March 1931

ALONG THE GARDEN PATH

TODAY perhaps, even in the North, it seems like spring. Tomorrow it may be like winter. The gardener wonders whether it would be best to remove the mulch from the bulbs. If he does remove it he will probably remember that he took it off too early last year and put it back on again. And then the next day the sun shines and he says, "If I leave it on another day, the tulips will be spoiled." So he takes it off again.

A Shadow for His Love

NARCISSUS was now a youth of 18. Handsome and well built was he and by all maidens beloved. Even the water nymphs sought his favor. But of them all, Echo was the most beautiful. Many times had she told Narcissus that whatever he should say or do she would still love him and reflect his every word. But each time did Narcissus reject her love.

What to Do in March

THE fortieth parallel runs thru Philadelphia, Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Jospeh, and Atchison.

Spring Is Just Outside the Garden Gate

SPRING is indeed just outside the garden gate! It is the time of all the year which holds the most happy anticipations and eager expectation. It has such a night-before-Christmas and all-ready-for-the-party feeling. There is still time in which to carry out some new plan or make an old one into a riotous success.

The Garden Show Goes On from Early Spring to Late Fall

THE wild prairie meadowlands of the Middlewest have disappeared under the plow. They live now only in the memories from childhood of some of our elders to whom the bright, nodding blossoms of untilled land were a delight. Reminiscent of those bygone days and scenes, Prof. W. H. Lancelot, of Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa, has attempted, with quite a degree of success, too, to carry out this same spirit of freedom in the use of color and arrangement in his flower border.

"Bittersweet"--A tumble-down old barn that

NOT only in the quaintness and simplicity of architecture but in the fine unity of feeling in house, grounds, and rural surroundings, the spirit of early New England dominates this modern home near Old Georgetown, Connecticut, owned and occupied by Stuart Chase, writer and investigator extraordinary of our economic conditions.

Manufacturing Weather--the new methods, for greater home health and comfort

OUR heating plant is the most important servant in our house. If it is perfect we are not conscious in any way that it exists. Until a very short time ago this perfection was only an ideal, but that ideal has been achieved by the ingenuity or our beating engineers, with their modern methods of delivering heat, conditioning air by washing it, moistening it, filtering out the dust, even adding ozone and cooling it in summer.

Effective Foundation Planting

THE New England Colonial house is probably the most popular of all American residence types, perhaps because it is, at the same time, also the most American. There is a certain austere dignity in the facade of one of these houses which seems to fit our landscape almost equally well, be it in Massachusetts, Ohio, or elsewhere. The foundation planting for a house of this type should be of the same character as the house itself-- rather severe and restrained.

What It Costs to Furnish a Home on the Budget Plan--for a $10,000 house we allow $2,000

IN SELECTING a house to furnish on the budget system we have chosen this month one that supposedly costs $10,000 to build. For such a house the allotted amount for furnishings would be $2,000, or one-fifth the value of the house.

What a Home Owner Should Know to Get a Good Paint Job

EVERY home owner is sooner or later confronted with the perplexing problem of knowing what is the right price for painting. Is it too high or too low?

Poetry That Reaches Your Heart

A DAY of white scudding clouds and a spring urge that drives miniature rivers along under a silver shimmer of ice in the roadside ruts-- that is the kind of day I want it to be when you read this. Spring and poets just naturally swing along together, and to enjoy poetry the very most you should feel in its own singing mood.

I Raise My Roses Where Winters Are Cold

I HAVE spent some of my life in the South, where the winters are less severe and the spring ushers in the summer with a procession of old-fashioned and newer hybrid roses. After such an experience in my childhood, I simply cannot forget the radiance and fragrance of the rose season.

Zane Grey's Home Has Exquisite Natural Beauty

WE CAME to Zane Grey's home one warm Sunday afternoon when towering Mount Wilson close by was wearing a filmy bonnet. Our senses still were tingling with the spicy, alluring fragrance of deodars on Alta-dena's world-famous "Christmas Tree" street up which we had climbed and from which Zane Grey lives but a stone's throw to the left.

French Beauty Blends With American Convenience

TO THOSE who possess the fundamentals of good taste and judgment, this house should have particular appeal, not only because of its French distinction but because it is practical, modern, and up to the minute in both plan and construction.

John J. Jones Finds Fountain of Youth in Home Garden

WHAT has made John J. Jones conscious that beauty exists in the graceful outlines of the Sugar Maple, in the vernal purity of Flowering Dogwood, and in the pastel elegance of blue larkspur can only be guessed at.

How They Won the 1930 National Garden Contest

SOME boys are born gardeners, some become gardeners professionally, and some have gardening thrust upon them, as my brother and I did. Of course, our flower garden was started long before we were old enough to help care for it. The lawn and shrubbery were planted when we were very young.

The Birds Next Door Present Several Acts of Drama

WISPS of cotton batting clung to various twigs of the mock-orange bush next door, like miniature Santa Claus whiskers out for an airing. Mr. Templeton himself and Jack, Jr., had been seen hanging them on the twigs and branches. I was a newcomer in town, but the members of this whole family, my nearest neighbors, were already known to me as special friends of all the birds.

How to Treat the Terrace Slope

AMERICA'S love of "the great open spaces," perhaps, has prompted many home owners to think only of grassy slopes, broken up with level areas, when planning their terraces, but such terraces usually lack interest.

1896 Becomes 1931

WITH building materials and labor cheaper than they have been for several years, now is a most opportune time to do needed home rebuilding. At least, with building costs reduced to a point where an early carrying out of the work economically may be hopefully anticipated, it is a good time to begin carefully weighing and planning the changes that, for rejuvenating the old home and making it more livable, seem desirable.

A New Kentucky Home

ALTHO the French have for several hundred years faced the service portions of their homes upon the street and reserved the intimacy of their gardens for the principal rooms, we in America are just coming to it, if we may judge by the trend of the recent home competitions.

Bridge Prizes From the Artcraft Department

WHETHER your crowd's weakness be auction, backgammon, five hundred, or contract, there are occasionally meetings for gaming, and all of the luck at a party does not go down on the score pad. When one's departed guests comment, "Such a lovely party, and weren't her prizes clever?"

I Also Can Have Bentgrass

IN THE face of the wisdom of the sages, to the effect that Creeping Bentgrass lawns are for experts only, I have maintained a Creeping Bentgrass lawn for five years, with very fair success and with about the same care one gives the average lawn.

Answering Your Question "Which Plant Foods Shall We Use?"

A DISCUSSION of plant foods would not be complete without mention of the carriers of the important elements and their desirability. Altho it may be true that the materials are not always easy to secure, yet those of us who have some definite knowledge of plant fertilization would like to substitute these for the balanced plant foods.

When You Buy Glassware

THE waning of the general popularity of high color in table appointments is, as a matter of course, followed by the trend in glassware from the bright colors to soft tints of color, tints so delicate in some cases that you are not quite sure on first glance whether the glass is a clear crystal or a tint.

Toolcraft Fun for the Handy Man and His Son

THIS year, when many industries are working part time, handy men and boys are not wasting this leisure period but are devoting their forced vacations to work in the home shop. Many useful pieces of furniture and other articles are being built from scrap lumber to improve the appearance and comfort of the home.

Lighting the Home of an Illuminating Engineer

RARE is the home that has been wired with special consideration for the children! This was the paramount motive which guided L. C. Kent, illuminating engineer of the National Electric Light Association, when planning his recently completed home. In it he has emphasized the new trend in lighting, which is toward a harmonious combination of beauty and utility, bringing these most desirable qualities into a pleasing scheme of lighting ...

Eating According to the Best German Traditions

FOR almost fifty years New Yorkers who love food-- good food-- have been seeking it and finding it down on East Fourteenth Street at Luchow's, which, as its name signifies, is a German restaurant. Once in the heart of the fashionable retail business section, almost across from the old Academy of Music, now a thing of the past, where Grand Opera held the stage for many years, it is the last relic of a brilliant past left to Fourteenth Street, now garish with cheap shops and tawdry "movies," noisy, day and night, with blatant, amplified music.

What to Say--when it's your cue to introduce someone

SPECIAL introductions need not be bugbears that are constantly leaping out at the hostess from unexpected corners. Even tho situations which require introductions suddenly present themselves, they need not confuse her and threaten her poise.

What Price City Vegetable Garden?

TO ANALYZE the charm of a flower garden is like tearing apart the heart of a rose to discover the secret of its sweetness. But to analyze the city vegetable garden, to dissect it to see just what price the fun of growing vegetables is another matter and one worth the while of any town dweller with a back yard to his credit.

What the P. T. A. Can Do

"I SUPPOSE you are one of those women who go around making speeches to P. T. A.s," a man once wrote to me accusingly. "That," I answered him, "would hardly be an accurate description of myself, tho were it true I should still consider that worse things could be said of a person.

When Clubs Need Pepping Up

MARCH is the month when the homemaker dons cap and apron, brings out her dust cloth and stepladder, and goes to work in earnest. In every crevice and cranny she diligently seeks for lurking particles of dust, letting sunshine and fresh air sweep thru all the darkened corners.

The Bicycle Club Entertains in the Attic

A MOTH, a mouse, and a wedding veil! I wanted my party for the Bicycle Club to be different, and it certainly was. This all happened because Father had had the floors refinished and Mother said really so many girls shouldn't be dancing around and playing games on them while they were quite so fresh and unmarked.

Poetry That Reaches Your Heart

THE quiet but profound art of Robert Frost makes his work show a fresh side each time that you go back to it. Henry Holt & Company has brought out his Collected Poems ($5) in a beautifully made book this winter. Tho I shall want to reread time and time again some of the single poems, I found that the cumulative power of Frost's work was tremendous when I sat down on a quiet Sunday afternoon and read the entire book thru, from first page to last.

Tips for the Handy Man

WHEN A WOMAN SHOPS

A NEW way of anchoring rugs has recently come into the market. A material that has a dull green pebble effect, backed by a very fine green whipcord, does the work. Placed under a rug, it gives a cushion effect and will hold it in place, prevent slipping, and injury from falls. No fasteners are needed.

The Birds Next Door

Jr., had saved the nest from the year before for his collection, because, of course, it would never be used by the warblers a second time. Mr. Templeton stood on a chair and fastened the old nest just a little distance below the other in a crotch of the bush. Then he lifted the young cowbird and placed it in the lower nest, leaving the young warbler alone.

THE BUTTERFLYWEED

IF THE butterflyweed were a rare exotic perhaps we would build greenhouses in which to grow it, but because it is commonly found along the parched roadsides, we pass by without noticing it. It inhabits the sandy hills and sunny roads from Ontario to Arizona and the Gulf of Mexico.

EVERY parent wants his child to be a charming, happy individual who will become a cultured, successful normal adult.

Florida Lawns

IN FLORIDA the 100-percent satisfactory lawn is still an unsolved problem. In most parts of the United States nothing is expected of a lawn during the cold months of the year. Here in South Florida, however, we expect a showy lawn 12 months of the year. We use, commonly, five varieties of grass: St. Augustine, Bermuda, Chinese Centipede, Carpet, and Italian Ryegrass.

Ideas From the Mailbox

I AM a boy 12 years old and am especially interested in the radio. I intend to be a radio announcer when I grow up and am now studying the subjects that will help me. I have a crystal set and a 5-tube battery set. I installed both of them without any help. I Put in extension wires from the crystal set to our bedroom so that I can listen at night if I want to without disturbing anyone else.

More Tips for the Handy Man

A SCREEN-DOOR spring will make an excellent plumbers' snake to loosen obstructions in the goose neck of the kitchen sink. If you have a 3-foot length, very pliable yet semirigid, the coiled spring can be led around the pipe bends very easily. If you use this improvisation, it will be unnecessary to call in a plumber when the trap is clogged.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

OF COURSE we have a lot of garden articles this month, and we can't begin to comment on all of them, but there is one that is a little more out of the ordinary than the others because it is the experience of the two youngsters on the Pacific Coast who helped their mother win the 1930 National Yard and Garden Contest. Be sure to read what they say about it. Their article is genuinely boyish, and you can just imagine them saying "Huh," when they were told of the winning of the local prize in 1928.