July 1936

Across the Editor's Desk

"MAN is about the only creature that is unnecessary to Nature," said a wise and thoughtful commentator in a recent radio broadcast. He went on to say that Nature seems to get along wonderfully in the wilderness uninhabited by human beings, but the wholesale destruction of animals, birds, fish, and insects, to say nothing of vegetation, trees, shrubs, and vines, seems to destroy the nice balance that Nature has set up.

WHERE TIME STANDS STILL

THE Diary OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

As this month of heat and glory bloom begins, I go for a walk over the place, to take appraisal of the looks of things. There is bloom everywhere-- roses, Japanese Iris unfolding, first annuals coming on, Regal Lilies. I stop to appraise my new roses, planted this spring, that are all in good bloom by now, so I can pass judgment on them.

IT'S News TO ME!

HERE'S a handy-man cabinet to make for puttering with plants indoors. It's a year-round fix-it in garage, shed, or basement, where seed flats are prepared and bulbs and slips potted. Fine, too, for wrapping a few ageratum or phlox in wet paper to speed-well a visitor! Shelf top is deep, linoleum-covered, cleans easily. And the bins, below, I like very much.

Williamsburg THE IDEAL HOME TOWN

I WAS last in Williamsburg in 1929, when it was practically devoid of attraction. The colorful one-time capital of Virginia had been stricken since Revolutionary days by fires, as well as the ravages of the Civil War, and the transgression of miscellaneous buildings hid what little remained. It was just another small town-- altho incorporated as a city in 1722-- old and historic, decadent and further declining with the deaths of its older inhabitants.

Exit, Mister Heat!

"HOT Weather to Continue... No Relief in Sight"-- so go the headlines. It's the same old story in June, July, and August, for most of us. We swelter, and we swear. And we wish, oh, how we wish, we could just move Greenland's icy mountains, for a dollar or so, right down in our own back yards-- and let Nature take its course.

Garden Hide-Aways

SLEEP-HOLLOW chair, bowl of fruit at your elbow, pipes and ashtray, and friendly books to read-- who doesn't have a corner he calls his very own at home?

A Gallery of Summer Flowers

LET'S be practical about your midsummer garden. Suppose, before you read any further, you check off all the plants exhibited in this flower gallery that will bloom in your garden this season. Now, how do you score, high or low?

A HOME FROM Old Virginia

TO YOU who cherish tradition but acknowledge the changes made necessary by the insistent demands of our present day, this Bildcost Gardened Home should have especial attraction, for it represents a free interpretation of one of our popular American Colonial types of architecture.

Make It Stick

NOT long ago we heard a story about a marriage. Everything had gone along smoothly in the ceremony and the minister had just said, following the usual question, "Let him now speak or forever after hold his peace." Whereupon a chunk of plaster fell out of the ceiling and crowned the best man.

Mirror MAGIC

SING A SONG OF Peatmoss

YES, sing a song of peatmoss, a ballad of lovely, lazy, summer days-- days in which to enjoy the garden, for there'll be never (well, almost never) a weed to pull. Because peatmoss, believe it or not, practically eliminates the need to weed, water, and cultivate. This unique product is the answer to a busy gardener's prayer.

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

If your wife has a weakness for using your last razor blade the evening of a big dance, there's some small revenge in using her hand lotion as rubbing alcohol.

HEINZ STRAINED FOODS

Bring Home a Poster

POSTERS, framed or unframed, of places you've seen in traveling or of subjects that interest you make ideal furnishings as wall decorations in the home. Their colors and the simple directness of their design make them ideal material for filling the wall space over a mantel, a bookshelf, in halls, playrooms, even in bedrooms-- wherever you have a space difficult to fill.

AND NOW--Sunbonnets!

PERHAPS we'll be going partying in bustles by fall! At any rate, we're unanimously gardening and even gadding these summer days in sunbonnets. These demurely becoming bits of headgear rather went into eclipse with suffrage and speed, but every so often girls will go feminine, and this year bonnets are the result.

Paul Bunyan's Own Trees

THE trees weren't big enough for Paul Bunyan! When he chopped them, his ax whished thru a whole grove at one stroke, and, if he wasn't careful, gashed his legs. So one day he took his Big Blue Ox and went west where trees are trees.

New Planting Helps

MAKE IT WITH Oilcloth

SINCE the day when it was white and stretched on the kitchen table, oilcloth has expanded its capabilities in ways that are both decorative and gay. A utility material always, I like to use it about the house, particularly in summer when I need a waterproof fabric that looks cool and is easy to clean.

Superior Children DON'T JUST HAPPEN

WOULD you like to produce a genius? Then reconcile yourself to riding herd on a runabout at an age when your friends are tranquilly enjoying their grandchildren, for it's the old parents who give us most of our geniuses.

Vintage Vinegars

AS CAREFULLY made and aged as great wines-- Heinz pure vinegars are truly "vintage" vinegars. I am sure you'll find that their rich bouquet and delicate flavor will be the makings of many a fine dish for you.

Oakandapple Airline

BOB, my husband, has a habit of bringing home what seem to me extraordinary acquisitions, simply because they might be useful sometime. Not long ago he arrived with a roll of elevator cable in the car. His office building had discarded it.

Two Are Better Than One

IT WAS sad enough when Mr. and Mrs. F. J. died simultaneously in the same automobile accident, but the husband little realized that his failure to observe a simple caution would add to the difficulties of his children.

I Transplant Anytime

WE ALL can remember that it was not so very long ago that spring was considered the only time of the year for successfully transplanting trees and shrubs. How disappointed we became when the nurseryman told us that it was too late to move that beautiful shrub in full leaf and flower that we wanted so much in our landscape development, and if we couldn't have it when it made its favorable impression, by fall we probably wouldn't want it at all.

Give Me a Hammock

THE kids surely miss a lot these days when there isn't a hammock in the family. What a comfort it used to be on hot summer afternoons when there didn't seem to be a thing worth playing. How delightful it was then to lie idly swinging, looking up past sturdy branches, thru leafy green to the blue sky and the clouds floating lazily by.

ALONG THE GARDEN PATH WITH THE WEEK-END GARDENER

IT TAKES two good women to make one good man. At least our elders used to think that an acceptable masculine product was achieved only by the joint effort of (a) one excellent mother and (b) one Grade A wife. The matter appears nowadays to be subject to debate; but if we draw a parallel to landscape horticulture, I imagine there will be little argument.