March 1950

When you buy plants--get your money's worth

Going shopping for plants? It's that time of year again. But you'll do your buying more sensibly if you know a little about plant grades and quality, instead of depending on guesswork and luck.

Here's how to cut your income tax

Income tax laws have provisions you can use to cut down the size of the check you'll be sending to the Collector of Internal Revenue this month. But 10 p.m. March 14 isn't the time to start cramming on those provisions-- they'll benefit you most if you keep income taxes in mind throughout the year and even arrange some of your affairs to take advantage of the regulations.

There's more space around the corner

New grasses--with less work--promise a perfect lawn

No weeds, no insect pests, no bare spots, no watering, no diseases.

Accident-proof wall coverings

HAVE YOU HEARD? the latest in GARDEN NEWS

Here's another interesting note on maleic hydrazide, the chemical that slows plant growth without harming the plants. One blackberry breeder sprayed an early variety of blackberry in order to cross it with a late type. For the homeowner, the important result was that the sprayed plants yielded much better than did untreated plants of the same variety. The reason? The bushes sprayed with maleic hydrazide had their flowering delayed about a month, while the untreated blackberries had their blossoms nipped by frost.

LITTLE BOYS MAKE LOUSY HUSBANDS

Mine is no unusual circle of friends: Joe and Anna on the verge of breaking up their marriage; Bill and Phyllis in hock after repeated budget failures; others worried over difficulties with children, with jobs and careers, with widowed parents.

Blossom out with flowering trees!

Plant a tree-- and you'll be pleased with yourself for years to come. Plant a tree that loads itself with bloom-- or two trees or a dozen different sorts-- and you make a good thing that much better.

How to got light along with privacy

As you plan a new house or remodeling, be sure that your windows give you light where you are going to need it, and privacy where you want privacy.

Windows can have glamour

Curtains and draperies-- like a new spring hat-- are the dash of glamour in your room's costume. They're part of the background that displays your furniture and accessories; they are on display, too, as color notes along the walls.

Yon can't put their kind of security in the bank

You say anybody with any sense, when they talk about security they talk about money. About pensions and investments. About valuable papers stuck away in a safety deposit box the way a squirrel sticks away nuts, behind a steel door as thick as the deck of a battleship.

Add hours of use to your dining room

Landscape your own home-II

It takes more than a house to make a home. Much of the attractiveness and livability of any home comes from what is in the yard and garden. And even if your house is simple or plain, you can make it a standout for beauty and enjoyment. The secret is attention to the planning of landscape details.

Storage wall house

When the building-cost skyrocket took off after the war, most of us with moderate incomes were left waiting at the launching platform.

Pick a pattern for your walls

Your walls are the largest color area in your rooms. So your wallpaper choice can be the most important decorative decision you'll make. Wallpaper fills the background of your room with color; it gives your furnishings new beauty; it will inspire a color scheme or set a mood; wallpaper can even change the shape of a room.

Problem solvers you can use, too

Chuck box--kitchen on wheels

Ever wished you could enjoy real home cooking when you were traveling? It would be fun-- being free to eat where you please, enjoying the special foods of the region: melons in Colorado, sea food on the coasts, sweet corn in Iowa.

Get full-time living from that sun porch

Are we too good to our children?

It was about two months ago that my husband and I were getting ready to go out for the evening. The family car was at the garage, so another couple had promised to pick us up.

Arrange for more comfort around your fireplace

Septic systems

To get a view with some reach to it, or to get a building site where your house won't rub elbows with its neighbors, you probably will have to build on the outskirts of your city. It's just as probable that the municipal sewer line doesn't extend that far.

What does your youngster really need?

Do you pay as much attention to your youngster's emotional needs as you do to his physical requirements?

Now you can tile your walls

Closets--for men only

Dressing tables fit in anywhere

Ideas you can use, too

We did it with shelves

There's room to turn around in your garage

Drill press--jack-of-most-trades

Closets--full of ideas

Let your baby know you love him

In your heart you know it-- that yours is the best baby in the whole world. You wouldn't exchange him for any other. But he must know you know it ... not necessarily that you think he's the smartest baby or the prettiest. His own intelligence and beauty don't mean much to him. But your glee at his antics, your wide-eyed admiration for his progress, your pride in him for what he is, your baby-- these are important!

Modern museum

PRIZES for cooks

You may be chosen Cook-of-the- Month for October if you send us your best recipe for apple desserts or French-fry specials now. We'll pay the first-prize winner $10 and 20 other winners $3 each. Eight recipes will be picked to be photographed and published in the October Cooks' Round Table.

Is this your kitchen?

In the past 20 years, the kitchen has changed more than any other room. It's shifted in size from too large to too small to medium-sized. Amount and size of equipment have increased. So has the desire for kitchen eating space.

Small rugs pay big returns in charm and color

What's new in window shades and blinds

With shades or blinds at the window, you can control the sunlight, the breezes, even the privacy in your home. But don't forget that those same shades or blinds can be color notes in your rooms, too. To help you get the newest for your home, here's how blinds and shades are becoming better to look at, simpler to operate, easier to clean.

How to use your files

What's the right way to hold a file? Should you lift it on the backstroke? How much pressure do you use? What do you do when the teeth fill with filings?

Dressing nooks from your extra closet space

Fit furniture to the space

We made our cabin a home--ourselves

The war tossed our house plans into the "hold" file. But after the war we needed a place to live while my husband, Charles, studied pharmacy.

You can have a den-recreation room

how-to helps

Well-Dressed Windows-- Draperies and curtains in your home are an important part of the decorative plan. You can easily change and improve any room simply by doing over the window treatment. This booklet gives you complete instructions for making your own curtains and draperies to get the best results for the least money. Only 25c.

A better house than ever, but Four wars old

Good living on a small scale

How to make a bias binding

Gay salt and pepper shakers for fun

The thermometer says when

Easy does it in this kitchen

Make up your mind, Mother dear

When Tommy comes pell-mell home from school with a request to play over at that new boy's house, what do you say? When Janie wants to know what to wear to the party, what do you tell her? You are called upon to make dozens of decisions daily

Here's a houseful of comfort

Put folding screens to work for you

Try charting

If steering your youngsters into good habits is hard going, and your family is beginning to feel temper-tossed, a system that has worked well at our house may be the answer for you. My husband and I set it up in a desperate effort to restore order and good humor to our family life.

Shoestring garden on concrete

Your lawn this month

For 99 out of a hundred homeowners, the lawn is the most important part of the garden. But lawn grasses are like all other garden plants. They can't just be planted and then forgotten. They need regular care throughout the season, from early spring to late fall.

We were our own contractors

We were living in a one-room mountain cabin. There was no inside plumbing, the nearest neighbors were 5 miles away, rains washed out the road, and our daughter had to walk 2½ miles to the school bus.

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How to get plans for this house

Stores listed below operate Home Planning Centers, featuring Better Homes & Gardens Five Star Plan Service. At each store you can obtain help in planning, decorating your new home, remodeling your present home.

books for every use

Gardening Guide There's a blustery March yet ahead, but you can't keep spring down for long. It's gardening time again, and time to get your copy of Better Homes & Gardens beautiful new Gardening Guide. This is the gardening guide that gives you complete information plus the newest developments in flower and vegetable gardening, landscaping and lawn care.

Fringe shades

Make yourself a flower carrier and garden tool kit

Have you ever stopped to think how many trips you make back and forth hunting garden stakes, trowel, pruning shears, and cultivator in the spring and summer? Or how many flowers are wilted or crushed when you try to cut with one hand while holding flowers in the other?

How to improve your bungalow

If you own one of the thousands of bungalows built during the boom of the 1920's, you know that house styles change.

To reduce clutter For little men

A boy can be taught to keep his room in order-- but you have to help him out. Orderliness can become second nature to your child if you provide plenty of easy-to-reach storage shelves and compartments for his toys and the wide assortment of junk every youngster collects.

For little women

Your dog and mine

It's easy to teach a young dog to obey the command to come, but it will take longer to correct an older animal. Use an inviting tone, yet firm enough to mean business. If the dog ignores your effort, drop to a kneeling position, clap your hands.

MARCH GARDEN GUIDE

Sow hardy annuals such as calendulas, snapdragons, and candytufts in Upper and Middle South. Half-hardy annuals such as ageratum, celosia, and phlox may be planted in Middle and Lower South. Plant tender annuals in Lower South all month but only during late March in Middle South.

What do I prune now?

The beauty that you get around your home from shrubs the year round depends somewhat on pruning. When properly pruned, shrubs produce their largest flowers, finest foliage and shrub form, and most brilliantly colored stems for winter. Knowledge of several basic points is all that's needed to prune the common shrubs around the home.

The diary of a plain dirt gardener

March 1 Poor little yellow crocuses in bloom out along the south side of the house. They arrived last week, all untimely-- and today ground is covered somewhat with snow, and thermometer down to around 15. It is surprising, though, what a lot of cold weather they can stand and still look purty.

Is your home town project worth a prize?

America needs more communities that are better places in which to live. That means it needs people who are willing to improve their home towns.

Garden clinic

Well-kept garden tools save time and temper

Man-tailored globe lamp

The MAN NEXT DOOR

Our new neighbor, whose job takes him to a different city every few years, gave me his family secret for getting acquainted. The day they move into a new house, up goes a tire swing in the back yard.