January, 1911 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS ix 
The Editor of American Hornes 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 retum postage will be answered promptly by mail. 
Replies that are of general benefit will be published in this Department. 
Problems in Home Furnishings 
WINDOW TREATMENT IN CITY 
HOUSES 
66 OVING into the city, after living for 
M a good many years in a country 
town, we are confronted with the 
problem of how to correctly treat the win- 
dows, especially in the front of the house, 
and more particularly the glass panels of 
the double sets of hall doors. Our princi- 
pal objection to the conventional treatment 
that we see in neighboring windows is that 
it complicates the machinery of living and 
shuts out the light and air. Next door to 
us the windows are shrouded with two sets 
of shades; two pairs of lace curtains, one 
pair of thick curtains with lambrequins, be- 
sides shutters and awnings—L. E. S., 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 
The conditions of city life naturally de- 
mand different arrangements in the home 
from those exacted by a house in the 
country. For the former, a uniform ap- 
pearance should be given the front of the 
house by the window shades and lace cur- 
tains. Cream or buff-colored shades may 
be put up in winter, and dark brown or 
dark green in the summer. As a screen 
from the street a thin curtain may be hung 
across the glass under the shade and allowed 
to hang to the sill. The outside pair of 
double doors that open into a vestibule are 
usually filled with large panels of plain 
glass. These doors receive so much dust 
from the street that they are not covered 
with drapery on the inside, but the inner 
pair of doors with half-panels of glass 
requires curtains. As the hall receives 
most of its light from the glass panels, they 
should be covered with a lace panel fitted 
over the glass on a steel frame, or by 
widths of lace shirred on brass rods at the 
top and bottom. The choice of the mate- 
trial should follow that selected for the 
other front windows. 
As the special mission of the lace panel 
is not to exclude the light needed for the 
hall, it will not serve the double purpose 
of screening the hallway after dark when 
the lights are turned on. 
To provide this necessary protection a 
silk over-curtain may be put up on a top 
rod, with pulleycords at the sides to make 
the adjustment easy. The hem at the bot- 
tom may be weighted by brass chains of 
medium sized links. 
A COLLEGE GIRL’S ROOM 
“A College Girl” asks how she can best 
expend fifty dollars in making her room 
(used for sleeping and studying) more at- 
tractive. She writes: 
“The woodwork is dark and ugly, but 
does not show very much except at the two 
windows. I need rugs, curtains, a cover 
for my divan, an arm chair, and a screen.” 
As the woodwork is dark an ecru net or 
muslin may be hung at the windows to the 
sill and looped back at the sides. A long 
curtain to the floor, with a valance filling 
the space at the top between the two lengths, 
will relieve the room of some of the dark 
woodwork. The same material may be 
used for covering the divan and its pillows, 
a seat cushion and back pillow for a willow 
chair, and also for a three-panelled screen. 
An American rug called the Kazak comes 
in good wearing colors at a very moderate 
cost. A size six feet by nine feet can be 
bought for $8.50, and three feet by six feet 
for three dollars. 
RGSS iam (Odio errnees a eeiee Ae) ate $11.50 
Cretonne, (40 yards at fifty cents a 
SELEGD Ae aE ae mae 20.00 
WMillowearm\ chains a5 cect rci seas 10.00 
Net curtains (10 yards at 45c a 
VAR) ees salen Wee eR stare ets 4.50 
- $46.00 
TRIMMING FOR VELOUR CURTAINS. 
“Our old terra-cotta colored portieres of 
double-faced velour we have just had dyed, 
and they have come out a very successful 
brown. We would like to trim them in 
some way if you will suggest something 
that will look well on the parlor side, which 
has a wall paper of mixed colors, and some- 
thing for the hall side where the walls 
are covered with brown burlap—Mrs. B. 
H., Sandusky, Ohio. 
For the parlor side of the portieres one of 
the metal galloons may be used, and if the 
gold threads are too fresh-looking they may 
be dulled a little. 
For the hall side of the portieres a tapes- 
try border introducing green, brown, tan 
and blue in the color combination, is sug- 
gested. 
WALL DECORATION FOR A DEN. 
“In remodeling our home,” writes “A 
Constant Reader in Elmira, N. Y., “we 
have added a new room that opens out of 
the dining-room. The conditions are these: 
Some old wood has been utilized for the 
trim and this necessitates paint instead of 
stain. We do not wish white woodwork as 
the dining-room is dark oak. The door 
that opens from the dining-room will pro- 
bably. always be open. - For this reason the 
wall covering and wood finish seem to be 
most important. Can you help us with 
these?” 
The best treatment for the woodwork is 
a bronze green—the tone so often seen in a 
bright finish on the outside of railroad cars. 
A picture border of the proper width to 
suit the proportions of the room (this was 
not mentioned in the letter) in colors that 
blend into the woodwork. For the space 
below the picture border a fabric paper in 
two tones of green with some suggestion 
of gray may be used, and the joining of the 
upper and lower decorations covered with 
a picture molding. 
CANDLE SHADES. 
A single item in the furnishing of a room 
often becomes a matter of perplexity. 
An inquiry from a Richmond, Va., cor- 
respondent relates to candle shades for a 
dining-room. 
“The four silver candle sticks with their 
(Continued on page x) 
Garden Work About the Home 
R F. D. GYPSUM in the pure state 
e 
is a sulphate of lime (CaSO,). 
In the commercial form it is 
called land plaster and is more or less 
adulterated with carbonate of lime and 
worthless insoluble matters. 
It is used in hen houses and in cow 
barns and horse stables to fix the free am- 
monia in the excrement. 
It is also applied to the land at the rate 
of one to two bushels per acre when its 
effect is very beneficial, because it is be- 
lieved to act on the double silicates of pot- 
ash, liberating and making the potash 
available. It also frees phosphoric acid 
and makes nitrogen more soluble. 
It has the further but not understood 
effect of conserving moisture. 
Its beneficial effects are in no way due 
to the lime in its composition, so if your 
soil needs liming, as you suggest, the gyp- 
sum will not do. 
Gypsum is always present in the com- 
mercial phosphates because these are made 
by treating insoluble phosphates of lime 
with sulphuric acid, which combines with 
the lime, forming a sulphate of lime. 
It is doubtful if your soil needs fertil- 
izing as much as it needs good tillage. 
The supply of fertilizers in any ordinary 
soil is nearly inexhaustible, though it may 
be entirely unavailable for the plants to use 
as food. Thus, as we have seen above, the 
gypsum makes the potash and phosphoric 
acid available. Lime breaks down the in- 
soluble nitrates making the nitrogen avail- 
able. 
It often happens, however, that the min- 
eral constituents of the soil are unavail- 
able because of poor tillage, and before you 
spend much on fertilizers you should do 
everything you can to put the soil in good 
tilth. 
Tillage, which includes all the opera- 
tions of fining the soil, whether ploughing, 
or harrowing, or hoeing, or raking, not only 
puts the soil in the best condition mechan- 
ically but also has other effects. 
Ploughing turns the sods over and if 
done in the fall the frost and rains act on 
the soil particles, breaking them up and 
exposing them to the air, hastening the 
chemical changes which liberate plant food. 
Land which has just been ploughed holds 
the rain better and the later tilling by 
making a blanket of fine soil on top pre- 
vents evaporation, thus saving more water 
for the use of the plants, if the soil is dry. 
By ploughing and cultivating the land 
can be made warmer and dryer if it is too 
wet. 
Deep ploughing brings up some of the 
subsoil and contrary to the general opinion 
the subsoil has as much potential fertility 
as the topsoil and this is made available by 
bringing it to the top for aeration. 
A chemical analysis of the soil will be of 
little benefit because it takes no account 
of the mechanical state of the soil which 
is often of more importance than its chem- 
ical composition. 
