February 1928

Out of a Wilderness

IN some of our largest cities have been formed large tracts holding nothing but apartment houses. No trees, flowers, lagoons-- just row after row, block after block of standardized living-cells.

Along the Garden Path

AS we walk along our paths these days, especially if we live in a northern climate which strips the leaves from the trees, we begin to take more thought of the architecture of homes, now more fully revealed. And if we are planning on building a home in the spring, this is the logical time to lay a little groundwork upon which to sketch the details of interior arrangement.

Where Larkspur and Sweet Corn Grow Side by Side

HOW a raw, odd-shaped lot was transformed, in two years, into a glade of profuse bloom, shrub and vegetable is the theme of this romance of home-making.

Homes of Outstanding American Women

THE house is partly Chinese and partly Spanish, but mostly myself," says the noted author, lecturer and political worker, Emily Newell Blair, quoting Galsworthy, but referring to her own home.

A Psychologist Looks at a House

I HAVE finally decided that psychology, like charity, should start at home. Accordingly I am going to build a house for myself that will be as nearly psychologically perfect as possible.

A Little Old Stone House

A HOME, according to my dictionary, is a "fixed place of abode." I choose to construe this to mean a place of abode that will stay put-- for at least a century or two. I take pleasure in pointing out that this definition excludes a large percentage of the dwellings thrown together in these United States in recent years.

Three Centuries To Make a Flower

ALMOST a hundred years before the Pilgrim mothers started planning wardrobes for their ocean voyage, Phillip the Second of Spain sent explorers to Mexico to see if they could discover anything that would add beauty and interest to his already gay court life.

The Big Four in Vegetables

HAVE you seen a copy of "Who's Who in the Garden" for 1928? In case you have not, I would just remind you that in the section devoted to Valiant Vegetables, The Big Four--Tomatoes, Peas, Beans and Corn-- still head the list as being most interesting and most practical for the city lot gardener who wishes to grow quality vegetables for his own home table.

Adequate Framing Puts Backbone Into a House

JERRY has been running wild the last twenty or more years. He has built frame houses that looked, after completion, worth the price asked. But they weren't-- not by a long shot! Many an inexperienced and unsuspecting home owner is now paying heavy upkeep and repair bills.

Samuel Untermyer in His Enchanted Gardens

SAMUEL UNTERMYER. who is one of America's busiest and best-known lawyers, spends most of his spare time among flowers, shrubs and trees, creating enchanted gardens on the grounds of Greystone, his home in Westchester County, New York. During a stiff legal battle on which all of his energy is concentrated, he will retire to his estate and find peace in growing delphiniums and dahlias and orchids.

The Garden Vaudeville

THE only thing that stands between the home gardener and a first class backyard vaudeville performance is a curtain. That curtain is heedlessness, a sort of blindness, in fact.

An Efficiency Home

THIS little house was especially planned for a small family who wanted a roomy little home and have every part of it efficient in arrangement and room space and yet cost very little money.

The Stiff Walk Unbends

FLAGSTONES, it is gratifying to notice, are coming back. Home-builders, recognizing their potentiality for lending attractiveness to the home grounds, are again bringing them into popularity, and doubtless with an improvement in results.

A House of the Southwest

WE are experiencing in America today nothing less than a revolution in taste. The changes that have come in less than a decade in styles of dress, motor cars, domestic architecture and furnishing-- to mention only a few of many phases-- establish this. As we have in a few years become a world power in the political and economic realms, we have at the same time started the processes which are fast making us cosmopolitan in the field of all the arts, both fine and applied.

New Thrills In Annuals

I HAVE come to the conclusion that most flower growers are very much like myself; they are reluctant to try any new varieties of flowers for fear they may not meet with success in growing them.

A Town Has Backyarditis

AMES, Iowa, is in the throes of an epidemic! And tho the source of infection is definitely known, no steps have been taken to curb its spread.

Modernizing the 1914 Living Room

THERE are no figures available on the subject, but I am convinced that nearly fifty percent of American home interiors are of the vintage of 1914 or earlier in style; that is to say, they are Craftsman or a melange of Craftsman and nondescript mahogany left-overs from the dear, dead days-- gone beyond recall --of the latter part of the nineteenth century.

Plain Dirt Gardening

TO most folks soil is just dirt-- with no individuality, no particular idiosyncrasies, deficiencies or peculiarities. But such is not the case. There are soils and soils. Some of one type-- some of another-- each responding best when managed and fed in certain ways.

Good and Bad Taste in Landscaping

THE architectural style of the house determines the ornamental planting of the grounds. That is, an English type of house requires one style of planting, the Italian villa another and the bungalow still another. Characteristic ornamental planting, contrary to general opinion, is not expensive.

Guard Your Electric Dollar

THERE is no mystery about the electric service in your household that you cannot penetrate if you have any curiosity about it. There are plenty of reasons why you should, too. If you are going to turn over more and more of the mechanics of housekeeping to electricity, you will save money, and insure yourself better service if you know a few fundamental facts about it.

Up-To-Date Window Treatment

HAVE you ever considered just how much the windows mean to your home? You know, judging by the effect at housecleaning time, how barren and unadorned it would look with blank and unbroken walls. To regulate the supply of light in a room, and usually to serve as an element in its decorative scheme, shades and hangings for windows and doors are designed in many ways.

Beauty on a 40-Foot Lot

DID you ever hear anyone say, "I'd love to have some flowers "if only I had room for them"? Many lovers of flowers who are forced to live on a small city lot have a mistaken idea that they have no space to devote to their favorite flowers.

The House That Runs Itself

THE child specialist had just concluded telling the mother how to prepare food for her ten-months-old-baby --vegetables and fruits mashed thru a sieve, specially cooked broths, cereals and the rest.

Entertaining, Family Style

ASKING your neighbors to dinner! What used to "be a common occurrence has become a rare occasion. This is an age of specialization, we all know, and we have carried this specialization into everything, even the social life of the home. Whereas there was a time when all of the family could enjoy all of another family for a few hours, now there seems scarcely an opportunity to try this out because we are so busy seeing that Mary entertains her particular friends and Peter his and then Mother and Father have their own special group that are neither Mary's nor Peter's.

For Better Housekeeping

Bits of Garden Gossip

IN many gardens of the northern states in summer there is an orange flower that lifts itself toward the sun as tho to catch a little more of its brightness. In California it grows wild on many a hillside, and so much is it loved by the native sons and daughters that it has come to mean to that state what the cherry blossom means to Japan.

A Library House-Cleaning

THE library in the average home is a haphazard affair. Usually the builtin book-shelves hold an ornate set, The World's Greatest Speeches and Orations, or something of the sort, that some smooth-talking agent sold Father twelve years ago and that nobody has ever opened since.

A Salary Cut Brings Financial Relief

GOING along, neither living extravagantly nor economizing greatly, we were caught in the slump that hit the oil fields. To reorganize my husband's company and to put it on its feet the salaries of all employees were cut in two. During the readjustment of finances the company was closed for six weeks, which caused us to go in debt.

If I Were Judge!

IN a few weeks now we will read in the papers that this man or that woman has been awarded the Heydiddle Prize of Five Thousand Dollars for the best short story of 1927. Then in a month or so we will read that Mr. Dingfod or Mrs. Razzledazzle has been awarded the Howitzer Prize of Ten Thousand Dollars for the best book of 1927. And then the year 1928 will be successfully launched on another cycle of literary spasms.

The Building of Music

A DEFINITE form, or plan for building is just as necessary in a musical structure as it is in a material structure. It will be well to keep in mind, however, in this connection, that form is not all that is necessary for beauty in music, for in itself it is merely a set design thni which a composer may express his musical ideas.

A Garden Primer for Amateurs

Buy good seeds, including some of the doubles and some of the balcony types. Seeds are very small and slow to germinate. Start seeds indoors very early.

Tips From Garden Note Books

IN 1925, I spread yellow blight among my rose bushes by using a dirty pruning knife. Two fine shrubs were destroyed entirely and several more were damaged lief ore the disease was cheeked, but the experience taught me a lesson, and I have since avoided a repetition of the trouble by using a good disinfectant.

A Gift to Garden Owners

EVERY garden owner in America--no matter how small that garden may be-- owes a debt of gratitude to the Arnold Arboretum." said Mrs. John A. Stewart, president of the Garden Club of America, at the memorial exercises to Professor Charles Sprague Sargent, eminent student of trees and shrubs, held in the great tree garden just outside of Boston, for the man who had directed the Arboretum for 54 years.

Dressing Up an Old Chair

A Wrought Fire Screen

THERE are times when a fire screen is just about the most essential of all the fireplace equipment. Especially is this true when you get a nice load of chestnut logs and put on a regular Fourth of July celebration in the fireplace on some cold winter evening.

How to Grow Celery Plants

A Tool Panel and Other Projects

THE Handy Man. or Household Mechanic, as I like to call him, can do much to improve and keep up the better home if his tools are easy to get hold of when he sees a job to do. A great deal of time is usually lost searching for tools and materials, and by the time they are found the desire to do the work often has vanished.

A Prize For Designing a Nail-box Back

A Trick to Try

Valentines to Eat

THIS month Tagabo Bear and his mother are making honey hearts for Valentine Day. That is a good idea, for everyone likes valentines-- especially the kind to eat. If you would like to follow Tagabo' s example, ask Mother to help you make some sugar cookies (or ginger ones, if you like them better).

A Home of Long Ago

LYDIA ANN lived in a log house. Her father and mother and brother and sister came from the East to the Middle West when Lydia Ann was very small. It was years ago, before the time of automobiles or even trains. For Lydia Ann's folks were pioneers in a part of Uncle Sam's land that was then l>eing newly settled.

Let's Build a Bird House

JOHN'S bird house won first prize in the school exhibit last year. This is how he made it. First of all he looked thru the fireplace wood in the basement, finally choosing one nice straight log with rather loose bark.

Bobby's Behavior Insurance

BOBBY'S mother was the proud owner of the worst youngster that ever lived-- well one of the worst. He was (not is) lazy, disobedient and given to tantrums, and had reached the age of seven, after which the wise ones say "nothing can be done with a child." This thought did not add to the mother's happiness, especially as it seemed to have the ring of truth.

Adventures in Home Beautifying

DINNER is served!" So let us enter the dining room, and even at the risk of seeming curious, have a look around. Really, tho, this is one room where the quality of dignity is of paramount charm. We place our table squarely under the chandelier, the chairs at formal spacing against the wall, and on the buffet a bisymmetric placing of a central urn or compote flanked by twin bowls, candy jars or candle sticks.

Puzzle--Find Your Property Lines

WHEN it comes to property lines, we are likely some day to find that we have been living in a fool's paradise, if we do not know for a certainty where our boundaries are.

An Interesting Experiment

Article

Our Poultry Plan

ON March 27, 1926, we bought twentyfour little white leghorn chicks, three days old. Immediately I built little brooders and feeding pens for them out of cracker boxes, supplying them with heat from electric lights enclosed in little tin drums. With my knowledge of carpentry, I turned out some convenient little traps, and with the aid of a thermometer maintained even heat for them.

Indoor or Outdoor Plant Containers

ATTRACTIVE hanging bowls, plant boxes, plant supports, and even ferneries may be made at home in spare hours. The expense will be quite small if you do all the work yourself.

How to Solve the Drouth Problem

HILL planting is the natural way to plant such things as corn, beans, potatoes and tomatoes. In his backyard garden the city dweller builds up a little mound about each hill. The vast majority of home gardeners do not seek any reason for so doing-- it is just a natural practice.

When Your Tree Is Wounded

TREES injured by storms, ice, animals or human carelessness may often be saved from slow but certain destruction by anyone who will follow correct principles. In many cases it will not be necessary to turn the job over to a tree surgeon or a man who claims to be such.

Editorial Side Dishes

IN preparing every issue of Better Homes and Gardens, the editors look at the task in much the same way a good housewife does in preparing a dinner. Each editorial meal must be well balanced; it must contain something every member of the family can enjoy, and it must be served as attractively as possible.

Across the Editor's Desk

SOME of our readers take house or landscape plans bodily out of Better Homes and Gardens, following them explicitly.