File:American homes and gardens (1912) (17967648428).jpg

Title: American homes and gardens
Identifier: americanhomesgar91912newy (find matches)
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Architecture, Domestic; Landscape gardening
Publisher: New York : Munn and Co
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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July, 1912 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS Vll
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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS FOR AUGUST THE readers of American Homes and Gardens will have in store for them one of the most interesting issues of the magazine with the advent of the August number, which will be devoted mainly to the subject of Remodeled Houses. The opening article, "The Remodeled Farmhouse," will be beautifully illustrated, exteriors and interiors, with an exterior view of an old made-over New Jersey farmhouse before remodeling. BEATRICE C. WILCOX contributes an excellent illus- trated article on "A Barn That Became a House," be- ing a description of one of the most picturesque remodeled buildings to be found on Long Island. "Woven Furniture," by Harry Martin Yeomans, will show various types of willow furniture and woven furniture suitable not only for the Summer home but for the all-year-round home as well. Mr. Yeomans is a well-known writer on subjects connected with interior decoration, and the present article will be one that is well worth reading. One of the most beautiful coun- try homes in America, a country house that has been trans- formed from an old mill, is described by Robert H. Van Court in an article illustrated by reproductions, photographs and floor plans. The double-page feature for the August number will be unusually handsome. " A LITTLE Colonial Farmhouse That Became a /^\. Modern Home," is the title of an article by Sarah Witlock Jones, which is a narrative of the discovery of an old, tumbled down, Colonial farmhouse which the writer transformed into a beautiful little country home. This will be one of the most interesting features of the magazine. F. F. ROCKWELL, one of the foremost horticulturist writers in America, contributes an article on "Geran- iums," which is adequately illustrated by photographs, that will prove helpful not only to the garden beginner, but to an experienced window or outdoor gardener as well. THE August number will contain extremely interesting departments on home decoration, gardening and also the department of "Helps to the Housewife," conducted by Elizabeth Atwood, whose articles have attracted widespread attention. Numerous other articles will appear in the August issue, which will have one of the most attractive cover designs in color that the magazine has shown this year. CIVIC BETTERMENT OR PETTY INTERESTS? IN our enthusiasm for the civic betterment movement, we must not lose sight of the fact that those who devise aesthetically excellent plans for improvement often fail to take into account, what The Builder calls "the shopkeepers' desire for self-advertisement," the product of our swiftly moving times. When the mass of our people have been educated to a sense and a practice of the higher duties of citizenship it will not become so necessary for the commit- tees of civic improvement societies to make compromises in order to maintain harmony in obtaining concessions to their advanced points of view. As it is, the energy expended in inducing one's neighbor to come into line in any local betterment plan often discourages those who do not feel that they have the strength to fight for a strip of lawn, a bit of park land, well kept streets, country roads freed from the hideous tyranny of the sign-board, public playgrounds, broad avenues, lighted highways and the like, when opposi- tion seems strong and intelligence blind in the matter. Nevertheless the more dauntless workers we have in this direction, the sooner the public will become educated to a happier attitude, and petty interests will be turned into com- munal unity so far as the matter of public weal is concerned. FOURTH OF JULY THOSE with whom true patriotism, nationalism and de- votion to one's country are held to be qualities that only the development of a strong, dignified and constructive senti- ment can give proof of their worth, have done much to bring about a proper sense of the fitting manner of celebrating each succeeding anniversary of the signing of the Declara- tion of Independence. We, in common with other highly civilized nations, make manifest our national feelings on such occasions by as vast an amount of noise as we are able to command, and although one need not quarrel with that— exuberance, joyousness and enthusiasm are not silent factors—we do decry the perversion of the spirit of jubila- tion to the level of boistrousness and slaughter. Year after year Fourth of July has been made by careless, heedless American citizens to chronicle victims of the insane stupidity of placing danger in the hands of little children and incom- petent or foolhardy grown-ups. We do not forget the thrill of lighting firecrackers when we were little folk, but we also remember just how careful we had to be and how anxiously we were watched lest our inexperience bring woe to our little fingers, sorrow into the hearts of our elders. But in the years that have passed since then firecrackers have hidden dynamite within their wrappers, and the little noise- makers of yesterday have been superseded by what, com- pared to them, may well be considered little less than bombs. Fortunately the cry for sane Fourths had gone out through the land with good effect. Public sentiment has been aroused against permitting slaughter to represent a national celebra- tion and the Quiet Fourth has come to mean, not a dav of whispering and bated breath, but a day sufficiently devoid of hideous perversive din to enable one to hear and be stirred by the solemn dignity of the cannon's roar as we salute, through trained, responsible hands, the memory of the birth of the American nation, and recall, with tender thought, the noble lives that have been given to the cause of the maintenance of our national integrity, in which thought we try to forget Folly fumbling with gunpowder. Inadvertently in the editorial note appearing in American Homes and Gardens for June, 1912, wherein readers of the magazine were invited to submit photographs and de- scriptions of their home gardens, this invitation appeared to be restricted to subscribers. However, every reader of American Homes and Gardens, whether a subscriber or not, is cordially invited to submit photographs and de- scriptions of home gardens to the editor.

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