February 1937

ACROSS THE Editor's Desk

ONE Pasadena, California, Better Homes & Gardens reader became so anxious to secure plans and specifications for a Bildcost Gardened Home that he put in a long-distance call which cost $10. At 12 o'clock noon the following day he had received, by airmail, all the material he had requested.

THE DIARY OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

Feb.1 As we sat at breakfast this Saturday morning, Maggie was lamenting that all the myriad cans of tomato juice she put up last summer are gone. "Well, there is still plenty of strawberry jam," said I. "You'd better get that used up in a hurry.

IT'S NEWS TO ME!

NICK and I are proud of our kitchen these days. We've had new lighting fixtures put in, and they look so neat! Before calling the electrician, we chatted with Edna Van Horn about what to select and where to place our kitchen lights

THERE'S ONE BORN TOO OFTEN

SO MANY dozens of success articles have been written, and published, about the perfectly ducky transformations of ugly old houses, barns, mills, stables, hen houses, or whatever kind of building seems to be standing on a discovered plot of ground, that I'm wondering if a responsive chord won't be struck deep down in the honest heart of many an ardent renovator by my story of-- FAILURE!

YOU CAN BUILD OR BUY

THE theater that gave America the familiar spectacle of this particular villain was founded on fact. Mortgage foreclosures everywhere have dotted our land history. It was no playwright's invention that pictured the house and the land and the title thereof reverting to the mortgagee, and the family, bewildered and disconsolate, sitting in the street with the furniture.

STARS FOR YOUR 1937 GARDEN

WINNERS of the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, the Davis and Stanley cups, have a great following, but to those of us who raise flowers, the annuals that win the All-America awards are stars of the first magnitude. Anyone who ever pressed a seed into the soil now wants to grow at least a few of these varieties which are currently featured in the catalogs.

A WILD LANE

MY ENTHUSIASM always mounts when I see something beautiful evolve where nothing was before. It takes imaginative vision of a creative order to plan such a feature as the wild lane which Evan Owen, Better Homes & Gardens reader, planted on his grounds at Hayfields, in North Stamford, Connecticut.

COLORFUL SHRUBS FROM SNOW TO SNOW

WHO could throw an undesirable or disappointing child out on the street and say, "There! I've had enough of you. You're not what I hoped you'd be"? None of us!

WALL ROLL CALL

CHIPPENDALE and How to Know It

THOMAS CHIPPENDALE, living from 1718 to 1772, was the first of a famous group of Eighteenth-Century English designers to whose originality and fine craftsmanship we owe much of the lovely furniture in our homes.

DEEP DORMERS AND BAYS

THE popularity of the Cape Cod house, of which this Bildcost Gardened Home is a worthy representative, is deservedly returning all over America. Hundreds of years of experience have shown that it's by far the most economical and in the small house the most pleasing in appearance.

IT USED TO BE UGLY AND GAUNT

The Story: Located in Granby, Connecticut, and, so far as can be learned, erected sometime during the eighteenth century, this home was, in its original condition, a good example of the best Colonial work.

APRONS TO THE FRONT!

EXIT the merry din of midwinter holidays-- enter (with the littlest puff of relief) the calm of a new year! New gift lists are turning up for birthdays and anniversaries, and a perfect epidemic of spring fairs and bazaars is in the air.

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

Every woman, alas, spends half her life wearing out old clothes she doesn't like; and every man half of his, aging his garments to the point where he grows fond of them.

NEW RUCS FROM OLD?

HOW nice it is to dream dreams-- to plan changes that will make "Home" a still lovelier place-- inexpensive changes that will bring added charm, new interest, fresh color and comfort.

A Short Month and a Merry One

FEBRUARY'S a gala month with three big colorful holidays and a host of lesser occasions to honor. Right on your doorstep is a fete day whose business it is to revive clubs from a midseason slump in interest and attendance. It's up to you, Madam Social Chairman! You're chosen for your important post because of social charm, tact, a knack for bringing folks harmoniously together.

ONCE JUST A BASEMENT

THE great American basement has too long been a national pain in the neck. With its none-too-sightly heating system, its shelves of preserves, and its toppling pile of furniture has-beens, it's been decidedly not the place to take the honored guest or the visiting cousins.

Seed FOR THOUGHT

THERE'S been a lot of stuff written about the joys of sitting by the fireside wondering whether to plant tall blue larkspur or ivory Madonna lilies back of the sundial. But not by me.

Amelia Earhart at Home

EACH time I've seen Amelia Earhart she's been at home-- digging in her garden, straightening a rug, plumping a cushion, or arranging flowers in some lovely bowl. So naturally I think of her less as a very modern young woman with a man's career and a man's courage, and more as a pretty lady with a charming home and a handsome husband, a woman who has found all the answers to life within her tour walls.

Red Bedroom

WE TAKE A Sight-Seeing JAUNT

A Packboard for You and Your Son

THE packboard from which this drawing was made has had as much as 90 pounds fastened to it without giving out even so much as a small creak, altho I can't say as much for the person who carried the weight.

Riding Is Cheaper

IF YOU were going to travel 300 miles it would be cheaper, if your time and shoe leather weren't worth anything, to carry your own lunch and walk!

How $2,000 Became $5,467.20

LAST year, in a Vermont town, John F., an old and very happy great-grandfather, went to his final resting place. Back in 1875 he took $2,000 of ordinary life insurance and had kept it in force ever since. Imagine Mrs. F.'s surprise when the insurance company sent her a check for $5467.20!

A Kitchen Desk's a Personal Thing

I'M AS big a stickler for efficiency in my business office as any high-powered executive could be. Of course, it's a special kind of office, with a refrigerator on one side, a range on the other, and a smooth sweep of counter top in between. But still it's very much my office-- the business center of our home.

Eating Orgy

EVEN in sunny Alabama there are days when wintry winds blow in fog and icy, driving rain. Cold creeps in thru the very bones to chill the marrow. Then I get out my big soup pot and prepare a special meal to help my husband forget the unpleasant day, that he may more completely settle into the warmth and comfort of his home.

TOP OF-STOVE Cookery

WITH only one skillet, so they say, a Frenchman can cook a whole meal. Perhaps the story got about because some Frenchman may once have said that if he could have but one pan, he'd choose a skillet. Without doubt even the artist would respond to a battery of pots and pans with a finer touch in cookery.

KEEP THEM Straight

LOOK at your youngsters tonight as they sit reading or studying. Are their backs straight? If they're bending over work on desk or table, do they lean from the hips? Or does the spine seem to collapse at a point just below the shoulders, giving the child, whom you know to be perfectly normal, a slightly hunchbacked appearance?

BALBOA DISCOVERED--a Gourmet Explores--THE PACIFIC

AFTER motoring for days across the continent, it's a surprise to come to the end of land and to stand face to face with the Pacific. You feel that you share in its discovery and envy the man who first saw it. But if you've crossed the mountains you've an appetite, and the spirit of discovery takes a practical turn.

Eaters Digest

Do you remember the whitewashed shelves leading down along the cellar stairs where grandmother used to set her pickles-- row on row? There were squat gray crocks with blue daisies on them covered over with old, white dinner plates and big, scrubbed stones to hold the pickles down under the brine.

Co-operating With Better Homes & Gardens

For your information, the usual retail prices are quoted. Because of geographic location, or for other reasons, some prices may vary in the store where you shop.

Here's Another Chance to Win A CASH PRIZE

ENTER this February contest today and get your share of the fun and the cash prizes offered by Better Homes & Gardens for the best answers to this question.

Novelty Flowers in Review

Pet Garden Tools

Appetizing Ideas FOR FEBRUARY

"MEATS That Make Men Happy," "Prize-Winning Pies," and "Best Cakes" are only three of the long list of booklets and leaflets offered by Better Homes & Gardens. And because they're available to you at cost of printing and postage, most of them cost only 4 cents each!

Hall-End Closet

ALONG THE GARDEN PATH

IT'S odd how easy it is to forget the contents of a perennial border even when you've planted it with your own hands.