April 1943

The Stuff of VICTORY

PEOPLE who insist that all the strength of the body and mind be concentrated continuously on one endeavor, like the sun's rays focused thru a magnifying glass, forget that a glass so used is more likely to burn than to illuminate.

Back-Savers for Foods Growers

DON'T think you need half a county to garden in. A 30x50foot plot well kept up will produce much more than a larger but neglected garden.

How to Care for Your Wallpaper

How to Repair (Your Porcelain bathtub, range, refrigerator)

BEEN lamenting those rusty or thin spots on your refrigerator, wondering sadly how much worse they'll look before you're due for a new beauty after Victory? Then you're missing a bet and a good-looking refrigerator for the duration!

Bulls BY THE MILLION

WHEN the bulb embargo abruptly ended the flow of daffodils, iris, tulips, and lilies to this country some dozen years ago, an energetic, pink-cheeked young Dutchman named Jan de Graaff hustled across the Atlantic to salvage his family's business in the United States.

Eggs From Your Own Back Yard

MANY people who haven't seen a live chicken close up since childhood days have been asking themselves this question lately:

Your Next House-WHAT IS IT LIKE?

IN THE Solomon Islands they buy their wives like beasts of burden. After they've dragged them home, tho, they don't work them half so hard as in America.

That Food Garden Pick It AND Spade It

LOOK to the needs of U. S. fighting men all around the world, to the overburdened railroads that can no longer import your fresh fruit and vegetables whenever you need them. Listen to the truck gardeners who haven't the labor to get all their crop in and out of the field, to the official warning of how small your canned fruit and vegetable ration must be.

Color's cheap and Magic!

COLOR'S the magic wand of home decoration. Wave it and it works miracles! With it you can dash excitement into the dullest corner. It can turn a mouse of a room into a sparkling personality. You can use it so imaginatively that it veritably "decorates" far more than do actual furnishings themselves. And, heaven bless it, it's cheap!

Sparkle Your Rooms WITH Gay Slip-ons

She Practices What She Preaches

"WHAT have you in drab old down-at-the-heels houses?" solemnly asked Stella Brockway of a real-estate agent-- who all but fainted from shock!

GROW YOUR OWN Greens

BIG QUESTION is this: Which vegetable produce the most food per row? Which do we need most? How can we get them to the table without loss of their precious Via mins and minerals? Luckily, nutritionists have been working for years to give us the answers. Unanimously they say, "Go in first for the green leafy vegetable, such as lettuce spin ach chard, beet and turnip greens, and kale."

Food Grower's How-to-Do

Snip your leaf lettuce. Instead of pulling it, use scissors or tear off leaves one inch above the root. New ones will grow promptly and prolong the crop. Lettuce must have water if the season turns dry. Sow 10 feet of row at intervals of two weeks.

WE Remodeled BIG ROOMS WITH SMALL CHANGE

A GRAND piano and a long dining table kept us from building a new home! The reason was that living- and dining-rooms big enough for these two pampered pieces of furniture were 'way too big for our building budget. So we discarded the piano and table?

FISH Fish FISH All Ways

MAKE IT FISH for that main dish--be it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Lent, or whenever. You'll be giving your eaters something mighty good and good for them.

Easy Budget Guide FOR YOUR Ration Points

Canning Jars You'll Be Using

PLAN your canning now! It's none too early to be thinking about the glass jars you'll be filling-- and the ways you'll be sealing them.

Right Care of Bottles and Nipples

LAST MONTH you and I were up to our ears in "formula-making" for your baby-- and wasn't it loads easier than you'd dreamed? (All rumors to the contrary, preparing baby's food is really a snap, whether you use fresh milk, irradiated evaporated milk, or dried milk.)

Spring Desserts and Spaghetaroni Dandies

RHUBARB rings the cash register for a fiver. Remember that contest for Spring Desserts and MacaroniSpaghetti-Noodle Mix-ups run last September? Top place goes to Nelle M. Jones of Lincoln, Nebraska, for her delectable Rhubarb Royalle-- a real honey of a springtime treat. Rhubarb, all spiced up and honeyed, bakes lusciously under a feathery cake, glazed with honey-orange sauce. Page 49 tells all.

$25 Says You're a Grand Cook!

It's ready for the splitting, folks-- that $25 in cash prizes you good cooks merrily tussle over each month and we taste-and-testers proudly award. Here's the setup-- a fine fat $5 check for top ranker, and a dollar apiece earmarked for the 20 next-bests. Cooks' Contest this month is a three-ringer, to wit-- Gravies, Sauces, Root Vegetables.

EASTER EGGSHELL CUTIES

EAT IT and have it, too? You bet you can, if it's an egg! So start hoarding those shells against Easter. Fun's in the offing for your Easter table and those big and little friends who rate Easter Day tokens. Just a few minutes per egg saves the shells for dress parade. Here's the way:

Young Gardeners Strike Pay Dirt

Are your youngsters getting these benefits? This year your family garden, I'll warrant, will be a good deal more than a hobby, a nice way to spend leisure time. It will be an item, and a pretty important one, in helping feed yourselves.

How to Quiet a Door

IT WAKES your baby. It annoys your guests. It ruffles your wife. But nobody gets around to doing anything about it. You hate to call in a carpenter for such a little thing, and eventually you hope to get used to it. I mean that noisy door.

The Man Next Door

Spring's in the air. Soon the boys in the army camps will take off their underwear when they go to sleep; soon you'll realize you didn't have to burn up the furniture to keep warm, after all, and that life is quite possible at a temperature of 66 degrees.

Quilted Cuties

JUST one wee stitch after another --quilting's easy and fun! These three charmers you'll love to make, to use yourself or to give away.

You'll Want HERBS for Salads and Seasonings

NEBUCHADNEZZAR, we know now, was probably just tired of the same old food and craving a salad when he dropped to his knees and cropped (sour) grass-- what we know today as sorrel.

April INDOOR Gardening Guide

More Boners You Needn't Pull

Are you addicted to the horrible habit of scattering fancy pillows about the living-room floor?

THE DIARY OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

April 1 My poor back is still in bad shape from moving that evergreen the other day. It took vast will power to get down to the think factory and hobble to my office and classroom to begin the spring quarter. Classes are small this quarter, with so many of the boys off to the wars.

APRIL OUTDOOR GARDENING GUIDE

IN APRIL we do spraying and detailed trimming. The tip buds have started or are definitely swollen so that a second glance isn't needed to tell which branches are alive and which aren't.