January 1944

Not "God Save America"--You Save It

YOU step on the starter of your car and whiz off to the USO or to your work without a thought that you are doing anything extraordinary. But it makes you think when you realize that only in America may ordinary people do this.

LATE TIPS ON Wartime Living

There are enough seeds, insecticides, and plant foods to supply everyone's needs this year. But you'll do both yourself and your country a favor if you put in your orders this month and next. Transportation is a big problem, and seed houses haven't the manpower to handle a last-minute rush come the first whiff of spring.

the man next door

WITH THE U. S. ARMY OVERSEAS-- As I muse on Christmas and the New Year, the air-raid sirens suddenly vent their mad whinny. Searchlights caress the stars. Planes hum overhead in the deep blue night. Off goes the radio momentarily, resumes with "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," an old favorite anthem in our family.

Garden Things Yon Can Make

WANT a good solid puncheon table and some benches for that backyard picnic spot, or some small, weathered benches to blend with your garden? Want a fence gate that can't be left open to let the dogs or kids or horses swarm out? These winter evenings, when the wind moans around the corners and under the eaves, are the time to get down there in the basement workshop and make the chips fly.

My Wife and I Build a Fire

THERE'S a quaint old saying around our house to the effect that there are two ways of doing anything --My Way, and The Right Way. That goes for building a fire, too.

Help the Doctor to Help You

SALLY complains, "I've got a terrible stummick-ache," and you wonder whether it's brought on by a third helping of apple pie or tomorrow's arithmetic exam. Tommy seems to have a slight rash-- measles, or just the Old Nick breaking out? Dad's snorting in the living-room. He would walk without his rubbers in a sleety rain.

you'll bask in comfort

EATING is fun. Wearing a new suit makes you feel proud and cocky. But heating is a living expense without pleasure. Heating is only a fuel bill and a lack of freezing. In the older houses it's a great belch of coal smoke fouling the air, and cold floors and cold feet and hot air that burns your nose and throat and lips and skin into two bits worth of dried beef.

HOW TO Plan AND Plant THAT 1944 FOODS GARDEN

FILL in the blank columns and you'll have a master plan for your 1944 garden. You'll know what crops and how much of each to plant, how much to put away for winter, how much seed to order, when to plant, how far apart, how deep.

WITH PAINT AND BRUSH, NEEDLE AND THREAD Even an Attic Becomes a Charmer

I'VE just been to tea in a garret-- and found beauty above the tree tops. You've already met my hostess, Peggy Sloan of Kansas City, Missouri, whose little home we showed in color in February, 1942.

A Stitch in Time for Your Linen Closet

WHAT'S the outlook in your linen closet? Sheets parting company in their middles... blanket bindings wearing whiskers... towels frazzling out and table linens with little breaks and ravels? Scotch these saboteurs now! Every piece you can make last saves industrial materials and manhours today; will bring victory much sooner.

Build Your New Home Now

WHILE you're waiting and planning for the postwar home that your War Savings Bonds are going to help you pay for, why not build a model of it and see it in miniature? It's not a difficult job; it can become an absorbing hobby, ideal for long winter evenings.

Lots of Fruit From a Little Lot

50' X 50' of sunny back yard will grow plenty of top-quality fruit for your family-- if you plant it right and give it proper care.

WINNERS Most Worth Growing PRIZE

YOU don't want to spade and plant and feed and weed and cultivate for two months to find you planted a bum variety-- that it's stringy, a push-over for disease, and doesn't bear much anyway.

4 Rooms in the Country

MR. AND MRS. ALDO LACHMAN both work on war jobs in one of the roaring production centers of Connecticut. A quiet home, then, means much to them, and when they built it, with the aid of Architect Lucius Beardsley, they turned to a region of wooded country, not too far from their work, but still completely rural.

Pancakes and Waffles

59 WAYS TO SERVE YOUR Home-Canned Foods

Give Baby an Oil Bath

IN COLD weather, it's often difficult to keep Baby's skin in good condition. It tends to become dry and chapped, even to break out. Oiling helps prevent this.

FIRST AID to the Butter Plate

Young Mothers' Exchange

My husband's white-flannel trousers have become blankets for Baby. I use the full leg length, cutting them off at the bottom part of the pockets. Sew the strips together and crochet around the edge with odds and ends of yarn-- and you'll have a lovely, warm, soft blanket.

Article

HOW TO USE ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS

YOU'VE looked for it-- you've asked for it-- an answer to your question "How can I arrange artificial flowers to look as lovely as real ones?" Here are five gay pretenders ready to refresh your winter-dulled rooms.

He Toughened Your Mums

NO LESS ROMANTIC than Dumas' famous story about the Black Tulip is the story of adapting the chrysanthemum to just about anywhere in the United States; even where the mercury drops below zero and stays there.

Pert Little Vanities Anybody Can Make

JANUARY Outdoor Gardening Guide

FOODS gardeners, this year more than last, are realizing the need to plan ahead. They know now that the advice on more thoro soil preparation isn't mere talk but is based upon experience-- that you may fool your neighbors by scratching the soil with a hoe rather than spading deeply, but you can't fool the plants, for unless the roots can go deep the crop is miserable and drouth-stricken.

New Varieties

The Diary of a Plain Dirt Gardener

Don't look now, folks, but here's that man again. Yessir, here's the old PDG back again, with his annual batch of promises (often not kept) and predictions (often wrong).

Indoor Gardening Guide

Feather flowers, figure and bowl, Haeger Potteries, Merchandise Mart, Chicago; Crystalite candles, Will & Baumer, Syracuse, N. Y.; all artificial flowers, Tomoko, 520 39th, Des Moines; glass, Imperial Glass Corp., Bellaire, Ohio; crystal flower bowl, Norton Centerpieces, 119 W.

It's News to Me!