July, 1912 
Ui NM 
— 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS FOR AUGUST 
HE 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. 
EATRICE 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. 
is 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. 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. 
HE 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? 
L. our enthusiasm for the civic betterment movement, we 
must not lose sight of the fact that those who devise 
esthetically 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 
AMERICAN) HOMES AND GARDENS vii 
‘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 
es with whom true patriotism, nationalism and de- 
votion to one’s country are held to be qualities that only 
tie 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 day 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. 
