January 1943

The Man Next Door

Consoling thought for the holidays: Despite the way things are, the average American (who's around 30 years old) has 30 to 40 peaceful New Year's Days ahead of him. And your lucky little rascals have 60 or 70.

Pint-sized... and Popping With Ideas!

FRUIT 15c A BUSHEL

FOR $15 or less you can set yourself up in the business of growing a lot of your fruit at home.

Let Your Odd Spots Grow Vegetables

IF EVENTS themselves haven't convinced you that you'd be smart to grow vegetables this year, we have nothing further to say to you.

Harness a Family Hobby

HUSBAND ARTHUR S. MAWHINNEY sat puzzling over what to give his wife on their wedding anniversary. That was back in Tune. 1936.

Carpentry Capers

Is Your Home Well Framed?

Flat House: A low, rambling architectural effect is often charming, but it's also true that some houses look too long for their height. If this is your trouble, break up the long-drawn-out feeling by breaking the facade into several interesting units with tall plants enframing the doorway.

Revived From Middle Age

THERE comes a time in the life of every house when it's neither a gay young bungalow nor a venerated oldster. It's middleaged and drab and somehow shy in the company of more fortunate houses that are lived in by families who love and care for them. Architects and builders call it the "dangerous age" for a house-- the age when it can quickly crumble into a tired wreck or bloom as never before with the help of sympathetic remodeling.

Tomorrow You'll Be Seeing Things

WHEN Jones settles down for a comfortable evening with his paper, he squats under what his wife, bless her heart, calls a floor lamp, tho it's really nothing but an old-fashioned chandelier on a stick. On the neater models there's either a glass bowl under the bulb to hold kerosene that isn't there, or a tray to catch candle drippings.

Birthplace of GARDEN IDEAS Carmel-by-the-Sea

THAT money you're laying away in War Savings Bonds now will take you traveling one of these days when we finish Hitler. And perhaps you'll travel to California's Carmel-by-the-Sea. If you do, you're likely to come home and paint the garage doors blue, or start a fuchsia collection, or fill the front yard with bright red salvias. For that's what Carmel does to you-- it puts ideas into your head. Only you don't have to wait until you go there before you start using some of them. Some of them are right here.

How to Restore Old Furniture

THE secondhand dealer stood in my basement and shook his head mournfully over the collection of furniture that had been gathering there for the past seven years. It was a hoard of weird things I'd picked up in weak moments at auctions, leftovers from the mountain cabin, more discards from the family that moved out when we moved in.

Bedrooms Bright With Ideas

Lamps REPORT FOR Double Duty

YOUR lamps have a bigger job to do today than they've ever bucked before.

Keep Gift Plants A-blooming

Get Ready for Spring

PRE-SEASON planning will do a lot to insure the success of this year's garden. And this year everyone with a bit of ground should be growing at least some of his fresh vegetables and fruits.

A Small Home ON A Big Scale

MAYBE figures don't lie, but sometimes they're pretty misleading. The cold, hard figures say that the John Magnesses of Riverside, Connecticut, are living in a Bildcost Gardened Home that's only 24 feet square, not counting the attached garage. In over-all dimensions, that's a small house. You can turn around in it, but somersaults are definitely out.

Workbench Beauties for Your Kitchen

Quilt TODAY

WE'RE quilt-making again-- and loving it! Maybe those hard-to-come-by items-- fuel and wool-- have inspired us. Or maybe it's just that we've discovered all over again what our pioneer great-grandmothers wisely knew all the time-- that working a quilt is the most fascinating of handcrafts, and that a beautiful quilt made by your own careful hands is a treasure for today and tomorrow.

There'll Be Some Changes Made!

"THE old triangle was good enough for me. It ought to be good enough for my son!" That was the reaction of a new father of my acquaintance when he learned that his offspring was being fitted into newfangled rectangular britches instead of the familiar three-cornered ones.

We'll Buy Bonds for You--Merely write us a letter

TO MAKE it easy and convenient for you to buy War Savings Bonds-- and to save your time, tires, and gasoline-- Better Homes & Gardens has become an official bond-issuing agency of the United States Treasury.

Get in the Money, Cooks!

VEGETABLE-GARDENING next summer? Bet you will be, even if you never did before. And even if you're no great canner, we'll wager you've at least one specialty your friends all boast about. And that's the gist of Cooks' Contest this month-- Midsummer Vegetable (grow 'em or buy 'em) and Canning Specialties.

We're Thumbs Up for Orange Topsy-Turvy!

HERE'S an upside-downer it's a treat to meet, to eat, and to repeat! It's Orange Upside-Down Cake, from M. N. Barnet of Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin-- $5 Dish-of-the-Month winner of our contest rounding up Orangey Desserts and Return-Engagement Meats, set rolling last June.

THE DIARY OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

These be troubled times. All the world is on fire and momentous things are happening, the like of which we never saw before. It would be fitting and proper that on this day I should rise above the commonplace and make resolves of noble and patriotic character.

Where Are YOUR Safely Controls?

LIGHTNING seldom strikes twice in the same place. It really doesn't need to-- once is enough.

You Can Bet on It

It's NEWS to Me!