August 1936

Across the Editor's Desk

WE ARRIVED in the very midst of the Dust Bowl (where Oklahoma, Colorado, and Kansas meet) just as a long drouth-breaking rain was setting in. A fine, faithful friend of other days was there to greet us, and she had brought with her the choicest possession from her garden-- a single pink Radiance rose.

Hold fast! STRENGTH and beauty in this seashore vacation scene

THE Diary OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

aug. / This first day of a new month finds Maggie, the boys, and me a-visiting Maggie's brother Hugh and his family in Denver, where we've stopped a few days on our vacation trip. This afternoon Elanor gave a tea tor her garden club-- the Junior League Garden Club-- and I was ordered to put on a coat and show myself

IT'S News TO ME!

NICK delights in this cypress-wood bluebird house-- it has several clever features, we think. Bluebirds move 'twixt bird hatchings, and this 4-compartment house is to make us always sure of one flat-ful! Floor is center-hinged, halves drop to clean easily. On the pole are wood prongs (a cat-guard!).

TRY HAND-HOLDING

IN NEARLY every average family there's likely to be at least one irritable, touchy, thin-skinned, quick-tempered, more or less grouchy member. Set down in an otherwise harmonious and well-adjusted household, such a one is like a grain of dust in the family's eye.

Reclaim No-Man's Land

THE GARAGE GROWS UP

NOT so long ago the garage shied well away from the house, and for good reason. It wasn't much more beautiful than an over-sized piano box, and not even slightly related to either house or garden. But in recent years the garage has plucked up courage to be handsome in its own right, and has drawn closer and closer to the house itself, until now it's often part of it.

NEW HOME Prizewinner

REMODELING Prizewinner

HOW TO LOCATE YOUR NEW HOME

IF YOU'RE like most everyone else, you won't give much thought in advance to the one best location for your new home. Of course, you'll have a general idea where the house is to go, but the chances are you won't give any serious thought to the many problems involved in placing it on the lot.

WILLIAMSBURG GARDENS Bloom Again

SUMMERTIME in Williamsburg two centuries ago! The good townspeople are busily engaged with the gardens about their fine homes. Under lavish Governor Spotswood's direction the Palace Gardens have been becoming more and more luxurious. Here pretty damsels and young gallants stroll in the gardens after the Governor's sumptuous balls.

CAPTURE SPAIN

HAVE you ever wondered why the person who is obviously sensitive to the architecture of his home may be completely innocent of the inappropriate garden he has made? The reason isn't apparent. I'm sure the thoughtful home-owner seeks consistency outside his home as well as within. When he builds a Spanish house, surely he will not want to surround it with an American, English, or Georgian garden.

KEYS, CARROTS, AND CORAL applied by you

OUR latest indoor sport is decorating with pasterettes-- and what a lark we're having! There's no expert to call in, no muss of glue, clippings, nor paint, very small expense, and amazingly little time consumed. Yet with these new, ready-to-apply cut-outs, already available at many department stores, you can change the whole feeling of your rooms, adding pattern, color, and even a gay fillip for your funny bone.

THE Question BEFORE THE HOUSE

IS IT possible to make a ceiling and, perhaps, sidewalls, of insulating or composition board instead of lath, plastering thereon, and with good results?

YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR CLIMATE

WHEN winter comes, you may travel south, and in summer, you can vacation at the shore. But your garden must stay home to blister thru parching sunny days, and so you plant accordingly. Grim experience has taught that tough plants will endure. Unlovely tho they may be, you say, 'I'll stick to them"-- until you've tried lathhouse gardening.

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

With a remarkable unanimity, most of the modern drawing-room comedies appear to open into bedrooms. It might he called the bungalow fashion in Broadway architecture.

THERE'S Life IN THE OLD SUITE YET

WONDER how many of you today are embarrassed by white elephants --ponderous, overstuffed affairs in the form of two-piece mohair suites? It wasn't just that the salesmen were silver-tongued. Twenty or so years ago there simply wasn't anything to be had in comfortable furniture but these plump atrocities. You bought-- or you sat on the floor.

Give 'em a LIFT

If, 'neath the heat of midsummer's sun Your garden impulses are prone to wilt, Try the early morning hours, Or twilight, In which to perform the little attentions So appreciated by the flowers of your garden.

NEW HOME Prizewinner

FOR some time we'd thought that acreage, giving us plenty of space for lawn and garden development, also enabling us to add from time to time such things as a badminton or tennis court and swimming pool, would be desirable. Generally such places are too far from the city. Therefore, when we saw our present location, easily accessible to the city and comprising one and one-quarter acres, it struck us as being exactly what we'd been seeking.

Remodeling Prizewinner

THE RED MAN Sings FOR HIS PALE-FACE BROTHERS

HIS story continues a Better Homes & Gardens series on American music. The first was on "Negro Spirituals," the second about "Cowboy Ballads," and the third (in the October, 1934 issue), an interview with Lawrence Tibbett, told you about lullabies. You'll enjoy this story, particularly if on your vacation this summer you're going to be in "Indian Country."-- THE EDITORS.

New-Fashioned Ways OLD-FASHIONED FLAVORS

THERE'S something sweetly old- fashioned and satisfying about jam- and jelly-making-- about a rainbow of chubby jars and neat glasses playing soldier in the preserve cupboard. In Grandmother's day they promised after-school bread and jam, cream cheese and jelly sandwiches for tea, and the curse taken off bread pudding with peach or plum.

PAPER

BRIGHT wax-paper squares (No. I, photograph at right) wrap and identify picnic bites. Group 2 shows table covers-- blue daisy-plaid for bridge, and pups or stripes with shadow dots for picnics! Two have cups to match, napkins for all three. The blue yacht (3) sails on a white parchment place mat that's waterproof. For picnics, cardboard salt and pepper shakers (4) hold a spoonful apiece.

LET THEM FIND THEMSELVES

"HOW on earth can we inject into our children an inter- est in the arts and sciences-- those fields that will make them well-rounded, interesting peo-ple?" You've asked this ques-tion in one form or other so often that today I'm going to grapple the bull by the horns and, to the best of my ability, answer it.

LOOK TO YOUR Caps and Jars

HAVE you ever wondered why Lady Luck seems to smile sweetly on your canning one year, while the next season everything ends in dismal failure? Well, it isn't Lady Luck's doings at all, but a fact that you've discovered without knowing it-- that you can't treat all jars and caps alike.

Give Them Pleasant Memories

HOW many children have you? Have they grown up, or are they still little tots? I envy you if they're still youngsters, for mine are grown up. Let me urge you who have small children to get all the pleasure you can from them while they're small. You may recall the photographer's slogan of some years ago, "How I'll miss you when you grow up."

ALONG THE GARDEN PATH

EVERYBODY knows that Lewis Gannett, whose sane, well-balanced book reviews are followed by thousands, casts a fairly long shadow in the literary world. Not so many are aware that he is a passionate, down-to- the-grass-roots week-end gardener.