed that there was some special virtue in onions when seeds were black. Later came a rude awakening-- we made the discovery that, from black onion seed, we could grow bulbs that were red, yellow, and white.

DAD'S PRACTICAL POINTERS

IT isn't quite time yet to get into the garden, but one can begin touching up here and there with paint. If the whole house needs a new coat, that's a real job in itself. But even tho that doesn't need attention, how about painting the fence, porch floors and steps?

Vegetable Planting Lists

NO exact calendar dates can be given as to when to plant the vegetable garden, however all hardy vegetables (most of which are listed in the first table accompanying this article) may be planted just as soon as the ground is in working condition and danger of freezing weather is over.

Ready-to-Use Conveniences

THERE are on the market today numerous small devices to be incorporated in the house proper, invented with a view toward reducing labor and eliminating unsanitary conditions in the home. It is surprising how soon after their advent the more efficient of these conveniences and accessories become integral parts of house planning and construction.

Potatoes In the Home Garden

WE believe that most garden failures are directly attributable to the employment of commercial growing methods, and especially is this true in the case of the Irish potato. "It is cheaper to buy potatoes than to raise them." How often do we hear this remark. "My potatoes grow nicely for a time but the dry weather always gets them and they are too small to use."

How to Run Your Incubator

THIS article has to do with setting up and operating your incubator. Every standard incubator leaves the factory in good working order. Once in a while a machine is damaged in transit. Very rarely a machine is really of faulty workmanship and should never have been sent out.

Lovely Hand-Made Rugs for the Bride

Here Are Exact Directions for Making Hooked Rugs

The Joys of a Strawberry Patch

I PICKED sixty-five quarts of big juicy strawberries from my 8x12-foot patch last summer," thus summed up the experience of Ed. Layten, a neighboring town gardener. "Of all the crops I tried, we secured larger returns and more pleasure from our tiny strawberry patch than from any other plot on the lot.

A Good Variety of Blackberry

Consider the Gooseberry

Set Your Ever-bearing Berries Early

The Musical Inheritance of America

France and Spain Have Endowed Us Richly

Easy Embroideries Add Charm to the Home

THE curtains and scarf of design No. 174, illustrated in center of opposite page, are embroidered with heavy couching cord in gay colors. The background is mercerized rep in a deep cream shade.

Along the Garden Path

A READER writes that my article last May on my lily pool interested herself and husband so much that they went to work and built a pool of their own. They did the work themselves and have a very attractive pool edged with cobblestones, and a pergola, for their pains. This reader wishes to know whether my lily roots came thru the winter and whether I still think a pool "pays."

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

AGAIN we come to March, that month of all the year when we are on tip-toe and so eagerly expectant of many good things to come! A hint of warmth lingers in the rushing wind and the clods are beginning to feel their "stir of might." The birds are coming back, the buds are venturing out a little and Old Mother Nature is repainting her landscape again with splashes of green.