July 1932

ACROSS THE EDITOR'S DESK

"WHAT are the most needed inventions?"

Going to Remodel?

YOU MAY have been thinking for a long time of remodeling your home. Do it now, while material and labor prices are low. By showing us what you do you may, at the same time, win a prize.

Seeing Thru the Flowers

Every Package Tells a Story

DO YOU pride yourself on being a skilled shopper, when you are buying foods which can be seen and pinched, and yet make mistakes in choosing packaged foods?

Aids to Successful Canning

ONE of the larger pieces of equipment which makes canning easy and successful is the pressure canner or cooker, so strongly made of cast aluminum and so tightly sealed that the steam developed is retained and the temperature thereby raised above the boiling point of water in an open kettle, shortening the time necessary to cook and sterilize foods being canned. It is the only method approved by the Bureau of Home Economics for canning non-acid vegetables and meats.

The Diary of a Plain Dirt Gardener

JULY 1. The ground was still moist from the recent rain, so I got out a few more delphinium seedlings from the seedframe, together with seedling Shirley Foxgloves, and re-set the Violas to replace those that something, probably cutworms, had played hob with.

Man's Insect Friends

MOST of our insect friends are so common that they are seldom noticed, or at best they are dismissed as being just "bugs" and are destroyed along with the rest. They are often found side by side with extremely destructive insects for the simple reason that they are going right after them, and such circumstantial evidence gains for them the same evil reputation as the destroyers.

A Small Home for Spacious Living

THERE is something so pleasant about the low roof- lines and general proportions of this Cape Cod gardened cottage that it requires only the simplest planting, as indicated by Alfred Carl Hottes, garden-department editor of Better Homes and Gardens, to make it appear completely at home in almost any landscape in America, whether that of the scrubby, flat seacoast where the type originated or one of lofty trees and rolling country.

The Cost to Build This Home

A 2-CENT stamp, for postage and handling, will bring you a complete list of materials required to build this home, with the exact quantities of each item. This list, carefully prepared by experts, is a part of Better Homes and Gardens' BILDCOST GAR- DENED-HOME PLAN.

Negro Spirituals at Our Own Firesides

HEN I was a child it was fashionable for people to say, patronizingly, that they loved to hear Negroes sing-- and then to laugh at the songs which issued from the colored Baptist Church.

New Light on an Old Problem

WHEN I built my home twelve years ago the window specifications said but little more than that they were to be double-hung-- that is, the kind with two sliding sashes. They were to be of a certain kind of wood, of such-and-such sizes, and with so- and-so many panes above and below.

Junior Scientists and the Trees

CAN you guess Nature's best way of cooling the air on these hot summer days? Not oceans, or rivers, or lakes-- these only help cool the air for those who live around them. It is the trees and other plants that furnish the greatest part of the moisture that cools the air which we breathe.

How to Arrange Cutflowers

BY KEEPING in mind a few simple rules you can soon learn to arrange cut- flowers so that they are more pleasing, and with a little practice the results will become beautiful, even distinguished.

Dancing Lessons? YES, Says Miss Lyndall Drawing Lessons? NO, Says Mr. Darling

THE average child likes to move about to music and really enjoys and derives much benefit, both physically and nervously, from dancing lessons; in fact, I have known of cases of extreme nervousness greatly helped, almost cured, by the development of the rhythmic sense, and sometimes cases of lack of muscular coordination can be helped or cured by a careful dancing teacher.

Adventuring With Rock-Garden Seeds

GROWING plants from seeds is always an adventure --a small edition of the adventure of life itself. That these small specks of matter, gathered from all parts of the world, possess something which, with the aid of such commonplace things as water, air, and soil, can develop such striking examples of individuality is a never ending source of wonderment.

FIRETHORN for Its Gorgeous Fruits

ALONG THE GARDEN PATH

JOHN BURROUGHS, the great naturalist, said that Nature abhors a vacuum and therefore does her level best to cover the bare earth with something.

THE DOVE ORCHID