March 1937

Thanks a Million and a Half to You

WITH this issue we reach a circulation of more than 1,500,000, thanks to your loyal co-operation and friendship.

INVITATION

THE DIARY OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

Mar.1 Howdy, little lamb. Greetings, warm sunshine. Hello, little blades of green. I see your heads perking here and yon, about the lawn.

IT'S NEWS TO ME!

AT OUR house we're hungry for tasty ways to fix hot-vegetable dishes. Nick's young nephew, Billy, and the little niece, Martha, have been visiting us-- and they make the problem acute!

SPRING CALL TO ARMS

SPRING SHOWER OF NEW FLOWERS

I DIDN'T LANDSCAPE MY GROUNDS

THE negative title of this story sounds like a lazy man's slogan, whereas in fact it's meant to convey the idea that "things just grew" on my grounds. I might claim that the delightful effects obtained resulted from brilliant inspiration, or skillful planning of all details with a perfect sense of design. For that matter every commuter likes to think of himself as a born landscape gardener.

HAVE SOME STRAWBERRIES

ALL honor is due the strawberry, one of the most delicious and easily grown small fruits for the home garden. Mother of many delights, it deserves Izaak Walton's praise which was, "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did."

CONVENIENCE ENTERS the Kitchen

IT'S high time the kitchen came in for efficient planning and common-sense conveniences. For, much more than any other place where human activity flourishes, a kitchen has an intensive "peak load" three times a day, when it's vital that nothing should slow down the necessary processes. It's a room crowded with more congested activity than any other place in the house, and, compared to other rooms, it has four or five times the number of articles in everyday use.

SAGA OF "SINGING PINE"

WHEN H. Comer Winter, of Chicago, owner of this house, first told me that the plans I had made for a new house he'd contemplated building on a small lot in a Chicago suburb were to be abandoned because of his plan to buy "Singing Pine Farm," not far from Woodstock, Illinois (about 50 miles north of Chicago), I felt rather low, for the new house would have been an architectural gem.

CURTAIN CLINIC

SPRING'S here, no matter how your thermometer may argue the point. ]ust look at the fluttery frocks in the dress shops! And notice what's happening at the windows all over town! New dresses and new curtains announce Spring as merrily as any first robin, and team together to banish the last wisps of winter doldrums.

UNRUFFLED AS A A visit to the home of Mr. Spring Garden

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

What a blessed relief the radio programs are after 10 o'clock in the evening! The talent, it's true, isn't as expensive as it is a few hours earlier, but that's offset by the fact that no one is trying to sell you anything.

STARVE THE Jerry-Builder

ONLY rarely in these days can the average American citizen glance at his newspaper, switch on his radio, or talk with his neighbors and friends without seeing, hearing, or talking about home-building or home-buying. Altho no statistics exist to prove or disprove the statement, it can be safely said that never before in our history has the nation been made so acutely home-conscious by a combination of natural circumstances and intensified advertising.

RUGS You Can Make

WITH spring in the air, but not quite around the corner, now's the time to begin a rug. Craft rugs, often in the something-for-nothing-but-work class, may be beautiful as well as useful. The original little wedge-shape rug (1) was knitted on large wooden needles from old sweaters, jersey, kasha, and flannel strips. Complete instructions are 10 cents, Order No. 969.

I Get the Jump on Spring

MOST of us get the urge to start gardening long before settled spring weather arrives. Probably this is the way spring fever hits the amateur gardener. One way to satisfy this urge is to start seeds indoors.

Play's the Thing

SPRING, my mail bag tells me, isn't just a season. It's a state of mind. When inquiries take a light-hearted turn and sedate folks like you and me rebel from staid discussion and yearn to frisk, I know spring's at hand. It's a far more certain harbinger of spring than is the robin cocking an alert ear for the first stir of life beneath the snowbank where my tulips sleep.

A PLACE FOR Everything

Up WITH NEW SHADES

THE most amazing things are happening to window shades! Those deadly green or cold white affairs we used to struggle with and run up out of sight, whenever modesty and sun-glare permitted, have left on a one-way trip to the attic or junk pile. Lovelycolors, smart patterns, and gay new style notes have come to shade our windows, and, since windows claim about one-fourth the wall space in our homes, the business of finding the right shade for the window is going to be one of our most fascinating decorating problems this spring.

SO YOU'RE INFANTICIPATING

HALF the fun of having a baby, and it's a glorious experience after all, is in buying or receiving as gifts those cunning little "baby things." Pink and blue bootees, handmade dresses that make you just picture the little darling before he or she is even thinking of arriving, shawls, soft downy blankets, and... well, I could go on and on!

THE BASEMENT ROOM Assembled for you by Margaret White

WHEN CABBAGES ARE KINGS

EARTHLY vegetables, once a year, climb into the high seat and gain national acclaim with the announcement of the All-America selections. From 85 varieties tested last year by 12 competent judges, the ones described here were considered sufficiently outstanding to be given awards.

AND THAT'S California

WHENEVER the stars of Hollywood become angry with the rest of the Californians, there's talk about moving the movies right out of the Golden State. But they never do it, and it isn't the climate, either, that keeps the movie people in California. It's geography. Somewhere within a day's motor trip of Hollywood it's easy to find the natural background for practically any scene on earth.

WHICH STYLE DO YOU LIKE BEST?

The Question Before the House

WHERE cement has been spilled on brickwork and then merely brushed off, leaving a white coating, is there any easy way to remove it?

How About Your "Wife" Insurance?

DURING two weeks last spring one of the largest life-insurance companies analyzed by occupations the buyers of 27,000 new policies it issued. A surprising fact bobbed up. Every twelfth policy was issued on the life of a housewife! The vice- president of the company reported, "While these policies aren't for large amounts, women constitute a large and important class of our policyholders."

A Gourmet

IT'S a mistake for most of us to plant vegetables in our home gardens with the idea of harvesting just bushels of carrots, beans, and corn. People so utilitarian will find it easier to buy them from the grocer.

COMPANY ONCE A WEEK

IT MAY sound to you like a great big headache-- this once-a-week company program of ours-- but it really has all the pepping-up quality of a new hat or a business bonus!

Movies and Radio--BLESSING OR BANE?

THE foregoing arresting bits of information aren't mere opinions or guesswork, but facts which have emerged from the Payne Fund investigation, a thoro scientific research carried on to determine the exact effect of motion pictures upon children. Thousands of children were tested. Not only did they describe their reactions, verbally and in writing, but pulse and reflexes were taken by machines as movies were watched.

The Eatin' o' the Green

FAITH, and it's the unimaginative hostess who can resist breaking Lenten quiet with some sort of jolly festivity in honor of the good old Irish saint who bears the name of Patrick! Where could you find a better patron for a light-footed evening --or the jig-and-reels of the Emerald Isle, a better blessing?

LIVING ROOM FOR ALL

THE outstanding characteristic of this Bildcost Gardened Home is the flexibility of its room arrangement, which is designed to provide comfortable living and work space for all the family in all its different stages. We realize how subject to change these requirements are as the children arrive, grow up, and go out to make their own homes; but we seldom definitely plan our homes so successfully to accommodate this normal growth and shrinkage.

IS THERE Life IN THE OLD SEEDS YET?

LET'S admit it! Haven't most of us a box, drawer, or hideaway of some sort where seed packets of last year-- and nobody knows how many others years-- have accumulated? And such faith we place in those old seeds! We wouldn't part with them any more than we would with family heirlooms. They're treasured possessions.

Georgetown Gives Up a SECRET

QUAINT and picturesque is Georgetown on the Potomac, where the historic houses retain their original eighteenth-century architecture and the gardens are still old-fashioned. Recently some ingenious owners have introduced modern features in their gardens without destroying their traditional charm.

STRETCHING THE SMALL ROOM

THE other day I saw a humorous reference to a "dine-kitch-sit apartlet," and tho most of us have graduated from apartments to homes of our own, it struck me that we've taken with us the main problem of the apartment-dweller --that of, by some hokus pokus, making the modern small-size room appear larger than it is.

FIRST AID FOR YOUR TREES

TREES are, to me, the most fascinating of all the things which grow on the home grounds. They're an integral and important part of the landscape and indispensible to our comfort and the full enjoyment of the garden. Most of us take for granted their cooling shade, the pictorial setting they give our homes, and the distinction they impart to our grounds, enhanced, perhaps, with airy clouds of fragrant flowers.

BUILD BEAUTY INTO YOUR YARD

As a sauce is to the pudding, so a lattice is to the home, and, moreover, it's perhaps the most economical decoration you can use to beautify your yard. It forms a lacelike pattern, making interesting what otherwise would be a dull, blank space.

The Orchid

CONTRARY to popular belief, orchids aren't confined to the tropics but are distributed over the entire world with the exception of polar regions and great deserts. Nevertheless, about 85 percent of the wild kinds grow in tropical and subtropical regions. A number, of which ladyslippers are examples, grow wild in the United States.

TWO NEW HOMES THAT WON

HE Unlocked THE WHOLE PLANT WORLD

HE WAS a dumb one-- you know, like Thomas A. Edison and Sinclair Lewis. Teachers tried for seven years to bend his mind into the shape of a minister's, found they hadn't dented it, and told his father to apprentice him out to learn the tailor's, carpenter's, or some other trade which wouldn't require much brainwork.

MUMS ARE HOBBY PLANTS

EVERYBODY likes chrysanthemums. They're so easy to grow anybody can do it; in fact, within recent times, mums have become the favorite garden flower of many people. Yet some of us have indifferent luck with them. The reason for this, however, is likely to be a poor selection of varieties or not understanding the nature of mums and how to handle them.

How Far Do Roots Spread?

DID you ever try to visualize the roots of your plants? If you have, then some questions must have come to mind, such as, how deep do they go, and how much do they spread?

FLOWERS of the BIBLE

TO ANYONE unfamiliar with Bible lands, especially Palestine and Syria, it's surprising to learn that they are a flower-lover's paradise. Of course, there's good reason for this. We know these countries to be shut in by seas and desert sands. They're rough, rugged, rocky, and mountainous.

ALONG THE GARDEN PATH WITH THE WEEK-END GARDENER

THE "Poor Man's Orchid" needs no press-agent. The brilliance of the easily grown tall bearded iris is a veritable shout. Its din may cause the great merits of less spectacular types to be overlooked. Somebody ought to say a kind word for its humbler relatives.