270 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS July, 1909 
of a sun-parlor, with awnings all round it. Beneath these 
latter, screens may separate the sleeping apartments of the 
various residents, and the open-air treatment may be taken 
in accordance with taste. 
The combination of convenience and economy is, per- 
haps, the strongest feature of the house next to cleanliness. 
The stove, for instance, marks a great stride in progress. 
It is intended as a combination coal- and gas-range, water- 
heater and hot-air furnace. It is argued that it does away 
with the expensive necessity of a cellar in which to keep 
the furnace, and with the need of maintaining this latter. 
The stove is cast in the house when it is molded. ‘The cast- 
iron for the fire-box, and the necessary ovens and eyes are 
put in place before the house is cast. About this fire-box is 
left an air-chamber, and about this is a jacket of the con- 
crete. ‘his latter being a non-conductor tends to keep the 
heat in that it may serve its purpose and to keep the kitchen 
cool. Air from the outside is brought through this air- 
chamber, heated and carried to all the rooms performing the 
duty of a furnace. Gas is carried into the range, and when 
summer comes on it may be used in place of the coal, and 
the whole converted into a gas-range. The ashes from the 
range shift automatically into a pan which can be reached 
from the outside and require no handling inside the house. 
The ice-box is built into the wall of the house, and has a 
double front. One of these is on the back porch, and the ice- 
man may deliver his load without coming into the kitchen. 
The other is in the kitchen, and through it the housewife 
may reach her refrigerated supplies. The outside doors may 
be removed in the winter and the compartment changed into 
a cold-air chamber, protected on the outside by only screens, 
and doing away with the necessity for ice. The garbage can 
also has a similar chamber, which can be reached by the 
garbage man on the one side or the housewife on the other. 
The principle is also applied to a china-closet which opens 
into the kitchen on the one side where the dishes are washed, 
and the dining-room on the other side where they are used. 
This double closet saves carrying the dishes both ways. 
The house has more conveniences than can be readily 
enumerated. The stairway, for instance, has a landing be- 
tween the reception-hall and the kitchen, and may be reached 
from either side of the house without entering the other side. 
The coal is hoisted by a simple device to the roof, where it 
is placed in a pocket, from which it automatically distributes 
itself throughout the house, and the only thing necessary 
in feeding a given fire is to work a lever. 
All these conveniences are offered in a workingman’s house 
for $1,200, half what it would cost to build as good a house, 
minus the cleanliness and convenience, of brick. ‘There is 
never any necessity of carrying insurance, no repairs can 
be necessary, there is no wear or decay. Its design and the 
demonstration of its possibilities but mark the drift toward 
concrete as a building material, and some of the unneces- 
sary follies and inconveniences of the present methods of 
building. 
Tnumming Old Trees 
By E. P. Powell 
eI NS we ard is right away. ‘There is no aeeaul 
a z} month when trimming an old tree is pecu- 
, liarly advantageous. I will do it in winter 
if that is the more convenient time, or in 
%) spring, or in autumn, and just as well in 
~ mid-summer—whenever I can give it the 
most time and care. ‘The only proviso is that the cuts be 
made so as to shed water, and then painted over; and the 
small ones might be waxed. 
Begin with the smaller suckers, and remove these entirely 
from the body and the limbs. This will give you a chance 
to see your work; then cut the dead wood out tidily. Now 
walk around your tree and study it, and do this several times, 
until you have well in mind the proportions that you can give 
it. As far as possible make your cuttings balance—remov- 
ing large sucker limbs, but leaving a few of the best. By 
best [ mean the most vital, and those placed where they 
can replace the big dead ones. Understand, all the time, 
that these big limbs would not have died if these suckers had 
not been allowed to grow. Do not get in a hurry, but go 
around your tree and over it again and again, until you have 
reduced the growth to five or six of what I am calling 
suckers, but which after this are to be your main limbs. In 
some cases you can save only two or three, or possibly even 
one good stout sucker to replace the old top. Of course, if 
the tree you are handling is not so far gone as I am assum- 
ing, you will cut less; but at all events you will remove all 
the small twigs and the dead limbs. 
After this you are to see that no new shoots get an ounce 
of the life-blood of that tree, or an inch of growth. In the 
course of three or four years you will have a revitalized tree, 
ready to yield you considerable fruit. If the main trunk has 
become badly decayed, tin over the wound to keep out rains, 
and you still may reconstruct your tree for a few years. 
An old pear tree is more brittle, but a single shoot is more 
likely to make a new top; or at least to bear enough to pay 
for its ground room. I have an old seckel that gives me 
bushels of fruit, although it looks like one of Napoleon’s 
marshals, very stiff and very old and very erect. These old 
pear trees can sometimes be reconstructed from the bottom, 
if a good stout sucker or shoot can be selected, and trained 
up for a while; after which cut away the old tree. I have an 
Anjou of this sort, and an Onondaga. Some varieties are 
much better than others to rebuild. At least I would not go 
through an old pear orchard and grub it out unless it had 
gone very far into decadence. 
The best thing to do with old plums is to cut them down 
and start new ones. ‘The fruit, unless it be from a green 
gage, does not get size and sweetness. You can grow a new 
plum or cherry orchard in two or three years, and bring it 
into full bearing in four. Plums and cherries, as a rule, are 
short-lived, and will not pay for much fussing. A sucker, 
understand, in all cases is a shoot, on either limb or body of 
the tree, that makes new wood at the expense of the true 
limbs. It must not be mistaken for bearing spurs, which, as 
a rule, are stubbed, while the sucker is a slim shoot at the 
outset. Trees are provided with an immense number of 
dormant buds, and these will always be breaking loose into 
twigs, and must be watched for and removed at once. Na- 
ture has them ready for contingencies, but you must deter- 
mine when the contingency arises. An apple orchard, planted 
and fed as it should be, should last in good shape for eighty 
to one hundred years. I have three apple trees that are one 
hundred and twelve years old. Pear trees grown as they 
should be will last even longer. Ten years is long enough 
for a plum tree, although you can keep a green gage in good 
bearing shape for twenty. 
