September 1936

Across the Editor's Desk

WHAT do you know about this? A lumbricus isn't a worm that eats wood, as stated on this page in the May issue. It's an angleworm.

THE Diary OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

Sept.1 This Sunday afternoon I walked about the garden and enjoyed the annuals, especially that bed of annual sca- biosa which I had planted with the two varieties Peachblossom and Loveliness-- a salmon-rose. The two are similar shades and make a lovely blend of color. If you buy the separate colors of annuals, you can have pleasant color effects and not ones that fight, such as mixed seed produces.

IT'S News TO ME!

THIS neat parlor trick for our sunroom is a permanent card table to leave standing all the time. It's modern design, by Gilbert Rohde, Kroehler manufactured in gray-stained oak.

POPEYE Reveals His Gardening Adventures

IT'S just natural for most folks to want to make things grow. About ten years ago the urge hit me, and I bought a two-acre ranch in San Fernando Valley, California. Yes, in that valley an area of two acres is definitely a ranch, particularly when you intend to grow chickens.

PLANT SPRING BOUQUETS Now

THO your garden enthusiasm may have smouldered to a smudge by September, don't forget the consuming flame into which spring is sure to fan it.

Beauty BEFORE THE HOUSE

WHEATHER you realize it or not, each day you're judged by the appearance of your grounds. This impression, whether favorable or otherwise, is created by your front yard, or "Public Area"-- that portion of your grounds which is viewed by the public.

New House-New Garden

EVERYONE warned, "Don't do it! Children and paint won't mix!" They were wrong there. Those children of ours got so mixed up in the fresh paint, which was just going on our new house, that the marks of their fingers were everywhere. But we had to be on the spot for all the garden and lawn plantings that were waiting to be done.

Green-Growing Velvet

EVER try to imagine the earth with no single blade of grass growing on it? What desolation, eyestrain, sand in our houses and grit in our food-- to say nothing of the practical vanishment of all natural beauty! The whole world would be one gigantic dust storm, and flood control would be virtually impossible.

CONVERTIBLE COLONIAL

ADAPTABILITY to widely varying family requirements is the feature of this Better Homes & Gardens Bildcost plan for an informal Colonial cottage. It can be any size you care to make it-- a complete and charming bungalow for the small family, since the second-floor bedrooms needn't be finished at first. Yet in its completed state it has four double bedrooms.

Mother-in-law Wing

MANY of us under 90 who can still recall our childhood must remember a common experience --we never had clothes that fit. When, just before school opened, we were taken down town to have bought for us a new suit of clothes or an overcoat, the salesman always brought out something or other miles too large.

Close Harmony

A STUDY IN Contrasts

WE BALANCE LIVING-ROOM BUDGETS

A STUDY IN Contrasts

SOME eighty years ago there was erected on the north side of Echo Lake, in Madison County, New York, the sturdy little structure which appears as the "before" photograph on page 28. It had a kitchen, pantry, woodshed, dining-room, and two bedrooms, with a small attic room overhead.

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

Most of us, as we watch the Labor Day parade, are likely to let our emotions run away with us and to conclude that maybe a plumber is worth a dollar an hour after all!

A DEEP-SEA DIVER'S Snug Harbor

THE moment you enter the home of Dr. William Beebe, world-famous naturalist, explorer, and writer, you're enfolded in an unexpected and wholly delightful atmosphere of permanence and serenity. Tho his home is in the heart of New York City, you'll find it curiously aloof from the roar and confusion on all sides.

Match Speed With Skill

"WHAT America needs today," says Mrs. Alex Miller, Iowa's secretary of state, who is in charge of traffic-law enforcement, "is an army of back-seat drivers-- an army of clear-eyed, level-headed youngsters, trained in safe and sane handling of a car on the highway before learning its actual manipulation.

Garden Elves

EACH year as spring approaches, before the sun has had a good start on its long journey back, I begin anxiously to scan my garden for the first appearance of the Erythroniums. The name, Erythronium (pronounced er-i-throh'-ni-um), may mean very little to the average gardener, who probably knows this bulb best by one of the following common names: fawn-lily, trout-lily, Easter-lily, dogs-tooth violet (because the bulb is shaped like the large fang of a canine), avalanche-lily, glacierlily, adders-or deer-tongue lily-- the name depending on the variety or the locality in which it grows wild.

Buying a Home?

IT'S often been said that if people thought more before marriage there would be fewer divorces. The same thing applies to home-buying, for if people thought more before buying there would be fewer houses for sale.

There's Romance in Parsley

DO YOU like parsley? You probably do, as a garnish, but have you really ever tasted it all by itself? Try it. Nibble it thoughtfully and you'll be pleasantly surprised at its delicate, sweet flavor.

SPRUCE UP THE Sunroom

THE gayest, most friendly room in your home this winter can be your sunroom. Gardens are too precious to be given up when the first snows fly, when it's so delightfully simple to bring them indoors to bloom in plants, trailing vines, and sunny furniture all thru the stormy months.

WHAT ABOUT Vaccination?

ONE hundred years ago smallpox was considerably more common than measles are nowadays. Today it's one of the rare diseases-- except in those places where ignorance, indifference, or carelessness has allowed an unvaccinated generation to grow up and furnish a fertile soil for an epidemic of this disgusting disease.

No-Cost Hamper

Kitchen Time-Saver

COMBINE a handy sink shelf or table with a cupboard below for storing soap, kitchen utensils, and similar things, as illustrated below. Use two matched boards, fastened together near the top and bottom on the inside, for each side of the cupboard. The front is inclosed as shown with a board 12 inches wide at the top, which serves for the shelf, and the remainder nailed between the uprights.

Pep Up Your Freezer

Talk It Over WITH TEACHER

SCHOOL! Bells are ringing all thru this country of ours today. Millions of children-- bright, dull, good, naughty, fits and misfits-- are entering pell-mell into another year of work and play, joy and heartache, lessons from books and lessons from people. Let's stand a moment at the school door and watch the children as they come.

THIS IS THE WAY WE Iron Our Clothes

SEPTEMBER brings busy days-- small whirlwinds of starting Father businessward, of bustling youngsters off to school all tubbed and shining. Shirts must be ironed to perfection, pert blouses or crisp gingham frocks made quite the neatest in "the room," and week after week these shirts and frocks, going to school and office, tell the story of ironing skill.

Gay, Amusing, and Ever So Simple

WHEN we're young we can be gay-- and ever after, too. But this month's merry color notes are especially for the youngster's own room-- not that we'll be able to keep "Minkey" there.

4 Full-Color Pages of Furnishings Ideas

Talk It Over With Teacher

Sometimes the problem is a group one, as when members of a P. T. A. write to ask what should be done about assignments of excessive homework by a certain teacher. This is plainly a job for the P. T. A. itself, intended to serve as a liaison unit between home and school. Let a committee or a representative call on the teacher, find out why the homework is given, whether or not it s really necessary.

4 Years' Insurance--Without Premiums

FlVE years ago Harry R., a 46-year-old engineer, bought a life-insurance policy for $20,000. After listening to the agent talk about "premium waiver in case of total disability," he decided to pay a few dollars extra each year for this advantage. It didn't sound important at the time, for Harry's family was noted for its longevity, and he took the best care of his health.

Pretty Enough to Eat!

SO THEY are, if you're talking about Japonica apples. The dwarf Japonica, or Japanese qui nee, justifies its existence in any garden because of its year-round beauty. But hidden in the apples at the vellow-flecked-with-red stage are the makings of jam and jelly with an ever-remembered flavor.

Handy Pick-Up

AND that's where we saw it first, or rather saw them, for there were two, sturdy and squat, one at either end of the huge fireplace of a charming, lived-in, New Hampshire living-room. They were copies, so we were told, of early New England milk stools. Since then, a man from Maine to whom we showed our copies of the New Hampshire copies said yes, he'd seen milk stools like that at home.

What to Do and How to Do It IN SEPTEMBER

SWING joyously into autumn plans for your garden and your home-- your family, too!-- with the help of these thoroly dependable how-to-do-it services!

POPPIES Pink, POPPIES Red

"OH, COME quick! Everyone!" It was the Neighborly Lady, voice jubilant, who appeared to be inviting the world and his wife into the early morning fastness of her June garden. Her interested sister and mother were the first to answer the summons, and the Neighborly Husband soon followed.

ALONG THE GARDEN PATH

IT'S an ill weed that blows no good. According to Professor L. H. Bailey, America's grand old man of horticulture, a weed is "a plant that isn't wanted." All of us know that nothing improves soil like cultivation, for it betters its physical condition and stimulates bacteriological action. Weeds, therefore, since their removal compels us to stir the earth, aren't an unmixed evil.