May 1944

The Greatness in Ordinary People

I KNOW a man who has a real grasp on Einstein's theory of relativity, but who cannot fasten a loose doorknob. One great composer, whose harmonies stir the soul, was mentally unbalanced, and another was mean and dishonest.

LATE TIPS ON Wartime Living

Electric cords and plugs will continue to be hard to get. To save those you have turn the switch to "off" before connecting or disconnecting, grasp the plug, not the cord, to pull. Put cords away free from kinks or knots. Best idea is to hang them over two or more metal hooks.

THE DIARY of a Plain Dirt Gardener

May 1 Went forth this Saturday afternoon with high hopes and careful plans. David was to cut the grass for the first time in this belated season, three weeks behind schedule. I was to finish clearing off peonies, then he was to cultivatesame with garden tractor.

Try Badminton for Fun

LOOKING for exercise to keep you fit? Or open-air entertainment for the family and guests now that we're all spending more time at home? Badminton's the answer.

How to Tie a House Down

WHEN is a door not a door? When it's still a wall and you must-- thru imagination and one window-- squint to see the garden the way you'd really like to see it.

Are You Smarter Than Most Foods Gardeners?

A This depends upon the season. Last summer the most dependable amateur's tomato, Firesteel, refused to be reliable and threw many green-cored fruits; but in normal years, this will produce more fruit under the conditions found in most gardens than any other. Early Baltimore, a big-crop sort the commercial men are wild about, will probably give more smooth, medium-sized fruits in good years than any other. Jubilee, a big, spectacular orange-yellow, is a perfect fruit in size and flavor if you like the color.

DDT . . . A deadly new bug killer as potent against insects as the sulfas and penicillin are against disease

MAYBE you saw it in the newsreels from Naples where they dusted it in people's hair and down their backs and up their pants. They flew it in from America and dusted a million and a quarter Italians in that one town and wiped out an epidemic of dreaded typhus.

Dutch Colonial Looks Ahead

WE-GO TRAIL has a fanciful sound. Say it to yourself a couple of times. Listen to it in your mind. Certainly a lane with a name like that is no ordinary street; you're bound to find sunshine there, fresh-blowing winds, room for trees and flowers to grow, space for yourself and the kids to stretch in. You turn down a lane like this, when you're home-site-hunting, with a lift of the imagination and a tingle of interest.

Pumpkins, Squash, Melons, Cucumbers

IT'S the matter of space that settles whether or not you can grow these vine crops. They're well worth your while if you can find room.

A Duration Home WITH INEXPENSIVE CHARM

"TURNING these nondescript little rooms into a home has been the most fun we've ever had-- and what we don't know now about furnishing from secondhand stores you could put on the head of a pin!" So report Mr. and Mrs. Austin Farnsworth from their tiny home in Los Angeles.

They Say It With Color in Duluth

DULUTH spells vacations, pickerel-shaped ore boats, the sound of harbor shipping, an inland port with a bridge that lifts straight up, a city that sits on a tilt between shore and a 600-foot ridge left from pre-glacial days.

Gay Window Ideas

Hints for Home-Fixers

See how to grow food

Good-bye, Mr. Chippendale

I HAVE SEEN hard-boiled Wall Street brokers and Broadway playwrights, weekending in their pseudo-farmhouses in Bucks County, go right into a schoolgirl rave over a decrepit bedpan, with a look in their eyes that shouldn't have been there for anything less than the Holy Grail.

WANTED 5,000,000 KIDS

DO YOU remember when almost the only jobs open to young people were a few in filling stations-- and the influential men of the community snapped up most of those for their own sons?

Cut Your Cooking Corners

Young Mothers' Exchange

"I DON'T know when I've enjoyed a feature as much as the Young Mothers' Exchange," Mrs. Roy C. Williams of New Castle, Pennsylvania sends this orchid our way. "The suggestions are so practical-- the kind you don't find any place but in talking with another young mother.

Cited for Courage

WHEN I asked Dorothy Reitman if I might have a photographer take the picture of herself and her baby which adorns this page, she consented upon one condition.

Clever Hanging Speeds Ironing

We Went on a Junk Jag

Good Things From Dry Bread

Ground-Meat and Spring-Salad Winners

YOU'VE convinced us, girls! No one will ever invent the last ground-meat masterpiece! Your offerings in that dual Cooks' Contest we held last October, highlighting Ground-Meat Doings and Springtime Salads, were super. A luscious open-face Steak Sandwich from Mrs. John W. Collins of Dwight, Kansas, tickled the judges' palates so successfully that it landed first prize of $5 and Dish-of-the-Month honors on page 49. No patties to make or buns to spread and you can fix them way ahead, sizzle in the broiler the last minute.

$70 for Your Merry Christmas Recipes

You'll be popping nuts, as usual, in the kiddies' stockings next Christmas --but save plenty, too, for those good nutty foods you love at the Yuletide season and all year around. Right now, let's find them a running mate and make a contest of them. We'll call it Ways With Nuts and Christmas Breads and trade $10 for the very best recipe that's sent us, and $3 apiece for each of the 20 next most delicious.

Playing to a Full House Every Month

Make Gourds Beautiful Dutifuls

The Man Next Door

And for the fifth meal after I get back from the wars I'd like a powerful dish of liver and onions. (Had forgotten there were such things; just saw a picture in a 4-month-old magazine.)

How to Bequeath $125,000

A STARTLING statistic from Boston set Jimmy, a young attorney in Detroit, on a still hunt for the best educational insurance for his Jimmy. A survey made by the Dean of Boston University last July showed conclusively that during a working- life span of 40 years the average college graduate earns $125,000 more than the boy who has to go job-hunting the minute a high-school diploma is placed in his hands.

Who Is T. H. Robsjohn-Gibbings?

Every Young Mother Should Own a Better Homes & Gardens Baby Book!

Camouflage for Battered Walls

Traditional Designs That Fit Our Times

It Came to Life Again

WHEN a house runs down while the neighborhood doesn't, its down-at-the-heel air soon develops into the neighborhood blight.

" . . . and then we laughed!"

IT WAS such a small thing that happened at dinner and left us aghast at ourselves!

Make These Pretties

An Envelope for Tojo

Year-'Round "Garden Lazy Room"

"KNOW what I want? A 'lazy room' right off the garden-- or rather, smack in the garden, but in the house, too!"

Coming Next Month

Article

May Outdoor Gardening Guide

MAY is, to many of us, the high point in the gardening calendar. Flowers are plentiful and almost every type of seed and plant can be started in May. The main vegetables go in this month.

Planning to Remodel?

It's NEWS to Me!