February 1957

How to regain that "new car" ride

Only three basic elements affect the riding quality of a car: springs, shock absorbers, and tires. If your tires are properly inflated, your springs unbroken, and your shock absorbers in first-class shape, your family car should ride approximately the same as the day it was purchased.

Latest Garden News

If you have a strawberry bed, there's a good chance many of the plants are infected by a virus. According to tests made at the New York Experiment Station, you can assume that most strawberries carry virus infections unless they have been specially cultured to remove viruses.

Help your children to be good ice skaters

Perhaps your children already have their own ice skates. If not, they'll be delighted if you surprise them now with skates. Then, see that they get out frequently to the nearest indoor or outdoor rink.

Look how adaptable silver can be

HOW-TO for the handyman

HOMES FOR BETTER LIVING Award

The American Institute of Architects last year inaugurated a program to recognize the country's best examples of residential architecture. Better Homes & Gardens is happy to join with House & Home (the home-building-industry magazine) and the National Broadcasting Company in cooperating with 1957 A.I.A. awards.

How to wire your bedrooms, bathrooms for today's living

In many ways, electricity isn't unlike the water you use to keep your lawn green and your garden growing. There's plenty of it around; but unless you have the wires to "pipe" it. you can easily starve any appliance you own.

Let's keep America beautiful We cheer for Cleveland

A house that lives and lets live

February's Five Star home is from Architect Stuart Baesel, Charlotte, North Carolina, who designed it to prove a small house can be livable, enjoyable, and serve the needs of a young, growing family (his own).

They took their hobbies out of the house

Secrets of good decorating

ON-OFF DIETING can be dangerous!

Tempted to go on a diet one more time? Knock off some excess weight-- at least for a while? Then do it again another time? It could ruin your health, even shorten your life. And it's not just a matter of this or that particular fad diet. On-off dieting, the evidence is mounting, may cause serious illness. In the last few years, especially the past 18 months, while much attention has been riveted on the national overweight problem and how to solve it, research also has been directed at fitful reducing-- at the fat-to-lean-to-fat-again cycles in which so many Americans hopefully indulge.

Let's make sense

More than a year before the current controversy regarding special diets flared up in various national magazines, this magazine published the Belter Homes & Gardens Diet Book. The Diet Book makes an important distinction between "temporary starvation" and sensible, year-around nutrition. It offers no "crash" diets, no "cheat-and-grow thin" formulas. It does contain the safe, sure, medically approved facts of weight reduction.

There's space like this in your attic

You do it with COLOR

What the new ROSES can do for you

For February red-letter days

DON'T MISS THE FUN of celebrating this month's "holidays." Build family memories-- it will mean a lot to the kids to have a Washington's or Lincoln's birthday surprise.

Hungry for old-time beef stew?

WE'RE TALKING about the kind with husky cubes of meat and whole, just-tender vegetables, all in rich brown gravy, expertly seasoned. Stew isn't tricky-- it just takes long, slow cooking for perfect flavor. Follow the pictures for a stew you'll be proud of.

Get set for chowder days!

Help yourself to piping hot chowder from the big tureen! It's deliciously creamy and hearty with chunks of meat or vegetables-- a generous bowlful makes the hub of a luncheon or supper.

Our best spaghetti and meat balls

Rich tomato sauce over spaghetti, plump, wellseasoned meat balls, zesty Parmesan cheese showered over all. That's favorite fare in any language! Secret is the long, slow cooking of the sauce to mellow and blend its savory flavors.

Crisp partners for soup

Arrangements that flatter windows

Better Homes & Gardens IDEA FILE

Problem windows needn't be a weak spot in your decorating scheme. Better Homes & Gardens Well-dressed Windows Booklet shows how you can make them a center of interest, dress them to frame a view, or curtain them for privacy.

Desk you can make with a door

How to survive a normal youngster

Parents, bruised from brutal verbal beatings for their children's errors, find a friend in Dr. Fritz Redl, famous child psychologist.

Personal help in home building, remodeling, and decorating

When you're looking for ways to make your home more comfortable and attractive, look for this seal. It identifies the Better Homes & Gardens Home Planning Center, where you can get personal counsel on your home-planning problems.

How to make and assemble... Better Wood joints

First You build a box...

How to set ceramic tile

To be sure that the tile goes on true and square, joints match perfectly, and you get a professional--looking job, check these tiling procedures before you begin:

Remodeling: one way to get a new house

Dogs can be good neighbors, too

How can I train my dog not to go onto my neighbor's lawn when he goes out?

How remodeling remade a view

Tree care and repair

How to read a garden catalog

Confused by the trade jargon and abbreviations you find in garden catalogs? Wonder what you'd get if you sent away for a "self-fruiting, bare-root, early variety specimen"?

Article

GARDEN REMINDERS

Lawns: Rake off the old stubble on lawns in Low-er and Middle South, then give them a good feeding with a complete plant food-- 50 pounds for each 1,000 square feet. Water the area heavily to be sure the food reaches the roots.

Article

The diary of a Plain dirt gardener

Feb. I Tonight I learned something-- how to keep squirrels from climbing up a pole and eating grain from the bird feeder at the top.

Safe driving

Excessive speeds can often get you in trouble when driving on heavily traveled roads. You will often find cars waiting to make left turns into roadside stands, stores, drive-in theaters, and so on, not located at intersections.

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

"Something for Burt," mailman Les Grimes announced, handing Mrs. Hillis the season's first seed catalog. "Seed company must have decided to give him another chance."