September 1925

A Little More Kindness, Please!

The Sentinel of the Home

JUST as surely as all the world loves a lover, most of the civilized world loves a chimney! Yet, so perverse is human nature, the chimney upon the average modern house is usually little more than a utilitarian smoke pipe.

What to Plant for Spring Bloom

THREE years ago when we embarked on the delightful adventure of making a tiny backyard garden, a neighboring gardener gave us a real tip when he said, "Plant plenty of pre-vacation flowers; that is, early blooming varieties which will be at their best while the whole family is at home to enjoy them."

Fruit From the Home Garden

FRESH fruit the year around-- all home grown! Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? And it tastes even better than it sounds.

I Built My Garden on Sand!

WHEN I built my little bungalow in San Francisco, in 1921, on a sand lot, I was doubtful as to just what kind of a garden I could have. First. I wanted one that would harmonize with my house and that would be a source of pleasure to both my wife and to myself. Second, I desired a garden that would serve as an indirect advertisement for the firm by whom I am employed-- one that would be helpful to our many customers and would assist them in beautifying their sand lots.

Homes of Famous Americans

WE owe much to the ballad writers. They have caught most of the sentiment out of the stream of life which has been rescued, and put it in imperishable records in the human heart and mind. Little do we realize, at times, that they have suffered much in personal sorrow, disappointment and denial in order to translate our own defeats to us.

We Settle the Building Question

TO build or not to build" --that is the question, and our answers often take form in the words of Launcelot Gobbo when he tried to decide his momentous question: "Budge Launcelot; Budge not." Some say "Build"; others, "Build not." Still others simply procrastinate, putting off starting until they can have everything just as they want it.

That Boy of Mine

HE doesn't look like yours but he acts like him because he is a boy, so this discussion of my boy applies no doubt with equal force to your boy-- to all boys. Since he has recently taken to dancing and stepping out with the girls I concluded he was about to abandon the boy's estate, therefore I could proceed with a long intended cleanup of the part of the basement where he had taken possession.

Invest In Family Contentment!

SOME years ago, I heard an old man say, as he stood at a cigar counter in the corner drug store, pathetically drumming it with his fingers: "Why, there's just Mother and me at home now. We just sit around, sort of in each other's way, and don't know what to do with ourselves.

Landscaping the Small Lot

THE business of landscaping should be a matter of equal importance with the other steps of home building such as buying the lot and building the house. If we consider it at the beginning we are much more likely to achieve a successful result than if we wait until the house is done, and then try to make a happy landscape treatment of what is left of our lot.

Dahlias in the Northwest

I HAVE read so many articles written on dahlias of the East and California but very little on the dahlias of the Northwest, and as this is the most wonderful climate in the world for dahlias, I should like to tell you how they grow here. There is no flower which can be grown to greater perfection here in western Washington than the dahlia, as our climatic conditions are ideal for its growth and our cool summers allow them to attain gigantic size and perfection.

Now You Can Build Your Own Home

A LITTLE more than a year ago, we received a letter from a prospective home-owner which is typical of hundreds of other letters and conversations we have had. The writer said: "We want to get a home of our own while we are still young enough to enjoy it, but we are faced with a problem which doubtless confronts thousands of others. We have enough money to finance a small house, but such a house isn't at all what we want as a permanent home. Most of these houses are just temporary abodes, and if you buy them ready-built the majority are not planned for additions, so it means that in a few years, just when we have the place nicely improved and are well settled in it, we will have to pull up and move to a larger place and begin all over.

Bedrooms of Repose

A BEDROOM is intended to promote refreshing slumber. That being true, is it not axiomatic that the chief characteristic of any bedroom should be reposefulness? Fortunately, that quality is not at all difficult to attain; for it is largely dependent upon the right ... of color, the avoidance of distracting patterns and the elimination of useless furniture and fitments. Uncrowded wall spaces and stretches of unobstructed floor, in achieving spaciousness of effect, also tend ... confer reposefulness.

How Do You Take Your Vitamins?

A FEW years ago the word "vitamin" was unknown to the general public, and very little was known even to scientists about these mysterious somethings that have so much to do with our health and well-being.

Nature Lore for Youthful Readers

LONG before white folks came to America, Indian children had their dolls to play with and to love. These dolls were of buckskin or of wood or of dough or of various other materials. But thruout the part of our country where corn grows abundantly, there was scarcely a little Indian maid who did not own a corn husk doll.

Garden Reminders

SEPTEMBER is one of the most interesting months in the home garden. The summer flowers are still at the height of beauty; there is an abundance of fruit and vegetables, and the gardener is already looking forward to and planning for a bigger and better garden another year.

Attractive Bouquets of Autumn Berries

AFTER Jack Frost has visited my garden and played havoc with the flowers, I resort to berries for house decoration. Used in the right way nothing is more artistic than bright-colored berries, and their gay colors will brighten a cheerless room for many months. They are as attractive arranged in baskets as vases and in most cases will last all winter without water. When I can't find what I want in my own garden for winter bouquets, I take a walk to the woods or fields.

Under the Library Lamp

AS a result of the interesting article on canaries, which appeared in our columns some time ago, a great number of our readers wrote to us asking where they could get a book on breeding canaries, a book that would tell them about the different kinds of canaries, how to feed them, how to handle them in considerable numbers, and in fact some wanted a book that told everything there is to tell about canaries.

Ten Ways to Improve the Garden

1 One year our dahlias had borers so badly that nearly half of them died. When we took the bulbs up that fall, we soaked them for two hours in a solution of two fluid ounces of formaldehyde to two gallons of water. We dried them thoroly in the sun before burying them for the winter.

Ye Olde-Fashioned Goodies

AUTUMN! The harvest season. The time for old-fashioned preserving. With most of our cold pack canning of fruits and vegetables out of the way, September and October are good months to think back to the old-fashioned things we learned to love when home canning was young.

BARRELS OF STRAWBERRIES

Some Facts About Pigeons

IN order to raise pigeons successfully, they must be penned up in wire pens or aviaries, known to the pigeon fancier as "fly pens." It may be all right for the common barn pigeon to fly at range getting its living from the streets and alleys or foraging in the open fields, yet the common barn pigeon, as such, is a nuisance and the sooner we get rid of it the better for all concerned.

Dad's Practical Pointers

LAST summer an acquaintance found himself without ice at a time when a cool refrigerator was well nigh imperative. He and his neighbors depended upon a truckman to haul out their supply from the city, but for a time the delivery wagon stopped.

The Music of The American Cowboy

AMONG the many different types of folk music that have grown up in this vast land of ours, there is none more individual or unique than the music of the cowboys. Many critics feel that it is the most unusual folk expression to be found in American music.

Saving Dahlias from Stalk Borers

THE common stalk borer has been a serious pest this year in the vicinity of Columbus, Ohio. It has attacked practically everything, boring into the stems and eating out the tissues. This leaves the stems hollow, causing the plant to wilt and if heavy, to break and fall. It was very bad on corn and in our own garden it attacked tomatoes, peppers, elderberries, annual asters, cosmos, hollyhocks, peonies, chrysanthemums, flower stem of a Japanese iris, and dahlias.

Household Embroideries That Are Different

Needlework Directions

WON'T you give us a pretty bedroom design to be done in bright appliques? would like a basket motif, also perhaps you could combine the two."

Thrift--It's Up To You!

A PENNSYLVANIA school girl once defined thrift as "The management of your own affairs in such a manner that the value of your possessions is constantly increased." Worth thinking about, isn't it? That definition is certainly a rule for successful management-- it means not "penny-pinching," but the bigger ideas of systematic planning, economical spending to secure full value for every outlay, definite saving and investment.

Along the Garden Path

GOLDEN moments come to all of us, at some time or other, when we taste a bit of heaven and catch a glimpse of paradise. These moments are so rare and so full of all the valiant ideals which we can conjure up, that they linger in the mind vividly for days and become one of the real treasures of Memory thru the years.

The Romantic Sundial

ONE never sees a sundial today without unconsciously forming a picture of the past; a picture of an age long forgotten when sundials were the only instruments for recording time; an age when gay courtiers flirted with coquettish ladies-in-waiting. One pauses in breathless ecstasy before the quaint sundial in Ann Hathaway's cottage garden; that historical old dial with the thyme and lavender still climbing round its base.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

WITH this issue, Better Homes and Gardens starts on its fourth year, with confidence in the future and just pride in three years of success and fulfilled promises behind it. Then, we were just making a beginning and a good many features we had in mind had to depend upon the future; now, with this issue, our family has grown to more than 700,000 paid-in-advance subscribers in all parts of the United States.