June 1938

ACROSS THE Editor's DESK

The Picture on the Cover: It's at once cool and summery in this homelike family room with its Early American furnishings. Soft gray-green wallpaper, white-painted woodwork and paneling, quaint hooked rugs, and a charming garden bouquet extend the friendliest of welcomes. In fact, every bit of the little house was so appealing that we're giving you glimpses of the other rooms on pages 22 and 23.

Clouds Caress the Peak

VIEWS THRU GARDEN Gateways

It's News to Me!

"IN SUMMER," suggests John Normile to Nick, "it's a good idea to have your warm-air home-heating plant (whatever the fuel) thoroly cleaned of dust, to supplement the work of the filters and to remove any lodged soot. A heating concern does this work; sends a huge vacuum-cleaner mounted on a truck to your house.

NATURE'S OWN Gardens

THE natural gardens are a side of the national parks generally overlooked by the average traveler. The roaring geysers of Yellowstone, the majestic cliffs and waterfalls of Yosemite, the venerable Big Trees of Sequoia, the imposing sandstone temples of Grand Canyon, and other geologic wonders for which the national parks were formed are so spectacular they overshadow the one thing all the parks have in common-- native gardens.

Whisk Your Rooms Into Summer

ONE slip-cover doesn't make a summer. But-- a slip-cover for each piece of upholstered furniture, plus a new, light, washable rug and a few deft touches in the way of draperies and accessories will rejuvenate a room that's become entirely too familiar during long winter months.

AMONG Ourselves

FROM WILL A MAE SUNDERS, Detroit, comes the following in response to a similar hint in the March issue: "I noticed the suggestion for cleaning and maintaining concrete floors. Unless concrete floors are neutralized and sealed, they'll bloom (dust), because cement is naturally alkaline.

TRY A "Cinderella Flower"

THE geranium is a Cinderella plant. Neglected, it grows scraggly in an old tin can, surviving as determinedly as does the human waif "across the tracks." But with a minimum of care, it becomes a flower for corsages and formal dinner tables.

Real Log Cabins

EARLY AMERICAN INSPIRES Simple Living

Dress your Driveway

A DRIVEWAY is a necessity. Sometimes it serves only as the shortest distance between garage and street. But more often it's used as parking space and as a place for children to roller skate, or play games. With such hard usage, it has to be more useful than beautiful.

Why wait TO MAKE A MILLION?

COMES a hot, sultry summer afternoon, the kind that's good for corn. Tree leaves hang motionless, curling in the heat. Golf courses are vacant. The sun glares on the street. Sweat slides off your forehead and across your glasses. It's too hot to eat. The kids are cross, whiny. Evening comes, still, muggy, and oppressive.

THE Two-Faced Home

ONE thing a lot of nice people get mad at magazine editors and architects about is that most good houses cost more to build than these people can spend. "Listen, you," their letters shout, "we want small houses we can afford: something well-designed. distinctive."

Gay Blooms FOR ERRANT GARDENERS

THAT last evening, just before vacation, always fills me with panic. I rush out to the garden a half dozen times and prowl around even after dusk. Have I cared for this little creature or pruned that too vigorous one? Did the boy who helps with the lawn finish all those odd jobs I had left him? Poor lad-- he's a bit afraid of me.

ASHES TO ASHES ... AND no Dust

Ready-Builts ARE A DAPTABLE

"As VERSATILE as a kitchen cabinet-- and as adaptable." If you're looking for pet similes, there's one that's truer this year than ever before.

We Eat Out!

"WHAT-- no dining-room?" my friends exclaim pityingly. And that calls for an invitation. For after they've visited us in our year-round lodge, and dined with us before the hearth fire, out in the kitchen, on the screened porch, on the open deck porch, and down on the woodsy picnic terrace, they're ready to agree with our pet theory-- that there's no sense in turning over an entire room of a small home to the business of eating, when there are already a half-dozen delightful spots where meals can become a pleasant adventure instead of a deadly repetition.

I COLLECT Pentstemons

PENTSTEMONS-- beard -tongues-- it's all the same what you call them; they look like small foxgloves. They're truly Americans, these flowers. About 200 kinds grow wild from Alaska to Central America, but only one kind has been found abroad.

Come, REST IN THE GARDEN

THE dear old front porch is almost a thing of the past. A hallowed vinecovered retreat that sprawled across the front of the house, it echoed to the laughter of youngsters clustering on its steps-- it provided a vantage point from which Mother viewed the neighborhood "goings on"-- its idly swinging hammock assured comfort or romance, depending on the occasion.

THERE ARE AS MANY KINDS OF Home Remodeling AS THERE ARE HOMES

IT may be just the replacing of an ugly, old-fashioned porch with a modern entrance that reveals an unsuspected beauty of line... or perhaps a colorful new roof may be the prescription for the home grown old before its time...

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

This is the dogwood season in the milder valleys, and hardened old industrialists are forgetting about making a million and going semi-poetic about the fragile white boughs.

IT'S Vacation TIME!

Article

YOUNG AMERICA TAKES TO THE WOODS

MOTHER, we kids want to go to summer camp. Can we?" If the question hasn't been sprung in your home yet, it soon will be, for within a few weeks from two to four million American boys and girls, most of them between 10 and 17, will be walking out on their families and comfortable homes and living from a week to three months as nearly like savages, or at least like pioneers, as they can.

Back Talk!

Dear Editor: Wainwright Evans knows his coy, cloying women (I wonder how!). Somehow he has put Everyman's Dream down on paper. The Woman he likes is REAL-- you can see her; the Woman who is Too Good to Be True is REAL too-- and you DON'T WANT to see her (In yourself!)?

Toughen Your Garden

What? No Bathing Suit!

All America's Dessert--Vanilla Ice Cream

"WE'LL TAKE vanilla, also chocolate and strawberry." That's what we said when we picked the Dish of the Month, shown on page 35. sent to us by Mrs. Mina D. West, of Rock Island, Illinois.

"Fifty Thousand Children"

THE Diary OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

All this month we've been planning and preparing to go on a long journey. So everything outdoors has been directed to that end. Roses have been cultivated and peatmoss put around them as mulch to be worked into the topsoil. All my annuals have been transplanned and cultivated.

For Lazy People?

Vagrant Lilies?

ALONG THE Garden Path WITH THE WEEK-END GARDENER

IN THE quiet little town of Freedom, New Hampshire, hugging a road down which stagecoaches once rolled to Boston, reposes, beneath a canopy of giant elms, a charming, and historic dwelling. Formerly an inn, this ancient structure today shelters the family of John Holmgren, artist.