July 1945

How Can the Home Shape the Future?

THOSE of us who have suffered from an ingrown toenail will remember how completely that affliction monopolized our interest. For a while we forgot all about the perfect functioning of the rest of the body-- and probably felt pretty sorry for ourselves.

Wartime Worries Dept

A I believe the wisest thing is to let him have his way for the present, while he has so many other difficult adjustments to make in his homecoming. Later on, when he sees the wives of so many other ex-servicemen keeping on with their work and their husbands happy in it, he may change. Or you may change, or children may settle this difficulty. In any event, he'll be more likely to see your viewpoint later if you yield now gracefully and lovingly in a matter which obviously makes a great deal of difference to him.

Clipper to Rio

YOU'RE standing in your local airport building with a ticket in your hand, a passport in your pocket, and a folder full of American Express checks. The time is a few years after the end of the war.

Last Call for Harvest

Loose mulches over the soil can keep the soil cool. They check too-rapid evaporation without cutting off air neccessary for healthy root functioning. Straw, leaves, ground corncobs, peanut shells, spent hops and peavines, grass clippings and leaves raked from lawns, shredded redwood bark, strawy manures, and old sawdust are some of the most satisfactory.

How to Reduce a Fireplace

IT'S anybody's guess as to how many thousands of fine homes have been built in the past with leering, muscle-bound fireplaces that dominate the whole room by the sheer weight of their presence. We'll simply say "thousands," as we've guessed above, and let it go at that.

THE DIARY of a Plain Dirt Gardener

July 3 Now it befell that toward five in the afternoon of a hot and dry summer day I did come back to our plantation, home from a long and strenuous business trip. I was tired out, groggy on my feet, a pain in my right chest --due mebbe to strain of carrying luggage.

The Corner Porch

AS WE'VE shown many times in the past, sometimes emphatically and sometimes in a roundabout way, Better Homes & Gardens takes a rather critical view of porches. Most of them have obvious faults, in spite of the fact that they are an attempt to satisfy a portion of Man's wants in a home: to furnish him a semi-sheltered place where he is neither bound by walls nor buffeted by Nature; where he can relax and feel the physical freedom of a boy scout on a camping trip without worrying about the chiggery aftermath.

A Room With a View

Keep Every Foot of Row Producing

IT'S YOUR Mortgage

TWENTY years is a long time to gamble you'll not get sick, lose your job, or take a crippling salary cut. But that's what you put your name on the paper for when you sign the average mortgage to build or buy a house-- 20 years, a promise to pay every month for all those years, without a miss. Come smack up against some adversity after 15 years' faithful paying off and you're as vulnerable to foreclosure as you were the day you signed the note; as vulnerable as the 1,600,000 owners who lost their homes in the depression decade before 1936.

Bill Stout--Brainstorms Unlimited

IT'S Saturday morning, and William B. Stout, in an old pair of trousers and loose jacket, is home in his garage workshop gluing together the working model of an invention that might easily revolutionize our ideas of personal flight.

We Bleached Our Golden Oak!

BUILT around 1926, our house had its full quota of golden oak woodwork, darkened by time and repeated coats of varnish. We could have done the obvious-- brightened the rooms by covering the woodwork with paint or enamel. But we preferred the modern beauty of bleached wood. And tho this stubborn pref-erance let us in for a considerable expenditure of time and elbow grease, the results, we think, have repaid us handsomely.

Modern Planning WITH A Mellow Touch

SOUTH of Kansas City proper, in a suburb called Indian Village, folks pass this house of Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Barton and pause to ponder, altho it's obviously new, why it looks as tho it were the first to be built there.

Short on Shortening?

Instead of allover top crusts for pie, make flaky lattices-- strips narrow, spaces wide. Or make pastry cutouts with a tiny vegetable cutter-- stars, daisies, or polka dots; or whirligig a strip over the top. This way you get an upper crust from trimmings only.

VEGETABLES Sauced and Seasoned

DAD or your green grocer is tumbling vegetables into your kitchen. And what vegetables! Hunger-teasing colors... unbeatable garden-fresh flavors make second helpings irresistible.

Help Baby Ride the Heat Waves

WORRIED about Baby as the heat waves sweep your way? You needn't be if you follow the rules we give you here for watching over his comfort and welfare.

Dress-Ups for Tables and Trays

If you inherited one of Grandma's embroidery-ruffled petticoats, you're more than halfway to a lovely new luncheon set. Thrifty, too. Over-mats can be colored linen, gingham, organdy, calico print-- whatever is on hand. And save on laundry by tubbing the toppers like nankins, letting; the petticoats serve several times.

The Man Next Door

In the last 2 or 3 years our daughter has become the family's No. 1 authority on phonograph records. She's picked up the lore, I gather, in the cultural corridors of junior high. It's a great endorsement when she likes one of her old man's old favorites!

AN EASY WAY TO USE Short-Stemmed Flowers

A Guarantee to Gardeners

on a seed packet is a sign of important pretesting. For you, the buyer, it --takes most of the guesswork out of buying novelty introductions.

Hints for the Handy Man

Make a gay sliding clothespin bag this easy way: pull a corner of a bandanna handkerchief thru each of the four screw holes on the plate of an ordinary hammock hook, knotting each handkerchief corner so that it can't pull out. Thus you've made an inverted parachute which will slide along the clothesline as you progress, carrying all the clothespins you'll need.

July Gardening Guide

THIS month we can concentrate on bringing our plant pets thru the heat and on planning new projects. How to Water.

It's NEWS to Me!

Prevents tarnish. keeps your silverware shining without polishing. Slip this opened jar of odorless, chemical crystals into drawer or cabinet where you keep your silverware. It absorbs gases in the air, prevents tarnish on silver and other metals for from 4 to 6 months.