XXIV 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



April, 1913 



Wilson's Outside Venetians 



Used as a blind or an awninff. pulled up t: 



and close. Admit air, exclude sun. Very Dura 



Should l>e placed NOW lor Spring or Summer de 



nht if desired. Slats open 

 ible and Artistic. Orders 



Insid 

 WILSON'S BI„ 

 Mackay, Wm. C. 



Outside View Blind Pulled Up For Piazzas and Porches 



INDS have been furnished to the houses of John P. Morgan, H. M. Flagler, A.G. Vanderbilt. Chas. I.anier, Mrs. R. Gambrill. Clarence 

 Whitney J S Kennedy C Ledyard Blair. lames C. Colgate, O. Harriman, Jr. , and many others. Send for VENETIAN Catalogue No. 5. 

 .IAS. G. "WILSON MANUFACTURING CO., 5 West 29tli Street, NEW YORK 



letians. Porch Venetians, Rolling Partitions, Rolling Steel Shutters, Burglar and Fireproof Steel Curtains, Wood Block Floors. 



Hodgson Portable Poultry Houses 



WIGWARM Setting and Brood Coop 



and her chicks and while she is sitting. 



tection from rats, skunks, hawks and 

 other enemies. In- 

 sures larger hatches — 

 has proved its success 

 for 22 years. Shipped 

 knocked down. 



No. Colony Laying House — 



lor 12 Hens Fitted complete with nests, fountain 

 and feed trough. Sanitary — easily 

 cleaned. One man can easily care for several hundred 

 birds. Nicely painted — set up in 15 minutes. A com- 

 fortable year-round house. In stormy 

 weather the run may be covered, giv- 

 ing a protected scratching room. 



Size. 



2x4 ft.. 2 ft. high. 



$20«H 



We make 



portable houses for 



all purposes. 



E. F. HODGSON CO., 

 Room 327, 116 Washington St 

 Boston, Mass. 



WOLFF 



QUALITY PLUMBING GOODS 



!«% 



The bujk in; Enameled Iron 

 Bath is a marvel of beauty 

 and cleanliness and together 

 with the overhead shower and 

 shampoo attachment make it an 

 ideal bath. Goods bearing 

 "Wolff" guarantee label and 

 "Wolff" trade mark are a positive 

 assurance against disapointment, 

 dissatisfaction and loss. 



NEW YORK'S CAVE OF STALAC- 

 TITES 



ONE of the most noteworthy forthcom- 

 ing exhibits in the Mineral Hall, at the 

 Museum of Natural History, New York, 

 will be the representation of a beautiful cave 

 of stalactites and stalagmites. This will be 

 a reproduction of almost an entire cavern 

 recently discovered in the Copper Queen 

 Mine, at Bisbee, Ariz. Here, a quarter of 

 a mile below the surface, during the mining 

 operations of blasting for copper, a spacious 

 chamber was uncovered containing a series 

 of terrace-like grottoes adorned with a 

 wealth of magnificent and many-colored 

 stalactites and stalagmites. Dr. Douglas 

 and the mining company placed the find at 

 the disposal of the museum. Dr. Edmund 

 Otis Hovey, curator of geology and inverte- 

 brate palaeontology, with three assistants 

 visited Bisbee to collect and bring back the 

 original material so as to form an exact re- 

 production of the Arizona cave. A half a 

 hundred boxes, containing the choicest 

 formations from the walls, floors, ceilings, 

 etc., were brought back. They weighed 

 from one pound to nine hundred. The deli- 

 cate task of setting up the pieces in the cave 

 at the museum is being executed by Mr. 

 William Peters, artist of the museum staff, 

 who accompanied the expedition to Arizona. 

 A steel frame, 12 feet high by 8 feet 

 wide, forms the outside of the cave, which 

 will be covered with limestone blocks, taken 

 from the mountain under which the cave 

 was found. These wonderful formations 

 of stalactites and stalagmites are made 

 through the evaporation of percolating 

 waters. The most striking feature of the 

 reconstructed cave will be a stalagmite 3 

 feet in diameter and 3^4 feet high, of a 

 beautiful green color, and weighing about 

 900 pounds. This stalagmite is remarkable 

 on account of the radiating clusters of 

 pointed calcite crystals thickly set all over it 

 but diminishing in size from the bottom of 

 the column upward. 



THE GOLD LIONS OF PEKING 



FRONTING the imperial palace at 

 Peking are two gold lions of enormous 

 size which, if we are to believe the man- 

 darins, are of solid gold and have been 

 there since time immemorial. When the 

 combined armies of England and France 

 advanced on Peking in 1860 the Chinese 

 painted these statues gray in order to make 

 the Europeans believe that they were of 

 bronze, and therefore to insure against 

 their being melted. Later, during the Jap- 

 anese War, these lions disappeared for a 

 time, but at the conclusion of peace they 

 reappeared in their original position. The 

 value of these relics is said to be incal- 

 culable, and they are in native eyes a 

 symbol of the unity of the Empire. 



HUMAN HAPPINESS A BUSINESS 

 ASSET 



HUMAN life, says the Journal American 

 Medical Association, is gradually be- 

 coming recognized as a business asset. This 

 is a new fact in the development of the 

 race. Life insurance companies are realiz- 

 ing that they can increase their dividends 

 faster by cutting down the death-rate than 

 by increasing sales or by reducing expenses. 

 Employers of large numbers of human ma- 

 chines are realizing the surprising fact that, 

 as a cold business proposition, it pays, not 

 in sentiment but in dollars, to take good care 

 of their employees. Business men are 

 learning that well-fed, well-clothed, con- 

 tented men and women, working in well- 

 lighted, well-ventilated quarters and on 



