May 1938

ACROSS THE Editor's DESK

The Picture on the Cover: "Pansies for thoughts"... Bridal Wreath in snowy cascades... lilting May sunshine... and a charming little lady in a transplanting mood! If you can resist her you're a better man than I am, Mr. Din. And just to save you a stamp, that's not a bed ot popcorn or even of babysbreath on which she kneels-- lightly, I hope-- but a crushed-rock garden path, soon to be completely bordered by the wise little faces of velvet-petaled pansies.

THE Diary OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

May I Right after breakfast this Saturday morning we finished lawn-mowing and then the whole family went downtown to buy things. We are planning a trip to the Pacific Coast this summer.

ITS News TO ME!

"THE wise and easy time to mothproof wool-upholstered furniture," says Better Homes & Gardens' Helen Homer, adept at homekeeping, "is before moths arrive. One way is to use at least a half-gallon of Larvex on a 3-piece furniture suite, thoroly saturating the furniture's wool covering as if you were painting or dyeing it.

SHE TRAINS Thorobreds

"RIGHT now we're streamlining our flowers," said Elizabeth Bodger with a tranquil smile, as she glanced at a sheaf of reports from her field workers. She was in her office at El Monte, California, in the midst of hundreds of blazing acres of solidly planted flowers-- an unforgettable sight. I had just asked her about the present "styles" in plant-breeding.

HE PASTURES HIS HOBBY-HORSE IN A garden

A FEW years ago Earnest Elmo Calkins, whose name is one to conjure with in advertising, wrote an authoritative treatise that had nothing to do with advertising. He called it "The Care and Feeding of Hobby-Horses."

Better Homes Prize winners

AN OLD house was all the Adamses had to begin with. Just an old mongrel of a house. It doesn't matter that it stood in Arlington; Washington. It stood-- and still stands-- in every other town in the Middlewest and West, too. Lots of us grew up in it. We learned to smoke corn silks out in back. Remember? Theodore Roosevelt was in Africa, and the natives called him Bwana Tumbo.

Why Families Leave Home

HERE are two Better Homes & Gardens cottages designed for families itching to get away from it all, but not so far away that father has to shave in cold water. They're compact as the most modern apartment, complete with showers, refrigerators, and ranges. Into their built-in storage units go books, linens, provisions, fishing gear, luggage, that stuffed owl you shot back in 1928.

GIVE Your Pool A PRESENT

A SMALL water garden is cool and beautiful to have. From the tiniest trickling mountain stream to vast expanses of blue ocean, water has ever suggested coolness, and a pool in the garden is no exception.

Comfort Under Cover

ROCK GARDENS ON THE Level?

THE lure of gardening probably finds its most entertaining and interesting phase in the rock garden. Altho it may seem to some people to be a highly specialized form of gardening, it's nevertheless as possible and as much fun for people who have a small plot of ground as for those who have acres at their disposal.

DID I SAY Settle Down?

ABOUT three years ago my wife wrote me up as the original blunderbuss of the garden, and because I seemed to represent a Type, the story was published in Better Homes & Gardens [Feb. 1935; see above].

Polish FOR LITTLE DIAMONDS

"THAT'S not the way to eat soup. Spoon it away from you!" This bombshell broke over our family table one day when my older brother, 16, and just starting to go out into "society," returned from his first more or less formal dinner.

THRU Colored Glasses

SELF-STARTING Fun

WHY don't more homes have playgrounds? Most children crave them, delight in them, benefit physically and mentally from them.

LET'S HAVE More Livable Rooms

CARTS don't come before horses. We all know that. But the thing we sometimes forget is that we're making the same horse-and-buggy error when we plan our livingroom arrangement to suit some inner urge or decorator's fancy-- and then try to fit our family into it.

MAKE ROOM FOR PICTURES

PERHAPS more than any other one thing in our homes, pictures can ease the strain and restlessness that have become a part of modern living. But this means pictures wisely chosen and well placed. A handsome cavalier looking upon us understanding from the wall, a lovely Madonna filling us with peace and contentment-- these are like real companions and friends, ones who make no demands and expect no favors.

TELLING FACTS ABOUT Termites

THIS termite is with us today: he still eats wood, his habits are the same. You'll notice that the termite has a special beneficent function to perform-- he hastens the break-down and return of dead wood to the soil and air. He's an agent of a cleanly and cyclical Nature. The termite, as such, is a valuable insect.

WHY NOT Orchids?

YES, why not? No, not the exotic prizes of the tropics, but our own hardy, northern, terrestrial species. Among plants, orchids are a numerous far-flung family. The Floridian forms, like those of the deeper tropics. mostly grow in trees-- epiphytic. the botanist calls it-- and they require a hothouse to grow in.

YOU CAN Make These Yourself

AREN'T there some spots in your garden just begging for a bench, a birdbath, or a sundial?

Happy Birthday to Us!

WE'RE one year old this May! Not the editors, you understand, but our new Cooks' Round Table pages which are celebrating their first birthday this month. And just in case you've forgotten, last December we staged a double-header Birthday Contest featuring Spring vegetables and Cheese Dishes.

Expecting a Baby?

FOR MEN ONLY!

HE ANNEXES THE Attic

Small BUT Stunning

WHY do men prefer little women and yet yearn to grow enormous dahlias? Why, on the other hand, do women adore big men and wax eloquent over dainty flowers? Something's odd here! Perversity!

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

This spring I'm sneaking out into the b. w.'s garden again to plant a row of corn, as I did the spring we were married, and pretend when it comes up that it's a new kind of lily. I'll bet she falls for it all over again.

How to Handle the Room With a Bay Window

JUST to make things hard we've picked a bay with windows from floor to ceiling-- a spot to be treated simply but ever so decoratively. Informal coziness just won't do: a touch of elegance is the thing. A fine old desk, a chair, and a pair of English pedestals would be enough, using on the pedestals urns containing leaves or plants.

Among Ourselves

NO DOUBT ALL WILL REMEMBER the story about the Christmas Rose (Helleborus niger) in last December's Better Homes & Gardens. It might be interesting to know how many have made a hobby, or at least special note, of the flower.

WHIMS & HOBBIES

JOYCE SHORT, a thirteen-yearold girl, operates the Augusta Tramway and Transfer Company of Arkansas, the shortest railroad in the United States registered with the federal bureau of economics. She acts as engineer of a small locomotive, pulling one coach over a system a mile long.

Back Talk!

WE'LL have to backwater! With so many delightful letters about "The Man Next Door," it was just too much for the judges to select any three which outshone the others! So here are a few from the "top flight," and some excerpts from others. You be the judge. To each of the many other readers who wrote-- our sincere thanks for a splendid letter.

Article

Thirteen Can Be Lucky!

IT WAS not until dismal 1933 that a prominent investment counselor woke me up to the many investment values in ordinary life insurance.

SEE WHAT Planting DOES

ONE day, six years ago, I passed a little white house on the top of a steep terrace. A for-sale sign inspired my thoughts. Here the house stood tiptoe for flight and someone needed to bring it down to earth.

NOW READY! New Landscaping Picture Book

ALONG THE garden Path

IF ALL the privet hedges separating suburban homes in this unregimented land of ours were replanted in single file, the line would, I suspect, stretch from here to the moon and back again, with enough left over to tie around the equator an ample true-lovers' knot.