Just a Hint as to what is coming 
Next Year s House & Garden 
in 
T RYING to tell you what House and 
Garden is going to be during the 
coming twelve months is a good 
deal like setting a turkey dinner, with all 
the fixin’s, before a famished street urchin— 
there’s so much of it, that he hardly knows where to start in. 
In a single issue of House and Garden there are, on an 
average, fifteen major articles or pictorial features, and probably 
twice as many more minor ones in the departments and in the back 
of the magazine. If we were merely to enumerate the year’s 
articles, in small type, there wouldn’t be any space left on this 
page to tell you how good they are. 
Then, too, there are some that are better than others—the real 
giants of the Contents Page. Take, for instance, the subject of 
building really good houses at low cost. That has, to judge 
from titles alone, been one of the most fully discussed subjects 
in many of the magazines of a certain class. Yet the subject 
matter under those alluring titles has, to say the least, left much 
to be desired. We think rve have the real tiling, however, for an 
architect has spent several years on this problem of building 
houses of brick and stucco for three thousand dollars. The 
houses are not mansions, to be sure, and they are necessarily—and 
happily—free from useless ornamentation, but they are mighty 
interesting examples of planning to save square inches and of a 
straightforward use of honest materials, outside and in. This 
particular architect has realized the fact that designing houses 
of such low cost does not pay the architect, but he has stooped to 
conquer one of the really great problems of modern building. 
Do you know that the ant is such a true lover of country life 
that he keeps a cow ? Do you know how the spider measures the 
angles across which he spins his web? Do you know all that you 
would like to know regarding the community life among bees? 
These are but a few of the subjects that will be presented in a 
remarkable series of articles on the broader side of that life that 
House and Garden seeks to foster—the marvelous manifesta¬ 
tions of nature. 
If you have read “The Naturalization of a City Man” in this 
number you have started one of the most interesting serials that 
we have ever had in the magazine. It is an account of how a 
man went back to the land—his problems and how they were 
solved, not always at the first trial. It is just the sort of a nar¬ 
rative that will serve to guide any man who is thinking of break¬ 
ing away from the city in an attempt to make the land support 
him and his family. 
The series describing Homes That Architects Have Built for 
Themselves continues through the coming months. You can 
always recognize an architect’s own home. When he may carry 
out all of the ideas that seem too radical for his clients the result 
is sure to be interesting, and it is sometimes startling. Un¬ 
doubtedly this collection of homes has more claim to real distinc¬ 
tion than any like number the country over. They will win you 
over to the reasonableness of certain unconventional ways of 
building. 
We are beginning to appreciate more fully the possibilities that 
lie in remodeling old farmhouses for modern life. Our photog¬ 
raphers have been scouring Connecticut, New Jersey and Long 
Island particularly, and have reaped a great harvest of pictures 
that show some astounding transformations. One of our staff 
has just finished remodeling for his own use a house dating from 
1802, in which he has met and solved more problems than he 
could begin to tell about in several complete issues of the maga¬ 
zine. There are some particularly valuable suggestions in his 
experience for those who have the desire to go and do likewise, 
and he was forehanded enough to secure a complete set of 
“before” pictures. 
After the Annual Building Number, described more in detail 
on the opposite page, it is but a short jump 
to the April Gardening Guide 1 — a vast fund 
of information and new ideas with the finest 
pictures that our photographers can gather 
all over the country; in June comes the Sum¬ 
mer Home Number; October brings the Fall 
Planting and Furnishing Number, showing 
how to gain a year in the making of your 
garden as well as the season’s advance in 
interior decoration and furnishing — four great special issues 
that are absolutely indispensable. 
It has been possible here to give but the most hasty glance over 
the magazine for 1912. The details of the notable articles that are 
to come must be reserved for further announcements. It remains 
but for you to ask yourself whether you can possibly afford to 
miss the inspiration and constant help that House and Garden 
will carry to its readers through the coming year. If you have 
not already done so, take this opportunity to renew your subscrip¬ 
tion, to make sure that you do not miss a single one of the 
monthly treats in store for you. Use the coupon below and 
provide right now for the twelve visits of a magazine that is a 
guide and an inspiration to all those who would have their homes 
and their outdoor surroundings notable in their beauty, comfort 
and good taste. 
There are a number of gardening articles scheduled for early 
issues by Mr. F. F. Rockwell. Mr. Rockwell is a man who 
makes his living from the land, so that his description of the short¬ 
cuts and methods by which he makes the soil give the greatest 
return for his labor have a weight that the great majority of 
gardening writers, working only with the pen, can never have. 
The gardening side of House and Garden will tend somewhat 
more towards the personal experience type of article rather than 
that of mere dogmatic instruction. The. latter has its place — 
a place that cannot be taken by anything else, but we 
shall try always to show by picture and text just what 
has been accomplished by amateur gardeners. Their 
problems are your problems, and what they have solved 
you can solve and find a great joy in the doing. 
McBride, Nast & Co., 
31 East 17 street, New York City. 
en ter 
Please cont j nue m y subscription to House and Garden for 
one year, starting with the Annual Building Number for January, 
for which I enclose. for $3. 
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Address . 
In writing to advertisers please mention House and Garden. 
