February 1936

Across the Editor's Desk

WHAT do you think of making Ground-hog Day a legal holiday? Oh, so you don't think so much of the idea? Well, neither do I. But did you ever stop to think why Ground-hog Day has such a hold on the imagination?

THE Diary OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

Feb. 1 On this bright day, sun was warm, snow melted fast, ice faded off the roads. I saw no robins, but methought the sparrow chirped the merrier. And seeing by the program that lawns were being discussed on the farmers' week program down at the think-factory [Ohio State University], I hied me down.

IT'S News TO ME!

SAYS Alfred Hottes, "To spend a cold February evening forgetting it's winter and remembering spring's on the way, slip to the basement and sharpen your garden tools!"

ALMOST OUT OF NOTHING

WE'VE had ten years of the rarest sport two human beings could ask for: health, a certain acute happiness, and without doubt lengthening of days. Golf, tennis, badminton? No. We played a game becoming every year more popular. Perhaps it's the greatest adventure-- acquiring a little place and remolding it very close to the heart's desire.

They Built With Native Fieldstone

LIKE an introduction to a good story which leads you on with increasing interest to the fulfillment of its promise is the approach to this home of Mr. and Mrs. Rollin Kirby, Better Homes & Gardens readers, in Westport, Connecticut. [Mr. Kirby, as many of you know, is political car-toonist of The New York World-Telegram makes illustrations for such magazines as Collier's, McClure's, The American, and Harper's; he also does verse, articles, and sketches for Life and for The New Yorker.-- Editor.]

Hardware That Will Stand Hard Wear

"I CERTAINLY wish there were more people like Mrs. Shelton," said my architect friend with a smile. "She's a little hard on my nerves, but she's going to have everything in that new Cape Cod house of hers just the way she wants it. She has to know the why and wherefore of every single gadget."

"Come Hither" House

DUBBED the "Come Hither" House it was, because, besides being convenient according to modern homemaking standards, and as comfortably snug as a bug in a rug, this little gardened home has that quality which architects call "lure." The more you look at it the more attached to it you become.

A Half-Dozen Favorites

GARDENS of 1936 are bound to be more beautiful than those of past years. They will glisten with the brilliant orange-gold of Orange Flare Cosmos, first introduced a year ago. What a superb acquisition, yet so easy to grow and equally fine in the garden or as a cutflower!

Trees, shrubs, bulbs, annuals, perennials, and roses

EACH year we look forward to the seed sensations. And now, this month, we're happy to announce the decision of the All-America Seed Selection Committee, made up of ten leading flower growers and breeders. The supply of such seeds is usually very limited; therefore the prices during the first year are generally high.

Annuals Tried and True

WHAT liveliness flowers with the gleam of sunshine or the flash of fire in their petals can bring to a garden! The flowers I've chosen for you all have a glint of gold and flame. Yellow Supreme Marigold. Space in the background of many a border last summer was filled with the fluffy, shining blossoms of Yellow Supreme Marigold.

Winter Surprises

Do YOU remember how delighted you were as a child when you unexpectedly discovered a piece of last week's candy you had hidden back of some books, and then forgotten? Every woman experiences this same pleasure when she comes upon a new pair of Christmas stockings which she inadvertently has tucked away in a bureau drawer, while all of us, of course, are constantly enjoying such thrills in our gardens.

"I Get a Kick Out of It"

JUST graduated from the Herbert Hoover High School, Glendale, California, Neville Phillips, altho only 19, is a veteran cactus collector of some five years. He has one of the most complete and attractive desert gardens laid out in a plot about 30 by 50 feet at his Glendale home; in fact, it occupies the whole garden, except for a lathhouse for tropical plants.

The Landscape's Lifted Face

"SURE, I'll stand up and cheer for civic beautification. It's great for a community, but just how does it get down my street and up to MY house?" Doubtless you have heard this sort of question and it's a perfectly natural and proper one.

Accent on Walls

New Life for Your Bathroom

HOW delightfully smoothly the mornings begin at our house since we fixed up our bathroom! We started the rejuvenating program about a month ago, and altho we couldn't begin to incorporate all the new bathroom ideas we discovered, we did paint up, put in extra towel racks, added a dressing table and a few other things that have made for greater harmony, in the earlymorning hours, among members of the family.

LIVE-FOREVERS ARE Joy-Forevers

THEY'VE come from the plateau of Mexico, the velds of Africa, the plains of Arabia-- from most of the high, arid regions of the world-- to grow in our winter gardens, these ornamental, dry-air conditioned plants with juicy leaves and stems-- called succulents.

"That's No Lady, Mister--That's My Wife"

THE above old vaudeville bromide has in it just enough acid truth to give it a dandelion's perennial and bitter vitality. For husbands, alas, even if they aren't bulbous-nosed vaudeville comedians, slip all too easily into the relaxed, taking-for-granted attitude, "Oh, well, what's the diff? It's only Mary."

Light on the Spinning Wheel

A SPINNING WHEEL is a symbol of early Americanism, and while we can't all possess one, we can at least have a model. This particular model at right is a copy of one, which from its appearance had served several generations, and the owner kindly let me sketch it. We will, however, go a step further and make it useful as well as decorative by making a lamp of it.

Heinz Tomato Juice

Leisure-Lady Handwork

DON'T let the title fool you. Few of us will admit we've much leisure, but it's just into that little that these pieces fit.

Alseco

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

This is the coziest month. I wear flannel pajamas, galoshes, even earmuffs in the open car unashamed. And on the colder nights the window is open nearer an inch than a foot.

Is Your Club Program Alive?

OCCASIONALLY when driving the byroads along the Atlantic Coast, one happens on the gloomy tunnel of an old wooden bridge. Only a few are found. Many of them went down on spring freshets. Those on main highways were torn down and strong, beautiful spans of concrete and steel built in their stead, open to the beauties of purple mountain and far horizon.

HOW SHALL I PRONOUNCE IT?

AS YOU enter the department store, or furniture dealer's, or the decorator's shop, do you sometimes wish you were quite sure of the pronunciation of especial words thoroly familiar in silent reading? Almost everyone experiences this uncertainty, perhaps because most of these words are taken from other languages.

AMONG Ourselves

I've a Kitchen Brain Center

AS A BOON to the absent-minded, a boost to businesslike homemaking, and an end to scorched pans and turned cookies, I give you the homemaker's kitchen desk! Most of us do our own housework, either from necessity or inclination, and sometime each day we have to sit down to a miscellany of odd jobs. If yours, like mine, consist of menu-making, recipe-hunting, check-writing, and notes to the butcher, the baker, and the electric-light man-- then to the kitchen with you!

A Prize for Your Best!

Round Table Honor Roll

IT'S A Gala Restaurant Party

ARE you bored to pieces with conventional parties? And do you wonder whether they really mean it when they breathe on leaving, "Had such a grand time!"? Then let me tell you about the gayest, most refreshing evening I can remember-- the night we staged our Gala Restaurant Party!

We Win the VEGETABLE WAR

CHILDREN can learn to like vegetables. You may not believe it. A small, wailing daughter or a rebellious son may have convinced you that it's quite the other way around. But, mother, truly it's not. Vegetable wars are almost never the fault of the vegetables or the children.

PEQUOT SHEETS

The Question Before the House

Yes, there are now available scientifically designed steel forms for the fireplace itself which insure its not smoking. One type is built with a double shell. The air heated within the shell is distributed thru the room by means of cool-air intakes in the floorline and warm-air outlets near the ceiling, as shown in the photograph above.

''Stew Around the World"

As Dollars Shrink and Swell

"I'D LIKE to take an endowment and some more life insurance right now," said Dr. M., in chatting with his friend the banker, "but the possibility of paying out good dollars in premiums and getting back dollars with lower purchasing power doesn't appeal to me."

Permutit

Article

When Stone Becomes Glue

EVERY now and then Mrs. Jones looks out at the workmen who are laying a new concrete walk around the house. They mix powder, labeled Portland cement, with sand and gravel, add water, stir with a spoon, pour the resulting gray gruel into the forms, and go home to supper.

Highlights in My Garden

THE most exciting occupation I know is making a new garden. For me it holds the thrills of arctic exploration, pioneering, and travels into foreign lands. I always set forth with a feeling of adventure and then know an enormous satisfaction when at last I come into the port of a well-established border, or achieve the heights of an almost perfect boundary planting.

"Lesser" Annuals Which Long to Be Greater

THERE is quite a group of "lesser" annuals that deserve more attention. Here are some that I have liked:

Article

Two New Lilies

ARE you one of the fortunates who's seen the new hybrid lily George C. Creelman in bloom?

I Know a Woman Who Loves Housekeeping

SHE lives in Des Moines, has two sons-- one in the ninth grade, the other a senior in high school. She's decidedly feminine, popular with men, liked by women. Mrs. B, of whom I speak, has had a happy family life, has been and is just about a 100 percent wife and mother and citizen.

The Matilija--Queen of Poppies

THIS California plant (Romneya coulteri) submits graciously to taming. It is declared by some to be the queen of all our flowers. So often do you see it in California gardens that few residents of that state know it as one of the wildings. Its native haunt is from Santa Barbara, California, to Mexico.

Mariposas--Also From the West Coast

ALTHO as a rule it is safest to make your choice of plants from varieties growing native in your locality, certain very desirable ones have proved their ability to become acclimated many miles from their original habitat. Among these is the gay Mariposa-tulip, Calochortus, native to the western states, especially to California.

Along the Garden Path

LIFE seems to be made up of choices. Each morning we rise and choose what we'll wear for the day. We sit down to breakfast to eat our cereal, but when asked, "Which kind?" we must again make a choice. I've just heard of a man who's eaten the same breakfast food every day for thirty years. Life for him must be uneventful.