May 1927

They Do More Than the Rest of Us

A Home that is Quaint, Artistic, and Sincere

MANY houses are just houses, with usually no congeniality between the occupants and the roofs over their heads. However, this term "usual" is gradually getting to be untrue in increasing instances, and the reasons are glorious!

What Price Beauty On a City Lot

LANDSCAPING a small city lot is usually a matter of getting as many lovely things planted on it as one can without crowding the space and the area is all too small if any lawn is to be left.

The Landscaping of Limberlost Cabin

LIMBERLOST region, the scene of Gene Stratton Porter's first twelve years of field work, was rapidly being cleared and drained for fanning purposes, so after spending several years in search for a new location, she decided upon the present site of Limberlost Cabin, North, as being the most ideally located for the continuation of her nature work. Forty acres of the one hundred and twenty she had purchased here were covered with the original growth of timber.

Homes of Famous Americans

IT is a blazing hot July afternoon. The eleventh of July, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four, to be exact. The sun, vertical in the heavens above, seems to have caught something of the fiery passions smoldering in the breasts of six hundred savage sachems gathered from all North America, assembled around the council fire.

When You Redecorate Your Walls

ANTICIPATION of the long out-of-door season is likely to make us critical of our indoor surroundings. This is natural, for with nature putting on fresh, new garb (with our assistance, as we gardeners fondly assume), the rooms that have seemed so comfortable and homelike all winter, suddenly look a little shabby, and we are seized with a desire to "fix-up" inside as well as out. I know a woman who attacks her kitchen each spring and changes its color scheme from top to bottom.

How to Grow Delphiniums

SOME few months ago I was very fortunate in visiting the delphinium garden of Major Newell F. Vanderbilt, San Rafael, California. Such a sight as met my eyes! One dark flower, all the petals of which were of a deep violet with a flat ivory colored eye, was a very effective delphinium. Here and there were scattered pinkish heliotrope colored clusters, the individual flowers fully two and one-half inches in diameter, and very close together.

Awnings for Decoration and Utility

WHEN awnings are mentioned it is only natural for the housewife to think first of their comfort-- how they enable one to keep the windows open to cooling drafts of air without admitting rays of the hot sun; how they enable one to keep the blinds up without fear of fading the window draperies, upholstery, rugs or wallpaper. Since ancient times awnings have been appreciated for their shade, but they now have another function, which is becoming even more important-- that of beautifying the home.

Hooked Rug Designs Straight From the Garden

THOSE of us who are attracted by the lure of the handmade rug should find in it more than merely a craft or a pastime. It is an art. In the mode of the hooked-in rug we find a compromise between time and urgency, and a cross between the purely crude and the permanently artistic. The rugmaker of today may well contrast her status with that of the imperturbable Easterner yielding up an entire lifetime to the making of only part of a rug, whose captivating exquisiteness, however, shall charm generations to come, and find its way around the world.

Insuring the Pickle Supply

PICKLES and sliced cucumbers contain less real food than almost any other garden crop, yet the home gardener, be his place large or small, is sure to include in it a pickle patch unless he has learned by sad experience that many cucumbers are planted but few there be that grow them.

The Six Hundred Dollar Living Room

THE living room shown here is a sort of laboratory experiment performed to demonstrate how to get the utmost degree of beauty, comfort and individuality in the furnishings of a living room on an appropriation of $600, including in the furnishings not only the furniture but the rugs, draperies, lamps, pictures and small accessories.

Under the Library Lamp

HAVING just finished reading and re-reading the many letters on "A Favorite Family Book" which arrived in response to the prize contest announced last January, I am feeling chastened, uplifted, jubilant, and bewildered, if those four emotions can be experienced at the same time.

Window Boxes For Sunshine and Shade

NOW is the time to be thinking about that porch or window box, for a box set with suitable plants, well arranged, affords enjoyment the whole summer thru. Before we decide, however, on the plants to use, we must first have the box. For the sake of the plants as well as for good appearances, the box should be at least six inches deep.

Garden Reminders

IN practically every part of the United States gardening is in full swing in the month of May and the hardy vegetables and flowers have already been planted out. The more tender varieties of each, however, should not be planted until all danger of frost is over.

The Terraced Lawn

THE main difficulties encountered in establishing a grassy covering on a terrace bank are the tendency of the soil to wash away from the roots of the grass and the excessive burning of the grass by the sun's heat when the bank faces the south or the west. The effects of these two agencies may be readily observed.

Treasure Troving with a Camera

IF ever two people were meant for a settled home in a big house-- a house big enough to hold unlimited quantities of family treasures, inherited and acquired, they are certainly Anne and I. For we are born collectors, managers and conservers and fate, having made wanderers of us, compels us to curb our natural instincts and accept the role of onlookers at a game we love but may not join!

Growing Perennials from Seeds

TO grow perennials from seed it is an advantage to have a coldframe of some sort (not a hotbed). The frame should not be too large. It is much more convenient to have two or three small frames than to have one of a capacity equal to that of the combined smaller frames.

Can Cancer Be Cured?

IF I were to get up before a crowd of 5,000 men and say, 'Gentlemen, every eleventh man here is to be shot down in cold blood and the wife of every eighth man is to meet the same fate,' I would get some attention, wouldn't I?"

Best Ways of Cooking Fowl and Chicken

WE are usually accustomed to use the terms fowl and chicken rather indiscriminately, and with reason; for many a mature and dignified fowl, cooked with judgment and skill, and served with the assistance of attractive garnish and congenial accompaniment, becomes as tender and delicate "chicken" as one could wish when served at table.

Accessories Dress Up the Dinner

ACCESSORIES in meals, as in dress, are coming into their own. A silk flower, pinned jauntily at the shoulder, the soft scarf, gay beads and the colorful handkerchief are recognized as features that give costumes individuality and character. Clever morsels of food, relishes and sauces make for an equal smartness in luncheons and dinners.

How We Grow Cabbage

WE have had a large vegetable and flower garden combined for several seasons and feel that we can really boast of our success in growing cabbages because we have all and more than we can use during the garden season and many late ones to store away for winter use.

The Home Record Library

THE phonograph has brought all the music of all the world into every home. It is not only one instrument -- it is any or all of them, according to your will. Personal taste varies in music perhaps more than it does in any other art, and a phonograph and a library of well-selected records will satisfy the musical desires of the largest family no matter how greatly the tastes of the individual members may differ.

Article

Dad's Practical Pointers

HERE is the prize-winning "Tool Contest" letter. Sincere thanks are extended to all of you who wrote in. There were many, many excellent letters, any one of which would be well worth printing. But, unfortunately, space does not permit. Mr. Bridges has found, as his letter shows, that the use of tools is Just as much fun as any kind of recreation.

Buying Canned Goods

HOW did our grandmothers manage without grocery stores and markets? Yes, we can reasonably ask this question when we see the rush at the corner store about mealtime.

Do You Know This Wild Flower?

WHEN the showy white blossoms of the flowering dogwood, the state flower of Virginia, unfurl their four large bracts (commonly but mistakenly called petals) farmers plant their corn and all mankind rejoices because it is a signal that spring has at last arrived.

Along the Garden Path

IT is a real pleasure to call your attention to the twelfth American Rose Annual, now available to all members of The American Rose Society. This big, cloth-bound, two hundred thirty-two page book is becoming more and more important each year. To say that it, alone, is well worth the three dollars annual dues collected by The American Rose Society is to put the case mildly.

Nature Lore for Youthful Readers

Brussels Sprouts Are Easy to Grow

SOMEHOW, in the early days of my gardening, I got the idea firmly fixed in my mind that the Brussels sprouts, that delicious cabbage in miniature, was a difficult vegetable to grow. I remember how often, in those distant days when my slender salary was made to serve for the needs of three, I cast longing glances toward the marketman's window and wished I could afford to take home a box of "sprouts" for dinner.

Provide Greens for the Chickens

WE sow each year a combination of oats, wheat and rye, between the rows of products in the garden at the time of their last cultivation, or where the ground is vacant, about the tenth of September, to provide winter greens for our poultry flock. If sown earlier than this, the growth becomes too large and tough for grazing and when sown later, it is not likely to grow large enough for winter grazing.

"Our Chickens Have Paid"

WHEN we looked over our house, as newly-weds, I went into raptures about the garden plot, visualizing' the pretty flowers that could grow there and incidentally a bit of lettuce and the like. My more practical husband was busy looking over the garage. When he told me that there was a chicken house all ready for the most particular biddies, built with it, I was only casually interested.

Our Service Department

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

THE first sentence in the creed of the Camp Fire Girls is: "I have faith in the future and therefore believe in today." I think that is one of the most inspiring sentences I have ever heard uttered. What a challenge it is to those who are lambasting this generation!