December, 1910 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



IX 



CORRESPONDENCE 



The Editor of American Homes a.nd Gardens desires to extend an invitation to all its readers to send to the Correspondence Department inquiries on any matter 

 pertaining to the decorating and furnishing of the home and to the developing of the home grounds. 



All letters accompanied by return postage will be answered promptly by mail. Replies that are of general benefit will be published in this Department. 



Problems in Home Furnishings 



By ALICE M. KELLOGG 



PICTURES FOR A LIBRARY 



tgTV/'HAT pictures would be suitable foi 

 ^^U a small-sized room used as a li- 



^^ brary?"— L. Isi. J., Brooklyn, 

 X. Y. 



The personal tastes of the occupants oi 

 the room should be the first guidance to a 

 choice, which would, necessarily, be modi- 

 fied by the conditions of the room and the 

 amount of money to be expended. The 

 accepted or popular ideal for the walls of 

 the home library is a set of portraits of 

 eminent authors, or other celebrities, or 

 photographic copies of classical pictures, 

 architecture and sculpture. While this plan 

 is suitable for a formal room, or for a li- 

 brary belonging to a scholar or teacher 

 of the arts, it does not sufficiently inter- 

 est the family of ordinary cultivation. 



A mistake frequently seen in the collect- 

 ing of pictures is in having too great a 

 variety, with generally a superabundance of 

 those of too small a size to appear to ad- 

 vantage on the wall. Before the subject 

 of the pictures themselves has come to the 

 point of selection, the lines of the wall may 

 be studied to see if they will be improved 

 (or otherwise) by being broken up into 

 smaller spaces. The covering of the wall 

 is another factor that enters largely into 

 the choice of pictures. A vari-colored wall 

 paper with an aggressive pattern does not 

 lend itself as background for a water color 

 or an oil painting. Xor does j. wall tinted 

 in a plain neutral tone make a pleasing sur- 

 rounding for etchings and engravings. 



If pictures in color are preferred, and 

 only a small outlay can be made, the prints 

 made from Jules Guerin's studies of the old 

 chateaux of France, the Library at Wash- 

 ington and Independence Hall give a good 

 deal in artistic interest at a slight cost. 

 The Century prints are also attractive in 

 color efl^ects. Some German prints at twen- 

 ty-five cents each are surprisingly good 

 for the price. Tinted photographs of all 

 kinds of subjects are another inexpensive 

 decoration, and, at a larger outlay, the 

 copies of oil paintings by the modern Ger- 

 man masters are commendable. 



Among the black-and-white and brown- 

 and-white pictures the Copley prints are 

 notably good for the library. The foreign 

 photographs of famous pictures are of 

 greater value than the ones made in this 

 country as the former are made from the 

 negative taken direct from the original. 

 There is abundance of material for this cor- 

 respondent's needs if it is drawn from with 

 taste and discretion. 



PAPERING CONNECTING ROOMS 



"Two rooms that we wish to re-paper 

 this winter have puzzled us very much. 

 They are not at all alike, yet have hereto- 

 fore had the same wall paper. One is a 

 general sitting-room with windows to the 

 -outh and east, light and sunny all day. 

 The other is a small northeast room which 



is used for writing and studying. A wide 

 doorway is between the two. The wood- 

 work is painted a bronze green, and the 

 present wall covering is a tapestry pattern. 

 There are small-sized Oriental rugs on the 

 floor in a variety of colors. The furniture 

 coverings and portiere can be renewed at 

 the same time the walls are being re-pa- 

 pered, if you will suggest the appropriate 

 combination." — S. J. F., Toledo, Ohio. 



A change of wall paper will be the best 

 solution for this problem, and the different 

 exposures and uses of the two rooms really 

 demand separate treatment. For the sunny 

 room a good design is "The Cedar Trees" 

 printed in gray, yellow and green. In the 

 smaller room a very small design in the 

 same tone of yellow that appears in the 

 other paper will be a pleasant repetition of 

 color. 



The furniture coverings may be chosen 

 from the small-figured tapestries, green 

 and brown or green and blue, or two tones 

 of green. The portiere may be made from 

 the new drapery materials in sun-fast or 

 unfadable dyes, in bronze green with a 

 trace of yellow in the weave. With this 

 combination of colors the two rooms will 

 be harmoniously united while meeting the 

 dififerent conditions. 



COLOR SCHEME FOR AN OLD-FASHIONED 

 GUEST ROOM 



A California correspondent has just 

 completed a collection of antique furniture 

 for a guest room, and inquires about the 

 addition of rugs and other details of furn- 

 ishing. "There are two casement windows 

 that open into the room, and I do not know 

 how to curtain them as there is no place 

 for a window shade, yet the room requires 

 darkening at times. Now, would you start 

 the color scheme of this room with an old 

 blue-and-white bedspread? Or, can you 

 suggest something in another coloring that 

 will be as old-fashioned? I do not really 

 care to have blue in this room, as it is al- 

 ready the chief note in my son's bedroom. 

 My little daughter's room is pink and mine 

 is yellow and green." — Mrs. D. T. E., Los 

 Angeles, Cal. 



The casement windows may be hung 

 each with a single width of white dimity, 

 either using one rod at the top, or one at 

 the top and one at the bottom (the first 

 plan looks better) . Across the entire case- 

 ment, at the top, a three-quarter inch brass 

 rod may carry a tick curtain, lined and in- 

 terlined to make it opaque. This may 

 be drawn across the window when the room 

 is to be shaded. 



A chintz wall paper showing lavender- 

 colored pansies suggests a unique coloring 

 for the small articles on the dressing table, 

 and a cretonne with the same tones may be 

 used on the lounge and pillow covers. 

 White dimity trimmed with a white pointed 

 fringe may be hung as an upper valance 

 for the four-poster bed, and for the lower 

 valance around the foot the dotted white 

 tafifeta. 



{Continued on page x.) 



Garden Work About the Home 



By CHARLES DOWNING LAY 



GM., Long Island. — Your question 

 about planting shrubs around your 

 house is not dififerent from several 

 others which we have answered with a 

 plan in previous issues of American 

 Homes and Gardens, and a little ingenuity 

 would quickly adapt these plans to your use. 

 ■ I would suggest, however, that a privet 

 hedge be planted on the line in front and 

 that the shrubs be kept in the corners and 

 close to the house. 



R. B. S., Connecticut. — Your idea of us- 

 ing your high pasture land in Connecticut 

 for peaches is probably a good one if it is 

 naturally good land. The boulders and 

 stones will not matter if you can cultivate 

 the trees between the boulders, but land 

 where there are out-croppings of much 

 ledge rock would not be so good. The land 

 should first be cleared of the young trees 

 and bushes which are now on it. This will 

 cost from fifteen to twenty dollars an acre. 

 After they are cut out and burned the land 

 should be ploughed, which can be done tor 

 ten dollars an acre. 



The only fertilizing which will be needed 

 at first is a good dressing of lime. This 

 can be put on this fall at the rate of half 

 a ton to an acre and it need not be harrowed 

 in until next spring. A good harrowing in 

 the spring will cut up what is left of the 

 sods and leave the land in good condition 

 for planting. 



Peach trees should be planted fifteen to 

 twenty feet apart, and the holes should be 

 dug of generous size. It might even pay 

 to dig each hole with a stick of dynamite, 

 in the way described last winter in Ameri- 

 can Homes and Gardens. 



The trees when planted should be cut 

 back to a single stem about two and a half 

 to three feet high, so that the trees will 

 branch low and the spraying, thinning and 

 picking of the fruit will be easier to do. 



Nitrate of soda applied in the spring at 

 the rate of 500 pounds per acre will make 

 the trees grow faster, but is not necessarv 

 the first year or two. After three or four 

 years the trees should have 200 pounds of 

 bone meal, 200 pounds of acid phosphate, 

 and 200 pounds of muriate of potash to the 

 acre. These should be applied with the 

 first spring ploughing. 



The peach orchard should be cultivated 

 frequentl}- from ]\Iay until August when a 

 cover crop of rye or clover is sown and al- 

 lowed to grow until it is ploughed under 

 the following spring to still further enrich 

 the ground. 



R. de K. G. — Suggesting Christmas pres- 

 ents is a little out of our line, but for a 

 garden lover there are many tools which 

 would be grateful and comforting gifts. 



Budding knives of good quality are al- 

 ways useful, and a small pair of pruning 

 shears will not only be frequently used, but 

 will last forever. 



English wrought iron trowels, hand 

 weeders, light hoes and rakes are not al- 

 ways easy to buy. but they are indispensable 



