June 1940

ACROSS THE Editor's Desk

IF ANY month offers more than the others in its promise for the future, it must be June. It cannot be by accident that Commencement in a thousand colleges and schools should come in June.

The Full Glory

THE DIARY of a Plain Dirt Gardener

Yesterday and day before, worked like a madman The rest of the annual seedlings were transplanted. Glad bulbs put in ground. Roses sprayed again. More mums transplanted. Last dash downtown to get supply of dog food, duck feed, and sulphur dust.

Will This Happen to Your Boy or Girl?

NOT long ago a young man of 22, a college graduate, came into my office at the Meredith Publishing Company, seeking a job.

THE Garden Philosopher OF THE NORTH COUNTRY

IT'S difficult for "The Little Doc" to do much gardening these busy times. For one thing, there would have to be a Royal Canadian Mountie on duty to keep the curious from pushing over his fence.

IT'S ALWAYS Blossom time IN THE NORTHWEST

NATURE is at once extravagant and benign in the Pacific Northwest. To describe it is to talk in bright paradoxes --tropical gardens nestling under glaciers; one of the heaviest rainfall areas in the United States in the same county with a much needed irrigation system; quarter-ton fresh-water fish and quarter-ounce salt water oysters; swamps of beautiful lilies which the natives recognize as "skunk cabbage"; and arid plateaus of sagebrush and prairie dogs.

Easy Does It!

TAKING care of your place is a snap if you take a tip from the pioneers-- find the easy grade. Use your head and all the tricks. You'll reach your aim-- the neatest place on the street-- with breath to spare. Just try it!

Way Out on Tory Hole Road

BANDS of detested Tories and the hated British used to hole up in a cave just a hundred yards back of the spot on which this stone-elegant house now stands.

MORE Dollars and Sense in Home Planning

THERE'S an old saying, "You must build two houses before you get what you want." But will you then? By the time the second is finished your needs have changed radically from when the first was built.

The Passing of the Old Front Porch

IF YOU lived in New England, you called it the front piazza. If you lived in the Middlewest, you called it the front porch. If you lived anywhere, and wanted to be a bit different and fancy, you called it veranda (maybe spelled with an "h").

Which Home-Grounds Plan Do You Like?

I'M A lucky man. I practice landscape architecture up north each year until time to put antifreeze in my radiator, and then I run down south and practice all winter.

JUNE Indoor Gardening Guide

JUNE Outdoor Gardening Guide

JUNE is knee-deep with peonies and lupines, foxgloves and poppies. Everything is very much alive and the nights are so soft and beautiful they're a little sad. Foliage is young and tender and the worms and bugs are having a fine time.

"Young Modern" Moves In

DIFFICULT to find has been Modern that can dwell happily and harmonize pleasantly with other furniture of traditional design, but here it is, at last, in these new rooms aptly called "Young Modern" but fitting to any age that appreciates the good in Modern design.

For the Bride

Don't let Your Furnishings Grow Roots

"WHAT a dreadful living-room," you're about to say. But hold a minute. It's well proportioned, with appropriate fireplace excellent light, and ample floor space. The furniture has been carefully chosen, is well built and of good design. But you're right-- the decorative effect of the room as a whole is WRONG

A-HOUSTELING WE GO!

HOSTELING, famous in Europe for a generation, is now in full swing in America. Today, quite young boys and girls can travel safely thru many of the most beautiful scenic areas of our country, thanks to the hostels or overnight shelters supervised by the American Youth Hostel Association.

Chocolate Topping Tops Cooks' Contest

"THE grandest chocolate goo!" Thus inelegantly chorused our experts as they sampled ice cream slathered with Regal Chocolate Sauce, this month's top winner in the Cooks' Contest announced last December for Ice-Cream Toppings and Salad Toss-Ups

How to Sleep Cool

"IT'S so hot I hate to go to bed!" Sound familiar? Of course it does, because no one really enjoys sleeping when the thermometer is flirting with the upper 90's and the bed feels like a pancake griddle.

Whee--Mom's Made a New Dessert!

Summer's the time to Make Place Mats

Easy to Make

AWKWARD ELMERS or Ponderous People of any kind can often upset a light garden table before you can get all the coffee poured. And high winds will find the umbrella tops'l of even a heavy one, causing it to wobble in a most annoying manner.

It's Fun to Swing ...

AFTER two seasons of sun and rain our porch couch-hammock was a sight! A new cover was certainly called for, but the prices asked by upholsterers sounded like a citation of the war debt.

FOUND: a Room on the Back Porch

WE LIKED our little home from the first. It was ideally located, as modern as a late war bulletin, well heated, well lighted, and perfectly equipped. Its friendly front wins admiring glances from even the most casual passers-by-- but its inclosed patio in the rear is the joy of our privacy-loving hearts.

Attention!

Furniture Styles And How to Recognize Them

EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE is one of the most interesting-- certainly the most historic-- of all the American styles. It's functional in the most literal sense of the word, for it was designed and built to meet the needs of a brave new people hewing homes out of a wilderness-- a people who dreamed great dreams, yet had to be thoroly practical to make them come true.

I'm a Lazy Gardener

I HAVEN'T gardened from a deck chair yet, nor done my weeding with dynamite. But take it from me, I'm really a lazy gardener. The good thing bout it is that I've invented some delightful energy-saving methods.

Remodeling? Money for Your Pictures

They Said I Couldn't Grow Roses

THEY said it couldn't be done and that's why I started growing roses. A few years ago we bought a house in Michigan.

Here's the Answer to Evans & Folsom

THE real reason I selected a small coeducational college for Janet was because I believe such an institution affords the best training a girl can get in learning how to take a secondary place in life.

Scaled to Pleasant Living

SOMEHOW or other the whole of this 5-room house suggests the present-day tendency for formal dining to give way to buffet suppers.

Halt the Hopeless Hodge-podge

This Month West Goes East

LIKE longhorns, cactus, big tall boys who can "lay" basketballs in the net, big beautiful gals who become oomph girls in Hollywood, iron-armed footballers who can throw a pigskin a hundred yards, and governors who can croon, this house grew up in the great Southwest.

Grow This Cutflower That Keeps Two Weeks

THAT 'S quite an imposing brief for China-asters-- reason enough why they'll delight you if you once try them.

Along the Garden Path

IF you like a beautiful display of morning-glories, don't let them climb too high. Snip off the top and they'll branch at the sides and fill in to the roots solidly. Remove large and ugly leaves to let sunlight thru. --Mrs. L. McQuellan, Mich.

What's Exquisite All Summer? Waterlilies

IN MIDSUMMER heat, when the sun burns out of a pale sky and the garden is parched and dry, there's still one oasis, still one plant that's cool and crisp and resplendent with loveliness. It's the waterlily.

Baby Clinic

AMONG OURSELVES.

Here's an Idea!

"I KNOW it's a mess-- but you see, it's rented!" You've heard it often enough-- that apology for the rather slipshod appearance of a home because --well, who wants to spend money on someone else's house?

Correction

Hot Dogs and Barbecued Pig

It's a Real Kitchen Now!

Big Dogs COST LITTLE

IF YOU can afford any dog, you can afford a large one, even a Newfoundland or a Great Dane.

Rooms That Grow Up With the Children

GONE are the days when furniture cast-offs were relegated to the children's rooms ... casually splashed with paint to ease parental conscience.

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

Any woman is beautiful as long as one man thinks she is. "It's a smart wife," muses Les Gowan, "who cultivates a pretty woman who seems to make her husband feel dashing, instead of taking a sharp dislike to her."

Oasis in El Paso

On Lake Superior's Shore

Article

IT'S NEWS TO ME!