July 1937

ACROSS THE Editor's DESK

The Picture on the Cover: The front hall, I imagine, is the setting for more drama of family life than most of us may be willing to admit, at least on first thought. Farewells, greetings, sadness, joy, despair, and hope mellow its narrow walls. In this light, the hall becomes a room of major importance, reflecting the spirit within, partly thru its furnishings.

"...the only clock is the sun"

IT'S News TO ME!

"WHEN you make slip-covers and curtains," Christine Holbrook suggests, "there's the easy and right way to do each portion of the task. Do you know about the sewing course in making home-furnishings that Singer Shops offer as one of their services to customers?"

GIVE YOUR HOUSE A FACE-LIFT

"IT'S a great pity we can't all be plutocrats!" sighed Mrs. Newcomer, ruefully displaying a neatly mended sock to the small circle of women who had lingered with their sewing after a luncheon party.

A SCIENTIST'S Dream Garden

BOYCE Thompson Institute for Plant Research, in Yonkers, New York, might be called the Gardener's Green Pastures. Take any enthusiastic plant-lover there and show him around, and he would probably admit that here was something very like his notion of heaven and that he was glad he didn't have to die to get there.

MY LUCKY STARS

DO YOU garden for the fun of it? Do you like color-- lots of it? Do you enjoy filling your garden with the finest plants in the land? If the answers are-- Yes-- Yes-- YES!-- then, sooner or later, you'll grow daylilies. I'm not a crystal-gazer. It's just that quality plants have a way of gravitating to quality gardens.

SUNROOMS "Gay as a Fiesta--Informal as Fun"

A SUNROOM, like a good actress, can shine in any number of roles. Remember the sun parlor of a few years ago? The long, narrow, inclosed side porch opened off the living-room with one or two French doors, boasted one set of wicker furniture, one grass rug, one fern stand, cretonne draperies, a canary, and (if the owners were quite original) an aquarium and a rubber plant!

IT STANDS FOUR SQUARE

HOUSES may come and they may go, but the central-hall plan lives on forever in the favor of many people; and rightly so, for it's definitely a sane and proper plan, scorning the "tricks" and the "eye-catchers" of less sensible room arrangements. Good judgment tells us that regularity and foursquareness in a house are desirable, and living in a house embodying these characteristics teaches us their value.

DO WE AGREE about kitchens?

GENTLEMEN, BE Satiated

GREATER respect than I have for women no one could have, without being one. I believe women are entitled to slippers and a chair beside the fire just as much as they are to a hard day in the office. I think they've the same right to stand up in a crowded subway that I have. It doesn't bother me if they eat crackers in bed, provided it's not my bed. Under ordinary conditions I don't even object to them clicking their high heels around a kitchen, sealing with dabs of mayonnaise discouraged fragments of lettuce between translucent half-moons of bread.

Maid TO ORDER

"I JUST can't find a good maid!" How many times have you listened to this wail --or done the wailing yourself over the family board, the bridge table, or the telephone?

MEALS IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME

COOL FLOORS FOR HOT DAYS

"Easy on the Eyes"

Picnic Packs

FOR camping trip or trailer trek or for picnics often and impromptu in the nearest outdoors, here's a review of outfits to suit the site. Fine picnic packs are the stowaways that fold, collapse, or contain pan within pan, to travel light.

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

It's unfortunate, alas, that in so many of these June marriages one mother-in-law is set up while the other one is up-set.

2 MORE SUMMER HOMES

SUMMER Flowers BELOW THE LINE

YOU can't draw parallel lines across the country dividing it into zones, and then say definitely that delphinium blooms on June 15 in New York and 10 days earlier for every 100 miles you go south. Mountains, oceans, river basins, large lakes, and even longitude upset any formula you may want to make, even tho the above rule serves as a rough guide.

Never Too Young TO TRAVEL

"WE'RE simply panting to get off on a vacation, but with Baby and the two youngsters, I just can't see how we can do it."

TURN ON THE Rain!

THRU a hose runs the life blood of the summer garden-- water. For without water, flowering plants go limp and fail to bloom, lawns become crackly brown, and trees, shrubs, and evergreens become stunted in growth and susceptible, thru a weakened condition, to attacks from pests.

THE Diary OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

July! Home just about sundown from a long business trip, to hear bad news. Neighbor Dakan has moved. I knew it was impending, but it doesn't seem possible. For more than 9 years now we've lived side by side. Our lots touch, but the line had never been surveyed. We didn't agree on politics or on religion.

ALONG THE GARDEN PATH

AS A GREEN, young shoot, full of ambition and muscle, I was the proud possessor of a grass terrace, duly marked off with beds of annuals.