December, 1909 
In Figure 5 we have rustic simplicity carried to its ex- 
tremest effect, and yet the result is good. The Colonial rag 
rugs are used on the floor, and the roof is not even ceiled in 
with wood. Hickory chairs are the only kind in evidence, and 
the one bit of strong color which breaks the wooden uni- 
formity is seen in the gay little curtains of flowered calico 
which are hung over the buffet. However, the rough-hewn 
book-shelves on the right of the picture evidently hold vol- 
umes that are beyond price, and this picture speaks for the 
argument I have been endeavoring to put forth, that the 
bungalow stands for the new movement towards a simple 
life which is not incompatible with refinement, beauty and 
culture. 
Figure 4 shows an alcove with three little Dutch windows 
and a wide brick fireplace. Under the basement-windows 
beside the fireplace, book-shelves are built in. 
Figure 7 is a bungalow-hall which contains a particularly 
good suggestion for a staircase and window. Here the en- 
tire space under the stairs is filled in by diamond-paned win- 
dows which lighten and brighten what would otherwise be 
a dark corner, and the latticed panel which forms the stair- 
rail is a charming design. 
It is an unfortunate fact that in many bungalows which 
are thoroughly good throughout until we reach the light- 
ing- arrangements, the electric fixtures are atrocious. One 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
481 
fairly shudders over the bad taste which is shown in them. 
Great heavy iron cables dangle over our heads and metal- 
bound lamp shades, so large as to be out of all proportion to 
the architecture of the room, depend from them. This is 
an obsession and will pass, but it is to be deplored while it 
lasts. 
The matter of appropriate fixtures for electric lights is 
an unsettled one as yet, as far as the bungalow and the 
modern nondescript house is concerned. The Colonial, the 
French and the medieval English houses have each settled 
it most satisfactory for themselves. The recognition that a 
fixture may be beautiful and yet unobtrusive will go far 
toward settling it for the bungalow. The taste for a purely 
rustic finish which has taken hold of the bungalow builders 
in many instances is strongly shown in illustrations Nos. 
8 and 11. In these two houses is shown that wonderful union 
of the crudest materials with rugs, draperies and furniture 
that are valuable because of their superior workmanship 
and finish. Especially is this so in No. 8. There the finest 
china and silverware are made to show up charmingly 
against a background of rough-hewn wood, rich Oriental 
rugs lie on an unstained floor and expensive chairs of carved 
wood and leather are used with good effect in this rustic 
dining-room. The electric-light fixture here is a particularly 
artistic one. 
Nialine Sell 
By E. P. Powell 
Se? X TENSIVE farmers have methods for ren- 
: dering their soil fertile by plowing under 
clovers, vetches, etc. [hese same farmers 
do not know that they are also creating 
soil. The most important part of what 
they are doing is not adding a fertilizer, 
but increasing the quantity of soil which 
Alfalfa or clover that is plowed makes a mass 
they own. 
of humus, and this slowly undergoes chemical change and 
physical change until it is added to the bulk of the soil. 
Now, what we need in our country homes most of all is a 
knowledge of how to make soil. A large majority of our 
little homesteads are not over-rich in what land they do 
have, and the land itself is limited—probably not more than 
half an acre for fruit and vegetables. The owner ought to 
know how to make this exceedingly productive, and instead 
of decreasing it he ought to add to it and to its fertility 
every year. This can be done almost anywhere, and done 
with ease. 
One of the simplest possible ways for increasing garden 
soil is the planting of legumes. Beans may be planted over 
and over in the same spot and will add to the nitrogen, 
needing only a little potash and a trifle of phosphate. But 
if corn is planted repeatedly in a corner of the garden it 
exhausts corn-food, and you will, in the course of three or 
four years, get stalks one-half size only, and ears accord- 
ingly. Now, the proper thing to do just as soon as you buy 
a place is to begin to accumulate soil-stuff. Put this all into 
piles, and you will be surprised to find how rapidly the piles 
grow. On clay-soils you can get hardly anything better than 
coal-ashes, and this is generally thrown away by the ton. 
I advise you to get it as largely as possible. You may mix 
with it all of the barnyard manure that you have, add 
autumn leaves in great quantities, weeds and waste, roads 
scraping and ditch accumulations, old lime, in fact, accumu- 
late almost anything that will decompose in the course of 
twelve months. In some cases it is well to add lime, but this 
is not certainly needed. If you can run your autumn leaves 
through the stables as bedding, it will get a richness of great 
importance. It will need about six-months’ composting of 
this sort of material to prepare it for forking or plowing 
under. Remember that we are not now after a fertilizer or 
manure so much as we are after more soil. 
In Florida we fill trenches or deep furrows with this sort 
of material, then throw over with the plow a covering of 
dirt, making a slight ridge. In this ridge we thrust the cut- 
tings of sweet-potato vines and the results are very far ahead 
of anything that can be secured from high-grade fertilizers. 
Even pine-needles are useful, because they help to hold the 
moisture and in that way feed the growing vegetables. If 
you have a very small place, all the more reason for saving 
material. You can make it immensely rich and productive 
inside of four or five years. Ona five-acre lot you can easily 
be accumulating, annually, two or three compost piles. 
You wll be astonished at the material that generally goes to 
waste; part of this being destroyed by fermentation, as in 
an ordinary manure pile, and another part drying away or 
evaporating. If you will connect your kitchen sewerage 
by drain-tiles, with one of these piles, and save the slops, 
you will find that you are adding richness. It is much 
better to compost your privy waste, and this you can easily 
do, even if you have no bathroom, by carrying it through 
five or six-inch tile, that can be frequently flushed. You 
will find this a much more sanitary method than even 
the Waring system—a good system generally for getting 
rid of wealth, but it is not a good system for saving wealth. 
Beside this it frequently overchanges the soil and poisons it, 
killing trees as well as tainting the air. From your compost- 
pile there will be little or no exhalation, while the result 
can be plowed under as soon as it is spread upon the land. 
In other words, just as soon as your property comes into 
your possession, study it for this one thing, how to make 
the most soil, and at the same time enrich the soil that you 
have. ‘These two problems are really one, 
