June 1937

ACROSS THE Editor's DESK

DOES your community have a trail? No, this isn't addressed particularly to towns once of the frontier, like Cheyenne, Wyoming, or Dodge City, Kansas, located on great transcontinental highways, but to every town or city of anywhere from 50 to 5,000,000 population. I have recently seen the gorgeous Azalea Trail of Mobile and have heard much about the Hollyhock Trail of Madison, Wisconsin. Holland, Michigan, has a Tulip Trail. Other communities have similar projects.

IT'S News TO ME!

"IN SELECTING a refrigerator," suggests Edna Van Horn, "one important point is its size-- do get it large enough! Even the bride, who may think just a little one will do, will want to face summer's sultry days with adequate space for chilling cantaloupe, watermelon, and extra beverages.

IT SINGS A SONG OF Home

IN THE suburbs of a city such as Los Angeles it would seem difficult to select what you may call the most interesting houses. True, because almost every house has unique charm, and yet we all have had the experience of driving thru restricted residential districts where houses run the gamut of attractiveness, but where, in spite of the confusion of appeal, one house sticks in our minds.

Garden whimsies

PERHAPS one of the by-products of gardening is reminiscence. And how could there be a better place than in one's own garden, on a summer's afternoon, to review, contentedly, gardens of other years, even those reaching as far back as childhood? What are your childhood garden memories? Do you think of your garden now as a many-sided circus ring as you did then?

Enchanted GARDENS OF THE EVENING

HAVE a private enthusiasm. It's for gardens at night! And it's private because I can't very well explain my late arrival at an evening party by blaming it on the subtle and intoxicating perfume of Flowering Tobacco, whose velvety, white starlike blossoms caused the delay. My friends would raise an eyebrow --or two.

ROOMS WITHOUT WALLS

GARDEN terraces and little brick or stone pavements outside the door are invariably sources of deep satisfaction. And whether the original desire is for a breakfast terrace, a little private refuge under a leafy roof, or a latticed shelter, the result is a new room without confining walls, a room of almost unlimited possibilities.

THE Party

WHEN you see, parked beside a rocky field, a car with a pronounced sag to the rear springs and several perspiring members of a family lugging stones toward it, you'll know these people are about to build an outdoor fireplace. Small wonder that this delightful institution is becoming such a familiar feature of home life, for it not only makes entertaining much easier and less expensive, but a very satisfactory fireplace is achieved at so little cost.

Edgings AS YOU LIKE THEM

EDGINGS belong definitely in the little-but-oh-my list of tremendous trifles. As diverse as the uses we put them to, good edgings are a justified extravagance even when the garden budget suffers from overstrain. New edgings are one of the most effective beauty treatments a garden ever gets. Yet they're comparatively simple to add, even to the established border.

LET'S KEEP COOL

SIXTY days we sweltered. Sixty days we suffered. Sixty stifling hot days there were, many passing the 100-degree mark. Our house was like a furnace. Daily the sun poured fire into it, and cooked the energy out of us. Nightly we lay sleepless because the second floor became an oven.

HOMES FOR SUMMER LIVING

THESE two homes are expressly designed for the sum-mer-colony life that has become almost a national institution in recent years and continues to grow with the increased efficiency of transportation and better roads. It's a healthful and altogether beneficial addition to the yearly routine of the city-dweller who, until lately, had to content himself with a meager vacation at best to relieve his constrained existence in our larger cities.

THE RANCH-HOUSE GOES TO TOWN

THE Texas Centennial and Texas Architecture: Mexican music, Latin dancing and pageantry, and some of the most entertaining night clubs in America will attract many thousands to this year's big Texas fiesta in Dallas. The Greater Texas and Pan-American Exposition, to give it its formal name, will open June 12, shortly after you read this, and continue thru October. This international fair will be an enlarged successor to the Texas Centennial Exposition of 1936. It will mark the beginning of the Lone Star State's second century of freedom and will cement the cordial relations established by the American republics at the recent conference in Buenos Aires.

NOW WALLS DON PASTEL PAINTS

AT LAST we've rounded it-- that long awaited "corner" behind which security and calmer living have been lurking these several struggling years, and with sales charts and curves erasing frowns from the faces of businessmen, it's intensely interesting to watch the effect of this improved state of mind on the color trend in our homes.

SUMMER Freshness FOR YOUR LIVING-ROOM

WE CAN'T all tuck the house key under the mat and retire to the lakes or mountains June I. We may not even want to. For with summer slip-covers blossoming out all over the place, to make the town house coolly comfortable, it's even money that we'll be as happy at home as abroad.

SALADS AND DESSERTS ARE TOPS

"Perfect Temperature at 20 below"

"IT was lots of fun planning and fur-nishing our Cooperstown home. And what problems the architect had to solve!

THE Picture ON THE Cover

WE"VE wished plenty of times that we could dash out and take a picture tor a Better Homes & Gardens cover just before the magazine went to press. Pack it with a lot of fine current atmosphere, you know. But you can't-- not in the magazine game. So instead, the four-color photograph on this month's cover was taken last summer for this June!

Bang--Tap, Tap.... They're Building

EVERY summer our two boys, Hugh and Donald, 9 and 11 years old respectively, cluttered the family back yard with boxes, boards, and every conceivable kind of material tacked and wired together to make a building. These operations kept them at home but didn't improve the premises.

DON'T SKID ON THIS CURVE

THE dinner dishes are done. The little children are in bed. Junior-High Sam is upstairs with his radio. High-School Margie is downstairs in the recreation room, with her girl chum. The blessed moment of peace is here with YOU, Julia, on one side of the reading lamp darning socks, and HIM on the other, reading the evening paper between yawns.

Fresh Paint!

ALL over town metal furniture for gardens and terraces is coming out of winter storage, a lot of it, sad to say, looking like something for which the junkman will soon be making insulting offers. But don't let it bother you. If your pieces have lost their clear color and perfect finish thru a year or three of faithful service, give them a new lease on life with fresh paint.

June Noon .. AND A PARTY

COMES June again, and with her a merry whirl of party luncheons. Here's simplicity, yet utter deliciousness for that party menu you plan:

SHARP ANSWERS

FOR all the amazing tasks, and more, to which Mother bends a hairpin, Father wields a pocket-knife! But kitchen knives are specialists. Each does best and keeps its edge longest when it's selected and used exclusively for the particular task for which it was designed. Usually this design difference is in the blade's length. width, flexibility and shape.

Cabin Comfort

FOR you who have long looked forward to building and have finally completed that cabin somewhere among the "murmuring pines and the hemlocks" on the shores of a mountain lake, or on the dunes beside the sea, or perhaps in a grove of oaks or maples on the banks of a placid river, the pleasure of anticipation of building is gone.

OUTDOOR FIREPLACES Plans, 25c ...

Yesterday's Charm

THIS house and garage ensemble could be made home to any American family anywhere because of its design, its arrangement, its conveniences, and its completeness.

HE MADE A PROFIT FROM A LOSS

Sun Suits FROM DISHCLOTHS

SPLASH! Plop! And with glorious unconcern my young hopeful was again sitting in the middle of her mud pies to the utter destruction of a brand-new gingham dress.

UP Goes the Garden

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

My favorite expert on home economics is the young wife who, when harangued to reduce the grocery bill, achieves a magnificent saving by cajoling her husband to take her downtown for lunch and dinner several times a week.

Co-operating With Better Homes & Gardens

How Much?

Tips for Tinkerers

TO KEEP HAND SAWS from rusting, lay them in a warm oven until they're quite warm to the touch, then rub them on both sides with a rag well covered with lard or oil. Wipe off the surplus with another rag.

20 ... WORTH OF DOUGHNUT

WE STOPPED in front of a bakery, and I handed 20 cents to Eleanor. "Run in and buy us something for dessert," I said.

The Tulip

THRUOUT the entire garden year no one flower can give us greater variety and color than the tulip. This flower has a long history. First of all, the name Tulip origi-nated from the Persian word toliban, which means turban and which the inverted flower resembles. According to the records, tulips were first cultivated by the Turks; in tact, the tulip is a native of Turkey and surrounding countries, as well as the Orient.

Equip Your Closet

LITTLE GARDEN TASKS WAITING TO BE DONE

TO ASSURE strong growth and plump flowering buds for next year, snip ail withered flower heads from lilac bushes. This will prevent seed pods from developing, which take strength from the bush. Be careful not to cut back beyond the first joint bearing leafy twigs.

Confessions of Good Cooks

The other day I ran short of mayonnaise and was desperate enough to try an experiment. It worked! I beat the white of an egg, then whipped it into the mayonnaise gradually. Result-- just enough fluffy, delicious salad dressing! And if cream won't whip I add a beaten egg white, chill them both, then beat up to a fine, thick whip.--

How Advisable Is Term Insurance?

WHEN Harry C. learned about "pure" ... life insurance he got pretty excited, covering that it gave just as certain a ... benefit as ordinary life insurance at such lower premium charge per thousand dollars, he telephoned his insurance ad... to ask why the dickens term insur-ance hadn't been brought to his attention.

Puppy Tales

THERE are no notes so rollicking in the medley of childhood as those red-tongued bits-- the puppy dogs; nor does life hold anything more wholesome than the friendship between children and their dogs.

Answering Your Questions

Why do dogs bolt their food, and should one try to break this habit?

The Cherry Sunbright

FEW flowers of small size have the intense brilliance of the Cherry Sunbright. This native of the Southwest got its popular name from its similarity to the polished rose-cerise color of a Montmorency cherry with the sun shining full upon it.

THE Diary OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

June 1 Last night I sat at my study desk until midnight, reading student papers, so I could get up early and have time to work outdoors this morning before going down to the think-factory [Ohio State University, where the Plain Dirt Gardener is a journalism professor].

ALONG THE GARDEN PATH

WHEN man ceased to live by bread alone, he rapidly developed a passion to appropriate a spot where he might take his ease under his own vine and fig tree.