xiv AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
June, 1909 
w CORRESPONDENCE & 
The Editor of American Homes and 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 Furnishing 
By Alice M. Kellogg 
Author of ‘‘ Home Furnishing: Practical and Artistic” 
LIGHT-WEIGHT FURNITURE 
HE reply in this department for April 
lke a question about furniture that is easily 
handled has drawn out the following 
letter from another reader whose needs are 
similar and who has sent a photograph of two 
pieces that have been helpful. 
H. G. writes: “Your response to an [lli- 
nois reader, who asks for furniture that is 
easily moved about, as she takes care of her 
home herself, appeals to me, as I have the same 
experience, and am also not strong enough to 
lift heavy chairs or seats. I would like to 
have your correspondent know about the Can- 
ton chairs, and inclose a photograph of one of 
Light-weight furniture 
the small ones with a willow stool which I use 
for a seat sometimes, and sometimes as a stand 
or table. Or, it comes into use for a basket when 
the children’s toys are gathered together for the 
night. I find the Canton chair the lightest in 
weight of any of the wicker makes, and 
adapted to bedrooms, sitting-rooms or for the 
piazza. It does not require a thick cushion in 
the seat, as a thin pad of cotton felt is all that 
is needed, and this can be made up at home. 
This is only one of the different varieties of 
these chairs, and it costs five dollars and a 
half. I hope this information will reach 
Mrs. C. N. J., who wrote to you on this 
subject.” 
Any further ideas from other home-makers 
who are interested in this problem of providing 
chairs that are not too cumbersome for easy 
lifting about will be passed on for general 
benefit in this department. 
IS GLAZED CHINTZ PRACTICAL? 
“Is glazed chintz a practical article for the 
home?” asks an Ohio reader, V. L. J. “It 
looks so clean and fresh that I would like to 
use it in some way, but I have only seen it in 
the sample and am afraid of making a mistake 
with it.” 
Glazed chintz is a very popular fabric in 
England, but is not used very much in this 
country. Although it hangs stiffly it is some- 
times put up at the windows, first being lined 
with sateen. It usually is surmounted by a 
lambrequin or pleated valance. In Southern 
homes it is sewed into window shades and 
made a decorative feature in a bedroom, 
keeping the walls and curtains quite plain. 
The white background makes it suitable for 
any room in which there is white woodwork 
and white furniture. Its most practical use 
is for upholstering shirtwaist boxes, fastening 
it down with nickelplated tacks. “The cost 
is about the same as the unglazed chintz or 
cretonne, varying from sixty-five cents 
a yard (thirty-one inches wide) to a 
dollar and seventy-five cents. The 
range of patterns and colors is small, 
roses and hollyhocks appearing more 
often than anything else. 
CURTAINS AND BEDSPREAD FOR A 
LITTLE GIRL’'S ROOM 
A Virginia reader, Mrs. F. D. S., 
inquires about something dainty and 
out of the ordinary for covering the 
bed in her daughter’s room, and also 
for window curtains to match. “Is 
there anything thinner than cretonne 
for this purpose? I only wish to put 
up one pair of curtains, and cretonne 
is too thick to use in this way.” 
For this room there is a new com- 
bination this spring of a printed mus- 
lin in thin goods, with a cretonne in 
the same pattern. The first may be used 
at the windows of this little girl’s 
room, and the cretonne may be made 
up as a spread. If the bed is of metal, brass 
or white-painted iron, a valance also may be 
hung around the lower part of the bed. 
With the two-toned pink paper on the walls, 
finished with a narrow rose border under the 
picture rail, the muslin with roses scattered 
along a green rope of leaves would be pretty. 
FOR THE BACKS OF CHAIRS 
A country reader, J. T., writes: “I have 
seen nothing in your department about a small 
problem of my own, so now I venture to bring 
it to your attention. Is there anything that 
can take the place of the objectionable ‘tidy’ 
for protecting the back of an upholstered 
chair? I have been using a white linen towel 
with handsome drawnwork at the narrow 
ends, but its whiteness attracts too much notice 
in the subdued tones of my living-room. There 
seems to me a specific need for something that 
is both practical and artistic for this place. 
What can you suggest?” 
(Continued on page xv1) 
Garden Work About the Home 
By Charles Downing Lay 
We HEAR much of Japanese gardens 
now a days. ‘They are being ordered 
by millionaires for their country places, 
and are being built by daring amateurs, so 
it is not surprising to have E. P. R. ask how 
they are made. It would be more reasonable 
of him to ask “What is a Japanese garden ?” 
It is a symbolic expression of Japanese feel- 
ing done with consummate skill, and might 
better be called a picture of a landscape done in 
living plants, than a garden. 
To our minds a garden is a place set aside 
for growing flowers or fruits, but in the so- 
called Japanese gardens the plants are a small 
part of a more or less naturalesque scene. 
No matter what the size, the mountains, 
lakes and rivers are always there and always 
in the same conventional arrangement, which 
to our eyes looks picturesque and curious, but 
from which we get none of the intellectual 
and imaginative pleasures which it gives the 
Japanese. 
Every feature of the scene has a name and 
suggests some poetic thought; the same though 
to each observer, so well understood are the 
conventions and so well ordered is the garden. 
They are usually small, because mountains 
can not be imitated on a large scale, and they 
should be seen without people in them because 
people destroy the effect, and they should be 
completely isolated, because they look childish 
and petty in contrast with buildings or natural 
scenery. 
The Japanese gardener frequently resorts to 
imitative conventions which are satisfactory if 
one accepts them, but they may appear silly de- 
ceits. 
Thus lakes and rivers are represented by 
smoothly spread sand. Perhaps there is no in- 
tent to deceive. It may be a common agree- 
ment that sand raked smooth, having that one 
quality of still water, will-count as water. 
Such agreements are easy for children, and 
why should grown people not play that the 
sandy stream is water and refuse to step in it 
for fear of a wetting, but use the bridges and 
stepping-stones to get across? 
Artistically the Japanese are right, the domi- 
nant characteristic of water is its smoothness; 
its transparency, its color, its reflecting quali- 
ties, are nothing compared to the great con- 
trast of its surface with the surrounding land- 
scape. But I doubt if our imaginations are 
sufficiently developed to accept smooth, dry 
sand in place of water. 
In a similar way the Japanese represent 
brooks by beds of dry stones, and water-falls 
by rocky precipices. We recognize the logic 
of this and call such streams of cobbles dry 
brooks. 
The rough stones which are used in Japa- 
nese gardens are prized for their irregular 
shapes, and are particularly valued if their 
form suggests something different. A stone 
(Continued on page xviiz) 
