May 1954

New way discovered to make shabby lawns lush and green

If yours is an average lawn, it probably suffers from spots and streaks where traffic, erosion, and hard play have beaten it until these scars look permanent. Or perhaps it's soggy after rains, hard as a brick when dry.

Your heart is tougher than you think!

Flat statements like "pushing a lawnmower is hard on the heart" need a lot of qualification. Whose heart? How much lawn? Other common ideas about the heart need some looking into. You'll recognize some of them: "Heart disease strikes without warning and kills instantly.... If it doesn't kill, it makes you a helpless invalid stuck in bed the rest of your life.... It's the end of everything that makes life worth living.... A man can't go back to work after a heart attack --there goes the kids' college education.... No exercise, no smokes, no fun, can't lift a finger or walk upstairs; might as well be dead.... Our grandparents didn't worry about heart disease, but now it's killing people off like flies.... Strains of modern civilization are causing heart disease to increase."

Keep an eye on your dashboard

Your car is equipped with instruments to help you avoid unnecessary breakdowns, repairs, and dangers. Each of the five standard instruments used on most cars warns you of impending trouble if you know how to read it. If you don't, the instrument gives you no service.

How to be safe on a ladder

It's more than a wall

How secure is our Social Security?

Suddenly, the dull Congressional committee hearing exploded into "angry shouts, furious hangings of the gavel, heated charges and counter charges." It was, one startled Washington correspondent wrote, one of the stormiest sessions in years. Bitterly, Arthur J. Altmeyer, former social-security commissioner, hurled this accusation at the lawyer for the House Ways and Means Subcommittee probing social security:

Have you heard the Latest Garden News?

An important gain in the fight to return the blight-stricken chestnut to its rightful place as a producer of nuts and timber is reported by U.S.D.A. scientists.

Little tractors are big news

A new way to build a good small house!

Here, in Better Homes & Gardens Five Star Home 2405, you're seeing something important. You're seeing the very latest in planning and construction-- indeed, a new way to build a good small house.

Lots of the West in two weeks

Nobody really has to sell you on the idea of going West for your vacation, do they? You owe it to yourself to go out there.

Space-makers for small bedrooms

THE FIVE space-making principles we used in a small living-dining room last month (see "Space-makers for small rooms," April, page 61) apply to the bedroom, too. Use a color scheme with closely related colors; little or no pattern. Lighting is even more important if your bedroom serves as a second sitting room. You'll want light for reading, sewing, typing, and the like. Experiment with your furniture arrangement. It should not interfere with the easy function of the room.

Big ideas for little rooms

Win the race over sore muscles

"Gardeners and trackmen use the same muscles," says Tom Deckard, track coach at Drake University, Des Moines, and host each spring to the famous Drake Relays.

For a color scheme that's hard to beat--Start with a white background

Miracle at Flint

It had been a hot, oppressive day in Flint, Michigan-- that fateful eighth day of June, last year. The air was humid and stifling. As the day wore down to an angry finish, people looked for relief. At dusk, "heat lightning" stabbed the yellow western sky. An ominous black curtain billowed over the north.

A nine-room house--the easy way!

Back in 1948, we bought a 70-year-old farmhouse located a mile or so outside the village of Broadalbin, New York. We had mixed feelings the first couple of times we drove out to see the place.

Here's how with Tulips

Hot facts on the built-in range

For nine years, we've watched the development of the built-in range. Now, with its coming of age, we present a roundup of information on styles, best placement, and kitchen arrangement including storage.

Know your eggs

Don't take the egg for granted-- that delicious, sunshine-yellow and white food. Just one little egg is potently packed with a lot of body-building protein and all sorts of vitamins and minerals. But often we don't take advantage of all it has to offer us. So here are tips to help you get the most egg for your money.

What good cooks should know about vanilla

Q. When should I stir in the vanilla when I make cooked candy such as fudge? A. Always add it after the cooked candy mixture has cooled, just before beating.

Bridal showers with a theme

How's your telephone personality?

What kind of an impression do you make on the person the other end of the telephone line? How do you rate with members of your family and neighbors who share the line

For good decorating results--Start with a long-range plan

Plan for more use from your bedroom

Show your youngster the right way with bikes

Easy-to-make Home sewing kit

If your sewing space is limited, here's a roomy storage bag you can make and hang on the back of a door or near your sewing corner. And it's easy to make, too! Use sturdy fabrics-- denim, ticking, or canvas.

We visited "The Pioneer Woman"

A visit to see "The Pioneer Woman," on Highway 77 near Ponca City, Oklahoma, was a side trip my wife and I planned on our vacation last spring. It had impressed me when I was a child. I wondered if I would retain that impression.

Gay trims for your relish tray

Lay that yardstick down!

Nine times out of 10, when you measure something, you don't care how long or high or wide or thick it is. All the measurement is for is to cut a piece of wood to go in a certain space, or to make something the same size as something else.

How to keep a bike like new

The best antidote for poison--speed

Questions to ask yourself Before you buy a power mower

It will mean a job well done, in less time, with a lot less drudgery. Lawn size isn't the factor it once was when buying a power mower.

Attic fans: low-cost comfort

No matter where you live, there'll be days this summer that are just too hot to handle without some mechanical assistance.

Garden clinic

Safe driving

No one who prides himself on being a good driver, drives beyond the range of his headlights. If you drive at speeds in excess of the speed in which you can safely stop --you are driving blind!

Try two of a kind

Here's a kitchen with big improvements

The tool with built-in experience

The portable electric tool you see in these pictures is called a "router," a name that's easily the understatement of the century. Of course, you can rout with it-- if you're that unimaginative. But it also is a shaper. A mortiser. Tenoner. Dado. Plough. Dovetailer. Planer. Tongue-and-groover. Beveler. Rabbeter. And it's easy to use.

City lot with a country feeling

Treat yourself to the pleasures of country living right in the center of a city. There's no special secret. It's all in how you fit your house to the lot, then how you plant around it.

Spacesaving closet ideas

MAY GARDEN REMINDERS: Now's the time to...

Set out lantanas, ageratum, geraniums, snapdragons, and other bedding plants where frost danger is past. Set your lawnmower at 1½ inches, and mow grass each time it grows to 2 inches.

Suggested 12-day tour

First Day: Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to Kadoka, eastern gateway to the Badlands via U. S. 16; 255 miles. Kadoka is only 100 miles from Rapid City, but if you want to see the Badlands (and you should), you must add 55 miles and several hours via U. S. 16A. Stop for the night and see the Badlands at their best in the morning.

VINES- how to make the most of them

The diary of a Plain dirt gardener

May 1 Tonight I sat reading a detective story, I was tired out from some lawnmowing, sowing some more annual seeds, transplanting some more vegetables from the hotbed, and weeding.

The right tool is half the job

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

Just returned from a brain-washing lecture by one of those garden scientists, and I need rest. Think I'll go out meandering among my mesembryanthemums or puttering in my pyracanthuses; then relax under my Lagunaria patersoni, formerly loved as my Sugarplumtree.