March 1935

Across the Editor's Desk

THRU some fine, agreeable young women, we have recently had a countrywide visit with hundreds of you, in your homes, learning more and more about what you like or don't like in the magazine. It's going to make our task much easier, and we are already putting into effect policies based on their findings.

The Power of a Little Flower

NO BENIGN sun showed in the leaden sky, altho it was midnight sun time. I was chilled to the marrow of my bones. For the hours of one night and nearly two long days I had plodded, now on the very verge of exhaustion from starvation and effort, over a dreary, treeless waste of gently undulating hills, the while a pitiless rain, edged almost to the freezing point by a wind that blew from ice-bound mountains not so afar, incessantly buffeted me.

THE Diary of a Plain Dirt Gardener

Now it befell that it was misty and rainy and foggy today and most all the big snow of the first of the week is gone. Being Saturday, Donald and I went down to the city on divers errands. At the ten-cent store I bought a glass-tube contraption to lift dirt out of the bottom of the aquarium.

IT'S News TO ME!

THIS is Nick writing, hitting the ball for Anna Joyce Olson, who often quotes me (or misquotes! as I mentioned last time I reported the news. The page is mine this month; hope you will like it!)

The House that Jack Built

ABOVE is the house that Jack built: a white clapboard Colonial house with green blinds and trees and shrubs and four-o'clocks and birds and tricycles. And above you also see the path that led to the house that Jack built: a path of wide stepping-stones to a Colonial entrance covered with wisteria and climbing roses.

Don't Use Your Head--USE THESE INSTEAD

UNORTHODOX advice, perhaps, but there's no virtue in fussing over countless details, in watching the clock constantly, in hovering for hours over a kitchen range, when there are so many worry-saving devices that make these tiresome duties unnecessary.

Here's the Way We Grow Vegetables

IT IS well to find an excuse-- I mean a good one-- for doing things you enjoy, and there's at least one good reason for growing vegetables. Tho those you buy may be fresh and cheap, they aren't picked young enough. That's my excuse for growing them, even tho space and time are limited.

Soft Water ALL THE TIME

THE man who said "pigs is pigs" would probably insist "water is water" if you told him that there were hundreds of kinds of water in American homes. Most of it as it flows out of faucets looks alike, to be sure. But when a chemist analyzes samples of water taken from kitchens in many sections of the nation, he finds amazing differences between them. Some is "soft" water and some is "hard" water, in which mineral salts, picked up from the soil, are dissolved.

Matters of Fact About Curtains

TRAIN your draperies and curtains to hang correctly when they're new and they will grow old behaving as they should. Adjusting them takes only a moment and means everything in the life of the material and the pleasure and patience of the homemaker.

Wives, Take Heed!

STARTED my "hope chest" the day I quit boxing. With all the tenderness usually attributed only to the gentler sex, I laid away my favorite gloves against that future day when I would have a home of my own. There were a lot of memories, pleasant and otherwise, wrapped up in those scarred old mitts.

Double Duty DORMERS

TO PROVIDE good light on the inside, to furnish good looks on the outside-- that's the job of dormers. Too often they serve only to supply a little light in the top floor or attic and also detract from a home's appearance.

What Can't You Raise with an Electric Hotbed?

AS TIME marches on, progress and invention in all fields are gradually enveloping the home gardener and his operations. The era of electric heating of hotbeds is upon us and promises shortly to eliminate the old-fashioned manure as the source of heat.

Spice it with Blue

TO FILL a garden with enchanting color requires a sense of proportion, a canny knowledge of what spells enough. Blue is probably the most mishandled of all colors in the garden. Too much of the wrong blue and we and our gardens are sunk! Yet blue can be a gleeful color.

Oh, Say, Can You See?

HOW well do you see? How much have your eyes told you at first hand about the birds, animals, insects, and reptiles in your garden, and about the teeming life in and around the nearest pond or stream?

HOW TO MAKE Seeds Grow

WHEN spring is in the air I think of seeds. I am always impatient to get my hardy annuals in the soil as soon as possible, and it is difficult to avoid sowing too early. Of course we must wait until all danger of frost is past to sow such seeds as nasturtiums, castorbeans, and such climbers as hyacinth-beans, gourds, and Cobaeas.

THIS IS THE WAY WE Wash OUR CLOTHES

A YOUNG homemaker said to me recently: "Oh dear, I've learned pretty well what to do with the rest of the laundry, but the starching just never seems to come right. Sometimes the clothes are too stiff and sometimes they are all limp and forlorn. All the directions say to cook the starch mixture and dilute it to the proper consistency.

Fun for the Handy Man

A HOME should be an expression of those who live within it, and to me the most interesting homes are those in which the owners have put not only thought and money, but have actually built some of themselves into the furnishings.

Darwin Andrews Tames Wild Plants

WHILE horticultural expeditions have been caravaning in central China, marching thru the middle of Mongolia, and searching the steppes of Siberia for plants not now in general use, Darwin M. Andrews has made his home at the foot of the Flatiron Mountains, near the edge of Boulder, Colorado, and from that home port he has cruised the back trails of the Rockies and the faint highways of the plains, the western deserts, and unfenced open range in search of the good native American plants that can be introduced into our gardens.

Living 100% ON A SMALL CITY LOT

LET'S live 100 percent on our city lot. Frequently 30 to 40 percent of a 50 x 150-foot lot is wasted. Of the 7,500 square feet available for comfort in living, beauty, and utility, 2,500 square feet are frequently devoted to the driveway and garage.

You'll Want these Garden Helps for Spring

IT'S MARCH AGAIN, and that means new plants to be ordered, new beds and borders to be planned, and a hundred and one things to be done in preparation for the 1935 garden.

Shall I Spank?

"I BELIEVE in spanking, I don't care what the experts say! It may be bad for the children, but spanking them certainly makes me feel a lot better." These remarks I have heard from really nice mothers when the question of disciplining children came up.

SALADS, CÆSAR & CLEOPATRA

"MOST excellent, O Caius, is this combination salad." "That it please thee, Cleo, is sufficient reward for my pains to grow those salad vegetables.

The Beginner Studies Garden Soil

IT'S so easy to have a garden. And it's such fun! Yet how many times I have heard it said, "I wish I could have a garden. I planted one once upon a time but it didn't grow.

Insects' Lunchroom

THE carrionflower is the black sheep of the aristocratic lily family. Imagine what its beautiful cousin, the Easter Lily, symbol of purity, must think of the disgusting lunch it serves.

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You'll find hundreds of NEW IDEAS for your home in the big

A SPRING tonic for your home and garden! That will be the April issue of Better Homes & Gardens, with its hundreds of new and practical ideas to delight the heart of every home-owner. And as a focus for these inspiring ideas, the editors have pooled their capabilities and their pages to offer, complete in every detail, this exquisite, practical home.

THE Miracle-Worker in Furniture Polishes

ROTTENSTONE (meaning, literally, "rotten stone") surely is an odd name for that magic ingredient which makes furniture Polishes Polish.

What CAN'T You Raise With a Hotbed?

THE tender annuals may be sown outdoors during May, or in March in a hotbed:

Sauce PROVENCALE

IN VIENNA, in southeastern Europe, the people have a habit of pouring heavy cream, over tomato sauce on meat dishes. While this in itself is a tasty combination, it has given rise to an idea for an even tastier one, an adaptation of a sauce that was one of the specialties of Otto Wappler (above), for many years head waiter at the "old Bellevue" hotel in Philadelphia, and now with the John Wanamaker Tea Room.

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Along the Garden Path

THE more we know about a seed the more it mystifies us. It is not like a hen's egg, but more like an unborn mammal, for inside the seed is an embryo plant oftentimes quite well developed. F. L. Sargent, author of "Plants and Their Uses," tells us that the greatest achievement of the vegetable kingdom is production of seeds which contain food to feed a developing embryo; in other words, the seed produces a nurse for the nursling.