September 1938

Tattle Tales

HARLAN MILLER (The Man Next Door) learned to fly an airplane in order to write a series of newspaper stories about "how it feels to fly," and hurried the solo flight because the editor was clamoring for the final copy for Sunday's paper. Once he flew from Winnipeg, Canada, to Santiago, Chile, across the Andes and back up the East Coast to New York, in all, visiting 26 countries in 29 days, and getting a peep at two of five then current revolutions.

ACROSS THE Editor's Desk

Your Anniversary Gift: This month marks the sixteenth birthday of your magazine, and this is the birthday present-- the bigger page-size and better Better Homes & Gardens I've talked about the last two issues.

THE DIARY of a plain dirt gardener

First thing after breakfast this morning I went out, notebook in hand, to check over my annuals, especially the marigolds, for these are among my favorites.

YOU CAN'T STREAMLINE ME!

WHO hasn't stood in front of one of these new-fangled up-to-date improved combination electric vegetable-slicer-egg-beater- and-ice-cream-freezers, trying in vain to figure out how to make it work? Maybe it would be better if I didn't make the start of this article quite so general...

My Garden Blooms All Winter

MY HANDS are dirty 365 days of the year. Day in, day out, whether the earth is lush with grass or white with snow, I dig in my garden, pull weeds, and loosen soil, and my hands are stained with chlorophyll.

DO I OR DON'T I?

DO buy a rug that fits the room. The larger the rug, the larger your room will appear. The proper width of bare floor to leave around a rug depends somewhat on the size of the room. An 18-inch margin is usually about right. Do use small throw rugs if you like, but place them straight, at right angles to walls and to one another. They're pleasing on a bare hardwood floor or over a plain broadloom carpet in front of the fireplace, sofa, or door.

THREE HOMES IN WHITE

WITHOUT fanfare or furor, homes in white have captured America's fancy. East, west, north, and south you find them rising. They hobnob with the best people.

LET GO...AND SLEEP

DO YOU toss in bed? Does a badly spent day or a poorly played bridge hand haunt your night? Is the peaceful rustle of leaves outside your bedroom window magnified by your tense senses into a sound like a roaring cataract?

Help your Home With PFITZERS

THE Pfitzer Juniper will do about everything for you except sit up and bark and roll over and play dead. And that's why it's a king among junipers and one of the most popular of all evergreens.

HERE'S AN Idea!

Prize Packages

A Better Home at Sea

I'LL not soon forget my first visit to the trim, white-sailed schooner Wander Bird, spotless of deck and metal shining, as she nestled in the blue waters of San Francisco Bay.

How to Plan Next Spring's Bulb Garden Now!

EVERY INCH A Home

WHEN an architect settles down to design a home for his own family, you can bet your bottom dollar that the results will be well worth inspection. Into that home will go all of his talents for compact, economical planning and his background knowledge of architectural styles, scale, and proportions. Architect Hedlander's home is no exception; in fact, it's an outstanding example.

Indoor GARDENING GUIDE

THE thing about indoor gardening is that it's anybody's sport. It's inexpensive. It takes small space. It belongs as much to the boss's secretary or to the suburban wife as to the dowager with two sunny greenhouses and the Kaiser's ex-gardener.

Outdoor GARDENING GUIDE

SEPTEMBER is the month to plan and plant for next year, to get plants in and established before winter.

Modern Rides Out of the West

WE PRESENT, in Richard J. Neutra, one of the few real leaders in the design of "functional" homes.

You'd Never Know the Old Place

MR. WEBB-- that's G. A. Webb of the Jonesboro, Arkansas, Webbs-- used to go out and stand on the walk and cock a displeased eye on his house. It was a good, solid house, but it also was indistinct, vaguely overcast, kind of pushed into the ground.

Good Light Marries Good Design!

EVERY revolution, it seems, has to have growing pains-- a time when experts are so busy creating efficiency that beauty has to wait. The revolution in lamps has been no exception.

SNACK NOOKS

A GOOD carpenter or handy man can build No. 1, with variations to suit. Work out your own color harmony, or pattern it after this richly hued scheme-- burnt-orange leather for the corner lounge seat, marbled maroon rubber tile with black border and cream feature strip for the floor, marbled taupe wall linoleum forming the wainscoting, and jonquil yellow paint for the walls and ceiling.... Mrs. Fruehauf says, "It's a popular spot for family and guests. We rarely go into the dining or living-room."

MRS. SHULTZ VISITS Shirley Temple

How do you bring up a child to have a million-dollar personality? That's what I went to Hollywood to discover, if I could, and I came away with a brand new appreciation of a happy, healthy little girl and her mother-- of Shirley Temple and Mrs. Temple.

The Peony Professor Speaks Up

DR. ARTHUR P. SAUNDERS has experimented with peonies for 33 of his 69 years. He's grown some ten thousand hybrids. Today he has the largest collection of species and pedigreed hybrids in the world.

We Maids--AN ANSWER TO "MAID TO ORDER"

A MAID Wants to Know... How I loathe the term" domestic service"! Yet I'm in it, and I'd like the work if it weren't for the social stigma attached to it.

The Sign of Thrift

YOU'LL find the insignia CP inscribed in a circle on many new gas ranges. It stands for Certified Performance. To the alert homemaker it means better meals, easier and speedier work, and money saved. It's your shopping target and mine in buying a new gas range.

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

That extraordinary relationship that exists between father and son is never driven home so clearly as when my 5-year-old cautions me, at Sunday dinner, not to take the biggest piece of chicken.

BACK TALK

Gentlemen: Please ask Sterling Patterson why he's so scornful of anyone who says "frosting" instead of "icing." Fannie Farmer's index has a column of frostings and no icings. Is it a matter of Mason and Dixon's Line again?--

A Peck of PICKLED PEACHES Takes the Prize

FlRST place in the dual Cooks' Contest on Pickles and Appetizers announced last March goes to Mrs. W. C. Renshaw, of Huntington, West Virginia, for her Sweet Pickled Fruit. It wins her $5 and becomes Dish of the Month for September. Or just as luscious and snappy as peaches would be apricots, Whitney crabs, Seckel pears, or whatever you like pickled.

What Do You Know About DOGS?

TEST your knowledge about dogs. Read problems carefully, check your answers; then turn to page 89. See what authorities say. Rate yourself by scoring 10 for each correct answer. Score of 100 is perfect; 50 or over indicates proficiency in dog-ology.

Keep Your Furniture Looking Like NEW

KEEPING a home is a lot like keeping a budget. Just so much to do, just so many hours in which to do it. Yet some women seem to whiz thru their work in practically nothing flat while others keep at it all day and never do get done. For just as there's a knack to making a little money go a long way, so there's a trick to keeping house easily-- in fact, scores of them.

AMONG OURSELVES

ETHELL G. SMITH, of Muncie, Indiana, in writing about hobbies and such, mentions that her fellow townsman and mayor, Dr. Rollin Bunch, is a collector of Indian relics and pioneer oddities, while Mrs. Bunch has a fine collection of antique china and glassware. Her letter causes this department to wonder if collectors of Indian relics, china, and glassware, of which there seem to be many, have societies or other means of contact and exchange of ideas, as do the stamp collectors, for instance?

HOOKING in the Colonial Manner

IT'S fun to hook. What's more, it's about the thriftiest homecraft there is, for rag bags and bargain counters supply the materials, with only a small outlay for the burlap foundation, the frame for stretching the burlap, and the hook for drawing thru the rag strips.

Whims & Hobbies

Seventy-two-year-old C. P. Streater, of Santa Cruz, Calif., once the head of many exploring expeditions and collector of specimens of animals and birds for the American Museum, himself makes a hobby of collecting every form of bird life in Santa Cruz County.

Article

Along the Garden Path WITH THE WEEK-END GARDENER

FOLLOWING normal cycles, gardening zest reaches two peaks a year: one in spring, when the sap starts to flow; the other in autumn, as Indian Summer declares an extra dividend of mellow weather. To crowd all horticultural chores into these two spans is a natural temptation. Nevertheless, it's one to be avoided, lest strictly seasonal duties in consequence be hurried thru in slipshod fashion, or shirked altogether.