September 1940

ACROSS THE Editor's Desk

A STORY is told of the ancient city of Thebes. Many wars were waged in its vicinity, and the city had to be fortified for defense, but building the massive walls was hard, slow work. Even laboring for their own protection, the people grew discouraged.

THE DIARY of a Plain Dirt Gardener

On the campus of Michigan State College at East Lansing, the Midwest Dahlia Trial Grounds are maintained by the American Dahlia Society under the direction of Prof. C. E. Wildon. Here annually originators send their new seedlings to be grown under trial alongside the new things from other originators.

If This Were Your Family

TONIGHT my young son crawled into my lap with his hook about Little Toot, the tugboat, and I read to him. Later he, his mother, and I walked down to the poultry market to see the turkeys, he riding on my shoulder. It's a smelly, unsightly place, but we go there almost every night because it fills his young eyes with such shining wonderment. Turkeys, you know, are so big and strange and marvelous. Later, after he was in bed, we went down to my new darkroom in the basement and printed some pictures.

Five Homes in a Planned Community

ANY number of home-owners in Kansas City will tell you that they're among the most fortunate in the nation.

Japanese Anemone

TO SAY that the Japanese Anemone is one of the best fall flowers would be an understatement-- it is the best. Here is a plant and flower with real charm, refinement, and sophistication.

Heleniums

ASK ANYONE if he knows sneezeweed and chances are that he can't place it. But tell him about the splendid helenium or helensflower you had last fall and you have his sympathetic ear.

Hardy Asters

HARDY ASTERS in full bloom are like stars raining down thru the sky on the night of the Fourth. Their thousands upon thousands of fringy blooms in delectable colors burst out on nice easy plants of cast-iron hardiness that multiply obligingly year after year.

Mums

THE biggest horticultural shock (no milder word can accurately express it) that I have' experienced in the past decade came to me a few years ago when I halted my car one bright autumn morning on a country road in Bristol, Connecticut, and gazed down across the wide fields of Alex Cumming's new Korean 'mums.

ALL ABOUT WINDOWS

WATCH your windows when you build or remodel, for they lend personality indoors and out to any house. From the quaint old casement window to the modern sliding window, each sets up an atmosphere all its own to create architectural beauty.

Joseph C. Lincoln at Home

ASK any inhabitant of that slender strip of Massachusetts sand-dunes, cranberries, clam chowder, and home-grown hospitality known the world over as "The Cape," and you will learn that Joseph C. Lincoln is as much a part of its local color as the fishing smacks that line its moss-grown piers or the graceful gulls that wheel above them.

WHEN YOU BUILD, GET AN EXPERT

SELF-CONFIDENCE is a fine trait, sure, but it didn't keep me from breaking my nose the first time I soloed on a motorcycle. Trouble was, I didn't know the brake from the clutch.

SEPTEMBER Indoor Gardening Guide

SEPTEMBER Outdoor Gardening Guide

SEPTEMBER is your real chance to make and remake your flower borders. If your perennial beds and evergreen plantings never have suited you, or if they haven't been remade in the last five years, now's your time to put in some of the improved varieties.

YOU'VE QUIZZED US ABOUT FLOOR COVERINGS

A Snug Little House on a Budget

WHEN you combine a successful artist by vocation and a lover of old and good pieces of furniture by hobby, you need a very special kind of house to accommodate both interests. A painter must have pure, unadulterated north light, and plenty of it; and a house full of nice corner cupboards, chests, chairs, glass, and lovely little pieces deserves a sympathetic background against which to show off its charms.

I've Decorated My Home in Old-time Swedish

Broaden Your Cleaner's Sweep

FRESH, charming rooms are clean rooms, and in the job of keeping them so, your best friend is your vacuum cleaner. Nobody's content these days merely to "rearrange" the dust and dirt. That idea went out with feather dusters and broom-swept floors.

My Back Yard Is My Health Farm

I LIKE the fragrance of the grass better than that of a gym. Eighteen holes of brisk golf are often marred by the blood players and discounted by the seemingly necessary nineteenth hole at the club house.

Take Comfort!

MY YOUNGEST was "entertaining" at a wiener roast. That's how I happened, late on a sizzling August afternoon, to be down in the furnace room looking for firewood.

Make These Out of Gourds

NOWADAYS everyone has gourds. Why not use them to make amusing and useful objects? It's honestly lots of fun. Every shape is right for something. I'm showing just a few of the things you can make; once you start, your imagination will find dozens more.

I Cook With a Can Opener

"BOY! You should taste the meal my wife can throw together in a jiffy! Give her 10 minutes and a can opener and she's got all the fancy chefs beaten to a frazzle!"

Along the Garden Path

I PACK 6 inches of dry leaves in the bottom of cardboard cartons, take my buckets or boxes in which the waterlilies are planted, and set them inside the cartons. Then I pack 3 inches of leaves around the pails and over the lilies and set the cartons up on boards off the floor.

Article

Food "Rights" for Your Child

WHAT'S YOUR child's eating problem? If you've a puzzler-- and you're a rare parent if you haven't-- let's see' if we can't solve it here and now.

Ancient Bookcase to Summer-Porch Sideboard

Yuccas--GOD'S CANDLES

YOU drive down over the desert and mountain roads of the Southwest-- thru Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California-- and you'll see a flower that looks like a gigantic lily-of-the-valley. Sometimes it's 10 to 30 feet high. This is our yucca, or God's Candle.

Atop Your Shelves and Over

FOR YOUR HOBBY

FOR YOUR MAGAZINES

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

Apparently the men who used to march in Labor Day parades when I was a boy now go away for the week end or spend the day on the golf links.

Little House Grown Up

LOOKING out over a sweep of friendly Connecticut hills, this quiet little cottage is in perfect harmony with New England landscape and tradition. From its wrought-iron light above the doorway to its narrow clapboards, it's honestly Colonial, and possessed of the restraint and simplicity of the period.

Table-Top Bench

Article

IT'S NEWS TO ME!

For permanent plant labels that take a pencil mark, a very flexible metal alloy strip, ½ inch wide, is on a reel like adhesive tape. It's stamped into 65 4-inch tags; each has tongue at one end, slot at the other, to encircle a branch if you like. Perm-A- Tag, $1 a reel.