June 1939

ACROSS THE Editor's Desk

CANTERBURY bells and wedding bells ring out the joyous reminder that this is June, favorite month of all the calendar for starting new homes. One by one, brides and bridegrooms are gaily uprooting themselves from the sheltered gardens of their childhood, and transplanting themselves two by two in new surroundings, there to strike root and grow together. For that's how those hardy perennials, real homes, are reproduced.

TATTLE TALES

Attractive Visitor: The fetching young lady visitor gracing so many of the pictures on pages 14 and 15 is the daughter of the photographer, William M. Rittase, whose camera faithfully recorded Longwood's beauty. Her name is Billie Jane and she's 19 years old. Mr. Rittase and daughter live in Philadelphia.

GARDENING DREAM

THE DIARY of a Plain Dirt Gardener

June 1 I note that the June bride shrubs are now out in bloom. These are Washington Hawthorn, Regel Privet, Redtwig Dogwood, and Viburnum cassinoides-- all with small white or creamy blooms. Then, too, the French Hybrid Philadelphus, or mockorange, is out with its large white blooms.

IT'S NEWS TO ME!

Longwood Defies the Seasons

ABOUT high noon we were bowling along U. S. Highway 1, weaving in and about the enticing rolling hills between Philadelphia and Baltimore, when we came upon Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. While the service-station man "gassed us up," we plied him with questions. His response to our insatiable curiosity about the countryside was brief and definite.

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Drouth!

MR. FRED BROOKS is a great drouth fighter. Big, fat, jolly, not afraid of any bug in any man's garden, he fights the summer drouth courageously, a spitting hose in his hand. He's at it almost every night, with a pipe in his mouth and a hearty shout of greeting for his neighbors. A great guy, old Fred, and a great drouth fighter.

Playhouses With a Future

Bugaboo or Blessing?

WHICH is your sun-porch? If it's cluttered with wicker furniture of doubtful comfort, graced by a rickety card table, and adorned by weary-looking rubber plants, it's most certainly a bugaboo, and as dated as a hoop skirt. What's more, it's probably too hot in summer, too cool in winter, and better for the baby carriage than for comfortable living.

Indoor Gardening Guide

YOU can add days to the life of many cut- flowers in your home if you'll follow a few common-sense practices any good florist uses. The whole business is simple and easy, really no trouble at all.

Outdoor Gardening Guide

JUNE-- the month of flowers and glorious weather, the month that to most of us is synonymous with delphiniums, Madonna Lilies, Shasta Daisies, and lilacs! Annuals are setting the stage for their coming flower show. Perennials are putting forth their greatest display.

New England Sees Red.....all because six-room two-garage Tanglewood is so utterly faithful to fine old, Colonial tradition

Thus Architect Norris Prentice states the aim in designing this New England home called "Tanglewood"-- to develop a thoroly modern home that's still utterly faithful to its own time. Utterly faithful, for example, are the blinds on the front entrance, the woodsheds extending. one after the other into the ell, and the barn-red exterior with white shutters and trim.

Salute to Summer

Six Rooms of Honest American

IF YOU'VE fallen for the twaddle about streamlined today and living the contemporary life, you won't like this house. It's too old- fashioned. It's so old-fashioned that in it there's even a full-size dining-room where the whole family can gather around a good solid table to dine and talk over the day's tidbits and get to know each other.

TO THE BRIDE!

A TOAST to June-- season of brides! But before we grow too delightfully engrossed in bouquets and bridesmaids, wedding gowns, and honeymoons, let's plan a setting that will be as greatly enjoyed and long remembered as the wedding itself. For the bride and her mother, and for Dad, whose heart and pocketbook are both due to be touched, we've worked out these bridal meals-- simple but exquisite, designed for the greatest satisfaction at the least expense.

Wash Day Is Fun!

BLUE MONDAYS are as extinct as the dodo bird at our house since our laundry's had its face lifted! Even tho I had my heart set on a first-floor utility room, I'm past regretting that our floor-plan scheming and remodeling didn't permit this arrangement. What's more, the old chamber of horrors has turned into the showplace of the house and makes Monday as welcome as the sunshine.

We Parents HOW WE COPE WITH EVERYDAY CHILD-TRAINING PROBLEMS

Twelve-year-old Elsie, like the little girl with the curl, can be either very, very good, or decidedly horrid. For years she's grumbled at things at home, especially little brother, Sonny, age 7. Sweet-natured and likable as Sonny is, Elsie states flatly that she hates him. So her parents keep them apart as much as possible because big sisters can be pretty mean and sarcastic.

They're in the Money--These Cherry Creations and Dog-Day Drinks

LUCKY for us little George didn't start a fad for whacking down cherry trees! We'd never have met up with Cherry Upside-Down Cake-- perfect finale for a June meal and winner of our Cooks' Contest for Cherry Desserts and Summer Beverages, announced last December.

Send for June "Cooks' Round Table News"

Bedrooms in Camouflage

IT'S A Cover-Up Job

TO THE modern homemaker, the "s" in housekeeping undeniably stands for "sanitation." She does not like corners that have to be pried into with a hairpin-- as Grandma used to clean the "curlicues" on the parlor sofa. She does not like ill-fitting mouldings that leave cracks where dust and dirt can hide.

Bleak House Now Pays 5%

THE man with the telephone, the New York banker, said, "Johnson? ...This is Eddie. Listen. We've got an old stucco place out in Pelham that's so bad the local brokers won't even show it to their clients.... Well, listen. We want to modernize it to get our money out..

AT HOME AMONG OURSELVES

Helpful Booklets

Candles and Caviar Don't Make Hospitality

JUST how the subject of hospitality turned up at our bridge club last week I can't even remember. But it was the stories some of the girls told that made the afternoon end before it seemed well begun.

MAKE A Take-Apart Picnic Table

Once a Cement Works

RARELY does a sightseer land in Victoria, British Columbia, even for only a few hours between boats, without visiting the famous Butchart gardens 12 miles from the city, at Tod Inlet. The gardens are a triumph in landscape gardening-- a massed coloring against a rocky and forested background that's wonderful.

Gardens Demand Small Trees

WHAT I always say is, if there's anything we need, it's to get people out of the habit of growing only big trees in their yards. Gardens demand small trees that produce flowers and give some shade, but not so much that flowers and shrubs suffer.

Picture Windows

"You can't be two places at once," the old saying goes. But if you can feel as tho you were-- in the friendly privacy of your home and in the natural beauty of your summer or winter lawn and garden, then that's almost as good, isn't it?

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

Millions of Americans get an extra kick out of this month because of the poet's line "What is so rare as a day in June..." A little publicity enhances even the months of the calendar.

Cool and Summery Rooms

Here's How

The Company You Keep

WOULD you build a house next door to a garbage reduction plant? Or buy a house that had a boiler factory on one side and a coal unloading station on the other?

Here's an Idea!

WITH every other mother's son an amateur photographer-- plenty of them turning out work that ranks creditably as art-- it's up to Mother to find ways to hang groups of proudly presented enlargements without turning the house into a spotted leopard.

Remember Us When You Remodel

BETTER HOMES & GARDENS is eager to see, by means of "before" and "after" photographs and floor plans, the better-home improvements you make.

How to Buy Property

TO MR. Average Citizen, the business of buying real estate is pretty much of a mystery before he gets himself into it-- and not infrequently a most awful headache and disillusionment before he's thru.

Keep June Beauty All Summer

COMES now a day in early June. The sun is shining, grass is alive with new green, flowers are blooming everywhere, and life is good. You walk about the home grounds and you are as proud as Punch at the way your planning and your muscle- stretching have turned out.

The Mother

Next Month's Garden

How Do You Sleep?

DOG QUIZ

IF YOUR score on past quizzes has been regrettable, here's an easy one to bring up the average. Answers are on page 95. Score 10 for each "right."

Don't Abuse Your Garden Hose

MY FRIEND Jack uses a hundred feet of hose. He hasn't bought any for four years, and one length has been in use for seven years. He says yours and mine would last longer, too-- if we didn't mistreat it.

A Pokeberry Breakfast

"HAVE you noticed the pokeberry bush near the elm in the back yard?" my husband asked one evening.

Article

Where Goes the Gate?

SOME gardens are like the great Blue Danube Waltz-- magnificently calm, magnificently lovely, magnificently relaxed. You return to them again and again, and feel their serenity always.

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Whims & Hobbies

The Bell Lady: An ardent student of early California history, Mrs. A. S. C. Forbes, of Los Angeles, felt there should be a souvenir, available to tourists, characteristic of California. She experimented with miniature replicas of the famous bells in its ancient Missions.

DAD'S Practical Pointers

Rubbing a candle stub or a bar of soap along the sliding edges of dresser drawers will make them move in and out much more easily, even when heavily loaded.

Who Said So?

YOUR FRIEND, Mr. Toad

TOADS are among the best friends of the garden. But they prefer a cool, shady place, usually avoiding the direct glare of the sun. For this reason we should protect our friends --the toads-- by building small stone houses for them along the borders of the garden.

Fried Chicken and Stuff!

Heirlooms-to-Be

Don't Forget Father!

Along the Garden Path

FOR INFORMAL, INEXPENSIVE garden chairs, use nail kegs. You can usually get them free from the hardware store or a builder. Paint them any gay color and park them casually about the garden where you like to drop down for a short rest. They're especially becoming to the children's play yard.