October 1932

As You Were

HERE is a true story: Mr. and Mrs. W. were entertaining some friends, Mr. and Mrs. B., in their home, which had been completely remodeled and refurnished during the summer. They had refinished the woodwork, replaced the old mantel with a new one, repapered the entire house, recarpeted most of the floors, painted here and there, remodeled the garden, and so on.

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

"THERE can't be anything much wrong with the world so long as the iris blooms."

The Diary of a Plain Dirt Gardener

OCTOBER finds the Dirt Gardener cutting back his perennials, ordering iris instead of football tickets, lecturing, hunting moles, buying evergreens, potting chrysanthemums, and enjoying the glories of autumn.

Bulbs That Bloom When Winter Comes

IF YOU like to spread happiness and good cheer, treat your family and friends to a winter flower show. You can stage it in any sunny window of your home, but the rehearsals will have to take place in a cool, dark room.

How to Use Glass in Your Home

IN KEEPING with the trend of modern architectural and decorative requirements, much improvement has been made in the quality of clear window glass, and many new features have been developed in ornamental glass for windows, interior doors, and built-in cabinetwork, as a result of which you who are building, remodeling, or redecorating now have an opportunity to enrich the appearance of your home with a material of unique possibilities.

Year-Around Gardens for Anywhere

PROBABLY no gardener who ever walked, especially in wintertime, into a greenhouse, warm and full of fragrant bloom, has failed to envy the owner. So many plants can be grown here that are impossible to attempt in the variable temperature of the home, where-- prime obstacle-- usually there is no room anyway!

Notably Simple and Graceful

IN THIS Bildcost home an excellent quality of design has been attained without recourse to any of the fussy and impractical devices so often used by the devotees of psuedo-quaintness and similar shams. Here is a home of simple, graceful lines, the merit of which lies solely in the handling of the roof, the shape and location of the porches and garage wing, and in the unusual and effective contour of the chimney.

A Bit of This and That

EACH month, as you who read Better Homes and Gardens from cover to cover perhaps realize, I try to build my informal little book chats around some one central theme. But for months now, just as I have wound an article up to a neat finish, onto my desk would plop the very book which any conscientious book-taster would realize must be included in a book report, except that like the squidgee-kum-squees-- the words had all "swallered themselves"-- in the limitations of magazine space.

And Now Into the Bedroom

THE boy who helps with the furnishing of his own room early learns to feel responsibility for his home-- a good thing for any boy-- and when he can actually make some of the furniture for that room, he gets just that much more joy out of living in it.

Helps With Curtains

Here's How I Developed MY POSTAGE-STAMP GARDEN

I AM a marginal gardener, limited to the trivial margins of ground which the speculative builder was obliged to leave between his houses. For such as me there are no winding paths thru rose labyrinths, between broad perennial borders, under vine-covered bowers, beside still waters, and finally vanishing into the distant vista.

What to Do in the October Garden

OCTOBER-- why, you can do almost everything in October! Of all the year it is the gardener's month. It gives us thirty-one days of grace-- days in which to catch up with our dreams. Who can call himself a true gardener if his blood runs so slowly that he can fail to respond to his last chance-- this golden eleventh hour?

Give Me APPLE!

INVARIABLY when there's a choice of pies the choice is apple. Perhaps it is partly because in this world of good pies and bad pies people have come to know that apple has a higher percentage of good marked up against it than any other kind. It has been variously called by its eulogizers "America's invention" and "America's favorite," in spite of the fact that it is seldom found at its best.

Autumn, Trees, and Fun

WHEN you read the enthusiastic letter received from Joan you will know why she is the prizewinner in our Junior Garden Club Tree-Planting Contest.

We Come to Understand Jimmy

THE sixth-grade teacher was waiting in the office when Miss Spencer, the visiting teacher, arrived at the school that day last spring.

Which Tree for MY Home?

An Heirloom Tea

IN THIS year of celebrating the Bicentennial of Washington's birth, an Heirloom Tea is appropriate for a club meeting at this season of the year.

AMONG OURSELVES

"ALOHA" from Hawaii to "Among Ourselves" folk! Fred J. Tomlinson, of Honolulu, wants to know where he can get some Tigridia bulbs (you know at once that he read "Tigridia-- the Garden Gypsy," by Norman Donald Morse, in the April Better Homes and Gardens) and, after getting that question off his heart, uses the rest of his letter for an alluring description of the garden which he and Mrs. Tomlinson find so delightful.

The Home-Furnishings Department Has a "Before and After" Contest

ARE you planning to refurnish, rearrange, or redecorate some room in your home this fall? If so we have interesting news for you: You are eligible to enter that room in Better Homes and Gardens' "Before and After" Home-Furnishings Contest.

These Are Original New Aprons

MORNING becomes Electra, Lucretia, or Dianne-- to paraphrase a popular modern-day play-- when she starts the day in a fresh, becoming house frock or wears a distinctive apron like one of these.

All those who spend too much for heat, say "Aye!"

"WHY can't we keep this house warm?" It's an almost universal complaint. Usually the furnace is blamed. But wait-- is it the furnace? What are you expecting your furnace to heat?

Our Baby-Health Service

The Children's Pleasure Chest

KING ELF was worried. He could not eat. He could not sleep. He could do nothing at all but walk up and down and around his toadstool throne. His royal physician prescribed mint pomade and butter-cup dew drops to be taken three times a day, but His Highness refused to follow the prescription.

"Just like me"

EVERY morning Grandmother went to the garden to gather vegetables for dinner. Betsy went along to help carry the pails. There was a big gate to open. When Grandmother opened the gate Betsy stood on it and had a ride as it swung open and shut.

My Dad and I

I DIDN'T get in till late last night, or maybe this morning, and so was dead to the world-- didn't have to go to school and meant to sleep late.

ALONG THE GARDEN PATH

IN OCTOBER it's a grand and glorious feeling just to be living. This is the one month when Nature seems to look rested from its long summer. The leaves of the trees that stood listlessly in our forests and along our hot city streets have now begun to turn color and are dropping around us as we walk along our way.