July 1931

A POEM IN LOGS AND STONE

The Delight of the Waters

ALONG THE GARDEN PATH

I ALWAYS like a rainy Saturday afternoon. Of course I plan so many things to do in the garden that I never get them accomplished, anyway, so that work in the cellar and garage is completely neglected. But when it is raining on a Saturday it is great to find that at last you can oil your garden tools, fix the latch on the bedroom window, touch up scratched woodwork, perhaps tidy the basement or home workshop.

What to Do in July

THIS month is to gardeners as the midterm examinations are to college students-- the good gardeners begin to be differentiated sharply from the poor ones.

Diary of a Modern Eve

July 8. "I FEEL just like the little girl who dreamed she was in the center of a huge chocolate cream and had to eat her way out," I said to Peter tonight as we sat in utter contentment looking out over the garden.

Let's Grow Flowers That Add Interest to Bouquets

I HAVE learned that I must grow certain flowers in my garden to give that final touch to a bouquet that elevates it above the ordinary. And my adventures with cutflower plants have convinced me that we have not begun to exhaust Nature's store of decorative plant life.

Let's Express Personality in Our Flower Arrangements

MOST of us have at some time flowers in our homes. But comparatively few of us are aware of the real beauty and enjoyment to be found in a careful study of the arrangement of these flowers.

She Has Never Grown Up

MOST of us are more or less addicted to that infantile trick, carried over from childhood, of making use of the pose of martyrdom as a means of getting what we want, or of compensating for a sense of inferiority and weakness in ourselves, or of making other people feel mean when they witness how they make us suffer, or of attracting respectful and sympathetic attention from a callous and indifferent world on which we think ourselves unable to make an impression by more legitimate means.

Costs Are Lowest in Years

Family Vacation Fun Year After Year

IT REQUIRES neither astrology nor crystal-gazing to predict that this is the lucky year for vacation-season campers east, west, north, and south.

Summer Comes to the Porch and Terrace

OF ALL the many changes that have crept into our home life and customs, none has been more radical than our altered attitude toward our porches and their furnishings. Time was, and that but a short cycle ago, when a porch was merely an uninspired entrance to the house-- a place where, possibly, a few rockers were primly ranged and where sometimes a cushion from the string hammock might be daringly placed on the top steps.

A Book View of the World

I HOPE you are not one who feels that the long summer days so pleasantly made up of gardens, hammocks, lemonade, and swimming must be dedicated in reading to the broad but generally dull class of "light summer fiction." Summer's the very time to catch up on the reading that the busy, overcrowded winter months pushed back from immediate accomplishment.

A Sunny Cottage from the Southland

MOST of us like to study house plans and imagine ourselves in the perfect houses they illustrate. It is a great game to picture every detail of each separate room and then plan how the rooms could be furnished. We give the proper share of consideration to the various exposures and to the foundation planting and the garden, also.

The Garden That Endures Thru the Summer

THE fortunate gardener who never sees the mercury soaring above 103, who never reads in the evening paper an imperative notice forbidding the use of the hose, who never watches in vain week after week and month after month for a good soaking rain while his treasures are burning-- such a happy gardener may laugh at the implications of the title.

The Junior Garden Clubs of America Page

WHAT fun it will be to see who can record the most sunny hours in a picture taken with a camera!

The Children's Pleasure Chest

GRASSHOPPER TOWN was all abuzz. It was the day the annual jumping contest was to be held in the sunny meadow below Neighborly House. Uncle Grasshopper, Aunt Grasshopper, first cousins, and second cousins had eaten an early dinner of leaves and grass blades before hurrying out to find standing room among the lines of anxious spectators.

How You Can Have a Home Photo-Diary

IF YOU are already keeping a photo- diary of your home and garden, there will be no need of telling you how helpful or what a pleasure it can be. If you are not this story may cause you to realize what you are missing and thereby start you on the road to becoming a home-and-garden photo fan.

Six Rooms of Charm and Coziness

HERE is a house with the air and quaint charm of a bit of old England, yet providing the accommodations and convenience of a modern American home. Low and squat, it has the appearance of being rooted to the soil-- a point in design so often missed in the small homes of today.

Our Garden Troubadours

FOR several seasons I gave a great deal of time to the observation of the oriole, and yet, after familiarizing myself with its nest-building, its feeding habits, and the care of its young, I was embarrassed to find in compiling its life history that I had a serious gap in my records.

TRANSFORMED--Victorian to Modern

To BUILD a house and furnish it with articles purchased expressly for it is one problem; to evolve an harmonious setting for furniture which has been collected by several generations of a family, from the Colonial period up to modern times, is an entirely different one.

Peter Learns to Take Solid Food

AT THE end of his second month with us, life for Pete, as we shall now call our young hero, began to be complicated. The plot thickened-- curdled, in fact.

I Find Many Uses for My Wheel Hoe

WITHOUT doubt the man who invented the wheel hoe had a bad back. I fancy he was some gouty old gentleman who liked gardening better than his back did. Wherefore, necessity being the mother, he put his wits to work to appease the indignant back. The result comes to us from the hardware store in the form of the wheel hoe.

Some Things to Make on Lazy July Afternoons

SINCE the invention of the jack- knife, the universal tool, whittling has been a popular outdoor hobby. Many men and boys, after a stroll thru the woods of an afternoon, enjoy sitting on the ground, propped up against a tree, where they may fashion wooden whistles and toys from switches and tree limbs, or just resting in the garden at twilight, with nothing to do but whittle.

Their Daughters Take Over the Kitchens And Bicycle Club Mothers Rest

THE Bicycle Club girls were meeting on Peggy's cool, shady porch to plan a camping trip for the next week, when Thelma announced tragically, "Girls, I can't go!"

To Every Boy and Girl

WE RECOMMEND

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

THE orioles will be in their glory in the northern part of the country just about the time this issue reaches you. Ever since boyhood I have had the distinct impression that the orioles were singing most gorgeously when the time came to pick strawberries. This month Madeleine Aaron, who has written several other interesting articles for us about birds, tells about this remarkable songster which weaves a hanging nest so skillfully, and I am sure her story will cause you to have more respect than ever for the birds.