April 1934

Across the Editor's Desk

NOT long ago I was entertained in a charming Philadelphia home. The man of the house works hard all day. Whenever he has spare time he hunts or plays golf. He is a broad-shouldered fellow, more than 6 feet tall, and weighs at least 225 pounds. "What a corking football player he must have been," is a natural thought when you meet him.

Life

The Diary of a Plain Dirt Gardener

Saturday-- rain-- grocery-- stop at Neighbor Albaugh's on way home-- saw Christmas-rose (Helleborus niger) in bloom. Doggone it, why can't I grow the Christmas-rose like he does? Blooms for him for weeks and weeks. Back home-- outdoors-- uncovered peonies planted last fall by scraping away mounds of dirt put over them.

IT'S News TO ME!

"Doughnut curlers," Nick calls them, but really the things that the dough is sketched around are aluminum cruller forms. Make a stiff batter (recipe on carton), cut it in strips, have your cooking oil hot, and fry like doughnuts. There's a cute hook that I use for pulling out the forms after crullers are fried.

GARDEN Knacks AND Gimcracks

I RUSH home at 5:15, rush into my garden togs, rush to the garden-- well, you know how it is; perhaps you do the same.

Doctor Mayo Tells How to Live

"DOCTOR CHARLIE will be out to see you in a few minutes and will take you to lunch with him."

$1,000 SWEEPSTAKES PRIZE

HERE they are, the prizewinners in Better Homes & Gardens' 1933 $3,000 Better Homes Contest which we announced in the magazine just a year ago this month! We're proud of them and pleased and delighted with them because they show that Better Homes & Gardens families have remarkably good taste, judgment, and resourcefulness.

The Years Ahead

SEVENTY-THREE years before the American Revolution, William Penn deeded a portion of his original holdings in eastern Pennsylvania to his secretary, James Logan. In 1747, one Jonas Ingham, purchased this tract from Logan to establish a fulling mill at the Great Spring near Aquetong on the property.

Tuck-a-way House

TO COLONIALIZE the living-room-- our dream ever since Tuck-a-way House became our home-- took tangible form in 1933. It carried us far afield-- to the Metropolitan Art Museum, to old New England homes, to innumerable lumber yards for required moldings.

"We Had the BEST Time!"

OUR little home has quite a romantic history. My Daddy was born in it. 'Twas a little "Red Box House" originally, and stood on a lot across the street from its present location. 'Twas built way back yonder in the early 1800's, and has been a home for three generations, and remodeled several times.

THE Gardened Home

MANY a garden is built of dreams and plans, but some contain plants only. A garden planned to be a part of the home shows that it is and gives a feeling of completeness. A garden which is unrelated to the home will please us less and we will not be satisfied until we have changed it, perhaps so that we may view it from the windows of our living-room, or perhaps so that it serves as an outdoor room.

How to Save Your Eyes!

IN THE quiet of the evening, when you settle down to your newspaper and your coffee away from the dining-room, close your eyes and relax them a bit. Then take up this copy of Better Homes & Gardens and compare the lighting in this living-room with that in yours, which no doubt contains a fireplace, a davenport, bookshelves, perhaps a desk-- furnishings most of us have.

For the Bride!

A THRILLING experience for the bride--choosing her china, glass, and silverware. Good taste, not cost, is always the criterion. Yet there is justifiable pride and joy of possession, and an assurance of quality and service in the prestige of the name on the back of dinnerware, the hallmark of silverware, and the tiny label on glass.

My Rock Dwellers

I WANTED a rock garden. I wanted real rock plants to grow in it; I wanted them happy. And I wanted to build it myself! I wanted my garden to look as if it belonged-- I don't like rock gardens which erupt from trim and level lawns. But by all the rules I should never have had a rock garden, for I had no hill; I possessed, to begin with, only the merest incline.

Keeping Up on Closets

DO YOU know the convenience an added closet in the right place gives? Think what it means to have:

MY GARDEN Combinations

THAT if you have a garden you will work from daylight until dark. That your garden is never what you think it is going to be. That certain groups of flowers never bloom just when you have planned, and it usually rains at planting time, and the weeds get ahead of you. That you hoe until your back aches and your hands are grimy, but you don't mind.

D--! Stood for Dahlia Until

DON'T mistake me. I have nothing against dahlias, as such. I can scan whole acres of "Jane Cowls" or "Bashful Giants" or "Cock-eyed Lizzies" with pleasure, if not with an actual rise in blood pressure. There is no intrinsic harm in dahlias themselves. There never was-- until some public enemy with diabolical cunning set out to give them a college education.

Pan and the Spring Parade

ARE we excited! Pan is coming! Last month he took us to his dreamland of flowers. This month, when our earth is at its loveliest, he is coming to visit us.

The Old DESERT ISLAND Game

DOESN'T it seem to you a foolish thing to talk only about new books? Just lately I've been playing with myself the old desert island game, and trying to decide just which novels I would select as my life companions if Neptune were to snatch me off, exile me for life with only a palm tree and sand for company, and tell me "Ten novels-- no more, no less-- you may tuck in your duffle bag."

And Now Lead the Precious Metal

WHEN I was a small boy a local Scotchman presented me with several lead bullets he had economically dug out of a sandbank against which some soldiers had been doing target practice.

"Our Home World of Wonders," No. 12

Visit Yourself

THERE is a game I call "Visit Yourself." You step out to the street to play it. The aim-- "To see oursel's as ithers see us!"

When Do We Eat?

OUR Neighbor-on-the-north, the small boys from a distance-- in fact, everyone appeared to be interested in our early garden. They all stood around and talked. Some even tried to help.

Dollars & Sense

YOU know right where every rock is in this river, don't you?" an observing little woman said to the pilot of a river boat on which she was a passenger.

Garden Beginners Ahoy!

DO YOU know the easiest and best way to lay out an informal flower or shrub border? Simply get out your garden hose and stretch it along on the ground, placing the hose approximately where you want the inside of your completed border to be. Now play with the hose, curving it in and out in a graceful line (avoiding too regular, abrupt scallops), until the border is just the way you want it.

These are Parents' Methods

WEE babies seldom show signs of even noticing a thunder shower. But Fern was born in July, so, when our first thunder showers came the next spring, she cried and was really frightened. I took her in my arms to the window and showed her the beautiful lights, saying with each flash: "See the pretty lights!

You're Invited says

OUT Went the Lights!

THE head of a family of my acquaintance recently bought a carton of electric-light bulbs from a presumably reputable dealer, asking for a certain trademarked bulb made by a well-known manufacturer.

A Wynken, Blynken, and Nod Wall-Hanging

ANY youngster who can color with crayons, following lines, can make the Wynken, Blynken, and Nod Wall-Hanging below.

"We Wanted More Room"

ALTERATION of our small home was actuated by our desire for an additional room, which could be used either as a study or as a guest room.

Pansies Caused All!

Prizes for "Best Books" Lists

How to Handle an "Upright"

HAVEN'T you wished, every house-cleaning time, that you could do something about your upright piano? It's the one thing that always seems to take the romance out of your plans to reorganize or modernize your living-room. There it stands-- tall, stolid, defiantly stealing the best wall space in your room.

What QUILT Filling to Use?

FREQUENTLY women who have made a beautiful quilt top and quilted it handsomely are disappointed with the finished quilt. The usual reason they are is because an unsatisfactory filling has been used, with the result that the quilt fails to live up to its beautiful exterior.

Asbestos--Funeral Dress of Kings

EIGHTEEN centuries ago-- asbestos-- that material wrapped around your furnace pipes-- was woven by the Romans into non-burning shrouds for wrapping dead bodies placed on the funeral pile, to preserve the ashes of the corpse. Rare and costly, asbestos cloth was the funeral dress of kings.

Hannibal Ate 'Em Raisins

HANNIBAL, who set a record for Alps crossing which still stands as one of the greatest feats in military history, ate raisins. Many a raid on the sun-baked valleys of Asia Minor and low-lying plains of Tibet were to secure supplies of the luscious dried grapes, which weighed so little yet sustained so well.

Beefsteak AS

I PREPARE my favorite food, beefsteak, this way: I buy from a reliable butcher a 2-inch thick sirloin or a T-bone that he has kept in his cooler at least two weeks.

COMING in the MAY

The story of that romantic, picturesque character, Johnny Appleseed, known as the "father of Ohio orchards," who for thirty years traveled the length and breadth of that great state, planting apple seeds and pruning and caring for the trees that grew from them will be told by Alfred Carl Hottes, on "Along the Garden Path."

Mrs. Cdef's Share

WHEN I see double petunias I always recall a story told me by Mrs. C. E. Strong, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin:

Building the Rock Garden

A 50-50 Garden

IT WOULD be fun to have a 50-50 garden-- a garden in which you could get a supply of a few vegetables and also some cutflowers. Almost every home-grounds is large enough to grow certain indispensable plants to add little finishing touches to meals.

Along the Garden Path

APRIL is usually the month in which cities and towns put on clean-up and fixup campaigns. They realize that it is to their own self-interest in a very practical way. for these activities increase the value of property and provide a better background for homes In reality, the idea is a part of the will to have a better home.