April 1925

In May Lots of Good Things!

EACH issue of Better Homes and Gardens gets a little more interesting and is a little more valuable to our homemakers. The May number contains many features of interest to our readers, which it has not been possible to consider in the past.

Home Is Heaven For Beginners!

Despite Everything--A Home

Despite Everything-- A Home Proving That Charm May Be Secured Even In Small Quarters

Our Inexpensive Bird Baths

How to Attract Myriads of Birds to Your Garden

Petunias Are "Brave of Heart"

Petunias Are as Sweet Flowers As Ever Grew In Romance

Are You Making the Backyard Count?

JUST what should the backyard be and what services and uses can we rightly expect from it? From this answer there logically follows another question, namely: how can I develop my yard to better realize those services and uses? My personal feeling is that the yard should be made to contribute very definitely to the daily life of the household, that it should be a real factor to the comfort and to the recreation of the house inmates.

Homes of Famous Americans

Birthplace of General Israel Putnam, Fighter and Man

Succeeding With Trained Fruit Trees

Dwarf Fruit Trees Are Best For Small City Lot Gardens

How to Over-Come Rose Troubles

DO you remember the old song, "Roses Bring Dreams of You"? Sometimes when I look upon roses with blasted buds or buds with a strange one-sided development or a bush whose leaves are mottled with black spots it would seem an insult to tell a girl they reminded one of her. And yet the grower of good roses knows what a fight it is to ward off or prevent these troubles. Go into a good rose greenhouse and watch the care given the plants if you want the expression, "Raised like a hot house flower," forcibly brought home to you.

Better Dahlia Varieties

THE spell of the dahlia is upon our great land. Never in history have there been so many exhibitions devoted to one group of flowers as the number of dahlia shows during the past season. From Florida to Washington, from Maine to California, not a state in the Union can say that the dahlia did not have its presentation within its boundary.

How to Have An Herb Garden

"O! Mickle is the Powerful Grace That Lies in Herbs"

Plant Propagation Out-of-Doors

How to Increase and Preserve the Beauty We Create

"Good Painting Costs Nothing"

THE completion of the house is to practically every home-builder the embodiment of an ideal. It is the culmination of careful decisions made by the architect and owner, of long intensive planning and sacrifice. Eventually, as the house becomes a home, it gives place only to the family in its indwellers' affections. It is a stage against whose carefully chosen setting, parts will be played that mean life or death, joy or sorrow to the actors.

The Versatility of Stains

THE shingle, owing to its shape and the texture of its surface, is one of the most picturesque and adaptable of all building finishes. It is more susceptible than many materials to varied and beautiful coloring effects. The use of shingles in America dates back to early colonial days. Lumber was plentiful and the pioneer settlers made shingles in the same shape as their flat tiles, so that our true shingle is a wooden tile.

Strawberries in the Home Garden

THE strawberry is the most popular small fruit for the home garden. Due to its wide adaptability to soil types, the ease with which it may be grown and the large amount of fruit that thru proper cultural practices can be harvested from a small planting, the strawberry rightfully deserves this place. No home garden should be without its strawberry bed, as two hundred plants, properly cared for, will provide enough fruit for table use for the ordinary family and some for canning.

Gladiolus--The Pollyanna of Flowers

What to Plant and How To Succeed With Them

The Attached-to-the-House Garage

The Attached-to-the-House Garage Attractiveness and Comfort May Be Well Combined Here

The Roof of Glad Color

COLOR has in recent years become a wonder-working factor in the attainment of beauty. Variations of color that were never dreamed of have sprung into being: combinations of color that were never thought reconcilable have leaped into favor. Everywhere, there has been a growing appreciation of color; and, fortunately, there has also been an increasing knowledge of the use and the possibilities of color that has served to deepen that appreciation.

A Cottage of English Influence

The charming English cottage shown on the opposite page is indeed a source of inspiration to the home-builder. Above the stone foundation the exterior walls are finished in white stucco over metal lath and half-timbered effects and inlays of brownish-red brick are introduced to offer accent.

The Porch Invites Consideration

WITH warm weather days not at all far distant, it is now none too soon to institute some endeavors on behalf of the porch-- that summer haven which is so frequently slighted in the matter of attractive color and pleasing furniture! And why the porch should ever be a subject of indifference is really a mystery, for its position is usually so prominent, that any defect of furnishing or coloring is apt to be more flagrant there than in any other portion of a home.

Have a Nursery in Your Garden

It Adds Interest and Profit to Gardening

Folks Not Afraid of an Idea

IT is not always given to us to know the importance of our surroundings. Sometimes a trifling incident shapes our whole lives. A certain great manufacturer ran across an old mowing machine, and in tinkering with it, founded a gigantic business. A famous publisher once assured this writer that if his grandfather hadn't given him a typewriter when he was a boy, he would never have gone into the publishing business.

How to Get a Little More Home

EVERYONE is seeking "happiness," but if you ask a group of people what constitutes happiness you will hear a variety of answers. Many folks will spell it "HAPPINE$$," but nearly everyone will agree that money in itself does not mean happiness. If we wih first spell it "HAPPINE¢¢" and keep it growing until it becomes "HAPPINE$$," then we will find what we are seeking, because there is always true joy in accomplishment.

Casseroles for Good Cookery

Reasons and Recipes for Using These Utensils

Fourteen Ways to Improve the Home

1 "The Old Home" isn't what it used to be. The reasons are new hardwood floors, French doors, and a new porch. My home was built about eighteen years ago and styles have changed in buildings as well as in wearing apparel. Of course the most noticeable exterior improvement is the new 8-foot by 24-foot front porch with concrete block pillars and a buttress on each side of the steps.

DAD'S PRACTICAL POINTERS

HOW many of your folks have a blow torch about the house? I got one a few weeks ago and already it has more than paid for itself. One day it was used to help heat the wash water. On several occasions we have fired green logs in the fireplace and got a roaring fire in just a few minutes.

Ten Annuals for Cutting

OF annuals there is practically no end, but to select ten which are sturdy growers and furnish an abundance of flowers, is quite another matter.

Refinishing Your Automobile

WHILE the motor car is now a more or less all-the-year-'round utility, nevertheless the coming of spring always brings the urge to have the "old car" overhauled, refinished, and put in first class shape for the anticipated summer pleasure.

My Forty Years With Plants

Native Fruits of the Pacific Coast

The Open Face Poultry Coop

THE photo reproductions accompanying this article are of a no-yard, open front chicken coop, a style which has proved eminently successful with the writer and which is a distinct departure from the general run of poultry houses. It is also very economical as regards material and labor.

Garden Walks of Brick

A GARDEN walk always invokes romantic memories and dreams. The picture may be that of a winding path among the flowers and shrubs ending at the bottom of the garden in a shaded arbor where, on an indolent summer afternoon, a delightful hour may be spent with a favorite book or a congenial friend.

Garden Reminders

Tips to Make Your April Work Count

How to Keep Cut Flowers

The Music of the English Colonists

Second Article in a Series on the Musical Inheritance of America

An April Shower of Lovely Designs

THE vogue for embroidered bedroom sets has invaded the kingdom of childhood.

Along the Garden Path

ALONG in February, little Marilee came rushing into the house one evening, all excited and out of breath. "Daddy, Betty Jane and I are going to have a garden!" was the startling announcement. Her eyes danced and she was too excited to talk plainly. "Where?" I asked, as seriously as I could.

How to Control Root Aphis

MANY unusual relationships are found in the plant and animal kingdom but none more interesting or satisfactory than the close partnership relation existing between root aphis and ants. Each of these two groups are interdependent upon the other, the root aphis being cared for and protected thruout their existence by the ants and these in turn being amply repaid by securing from the aphis a sweetish liquid known as "honey dew" of which they are very fond.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

WELL, at last I can draw a breath of relief! We are down to this last page. And yet I come to it with real reluctance, for it has been mighty interesting work to fit this issue together. Every time I looked at the file, all thru the year as we planned for this issue, I got a real thrill thinking of it. I saw the issue going into 600,000 homes and carrying such a wealth of suggestions that it was certain to be extremely helpful in some direction in every one of those homes.