Has ''Home and Flowers" Helped You 



TO LIVE THE LIFE BEAUTIFUL? YOUR EXPERIENCE 



WANTED 



BY LOUIS E. FAN NORMAN 



ACTUAL experience is the onl}^ safe 

 guide in determining a course of 

 action — one's own experience or that 

 of another. What difficulties have to be 

 met, what defeats encountered^ what 

 patience exercised in living the life beau- 

 tiful ? Onl}^ the experiences of those who 

 have actually tried can answer. Home 

 AND Flowers wants to help all its readers 

 to live the life beautiful. I believe it can 

 best do this by recording what is actually 

 being done to beautify the world, and by 

 giving the actual experiences of those who 

 have tried to refine their own lives. 



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What does Home and Flowers stand 

 for ? What is it trying to do ? This mag- 

 azine aims to promote "a more beautiful 

 life for the American people.'' That 

 beauty of soul and character can be de- 

 veloped by attractive, harmonious sur- 

 roundings is quite generally acknowledged. 

 It is also undeniable that the home influ- 

 ence is the most far-reaching in our lives. 

 To awaken an interest in the beauties of 

 nature by advocating the care and culture 

 of flowers, to show how the life beautiful 

 may be attained in the home of moderate 

 means through well-ordered, good lives, 

 and simple, but harmonious and artistic 

 furnishings, to point out how an esthetic 

 sense will be developed in a community 

 and a nation as a result of such simple, 

 beautiful home life, to record this devel- 

 opment in its larger phases of the better- 

 ment and beautifying of cities all over the 

 world (as is being done by the American 

 League for Civic Improvement and other 

 similar organizations), and to do all this 

 through the medium of an up-to-date, all- 

 round family magazine containing inter- 

 esting reading with an inspirational touch 



to it all — good stories, good poems, good 

 pictures — such is the mission of Home 

 AND Flowers. 



* * * 



There is inspiration in editing a pub- 

 lication which really helps people. Most 

 of the letters received in response to a 

 recent request as to how the magazine has 

 helped its readers in the past, declare 

 that, in all matters pertaining to plants 

 and gardens. Home and Flowers has 

 been invaluable. All my life, writes Mrs. 

 E. A, Houck (Indiana), "I have been an 

 admirer of the beautiful. Home and 

 Flowers and Eben E. Eexford have 

 taught me so much about the beauties of 

 nature. By coming in closer touch with 

 nature we are enabled to live a more beau- 

 tiful life, and, instead of growing flowers 

 merely to make my home more attractive, 

 I look for the idea which is embodied in 

 the thought of ^a more beautiful home 

 life.' " "Home and Flowers has taught 

 me how to enjoy more every walk or ride 

 I take, by showing me what is beautiful 

 in nature," writes Louise IST. Marsee (In- 

 diana). "It has proved to my satisfaction 

 and delight that a magazine can treat of 

 flowers without being in any sense a flor- 

 ist's catalogue." The magazine, it seems, 

 has been instrumental in restoring the 

 physical health of one of its readers. Mr. 

 Charles Townsend (ISFew York), after be- 

 ing "worn almost to the point of nervous 

 prostration by overwork . . . chanced 

 upon a copy of Home AND Flowers . . ." 



"I became interested, I subscribed for the 

 magazine, I ordered some bulbs. I planted 

 them, continued to read the magazine, and be- 

 gan to feel better. My brain cleared. . . . 

 During the winter my den was indeed a thing 

 of beauty— hyacinths, roses, freesias, narcissus 



