76 
House & Garden 
.—.-.-. SI ... ■n-t- 
The Temperate 
Zone 
Live in it all the year ’round. 
The home well sealed against the extremes of 
climate is the comfortable, healthy home in 
which to live. 
To permit their operation whether dry or wet, 
every door and window sash must fit loosely in 
its surrounding frame. The thus-formed 
cracks around each average sized window in 
your home actually aggregate a hole as large 
as if a brick were removed from the wall. Left 
unsealed, these big-as-a-brick openings invite 
indoors wintry blasts and hot summer winds. 
Monarch 
Metal Weather Strips 
seal these brick-big cracks. 
Throughout extreme seasons of cold or heat they 
keep the house temperate within. They exclude 
dust, noise, moisture—and silence rattling windows. 
Monarch Metal Weather Strips are the only weather 
strips self-adjusting to shrinking and warping in 
sash or frame. 
-Coal-cash sufficient to pay for the installing will be 
saved in four years by Monarch Metal Weather 
Strips. They continue coal-cash curtailing while 
the building endures. 
Springtime is weather stripping time. 
Look up Monarch Weather Strips in 
your telephone directory and let our 
licensee tell you more about it. If by 
any chance Monarch is not listed in the 
book write us and the nearest licensee 
will call. For your comfort’s sake 
hear the full story! 
Telephone or Write Today 
r 
Monarch Metal Weather Strip Co. 
4111 Forest Park Blvd. St. Louis, U. S. A. 
“The use of weather strips is lOO'/r fuel conservation.” 
U. S. Fuel Administration 
P. B. Noyes, Director of Conservation. 
August 23rd, 1918. 
My Friends the Builtmores 
{Continued from page 29) 
now are going to be just that much 
ahead of the game.” He said the pros¬ 
pective home-builders of today were like 
a lot of children standing about the 
mouth of a cave in the woods. Inside 
is old High-Cost-of-Building, a sort of 
monster about whom they have only the 
vaguest idea. And Jack said he was 
going in and bat the brute over the 
brow with a blue-print. 
“That’s right,” said Mr. Naylor. “Ten 
to one he’ll turn out to be no bigger 
than a rabbit.” 
Really we all got so enthusiastic about 
building that John Tibbets even went so 
far as to sketch a bungalow on Sally’s 
priceless linen, and I felt terribly guilty 
at having nothing but a hen-house in 
my mind. But Mr. Naylor was per¬ 
fectly charming. He showed me the 
cleverest arrangement, a sort of figure 
four method of framing that would 
save cords and cords of wood and al¬ 
most do away with foundations. It 
sounded a little teeter-y—the whole 
thing was balanced on posts in the 
middle and I had visions of beautiful 
fresh-eggs being smashed to bits—but 
he says ifis perfectly practical and that 
the whole increased cost of building 
nowadays can be more than compen¬ 
sated for by careful, scientific planning; 
in other words, by getting down to 
brass-tacks. 
Sally and Jack are all enthusiasm, 
which I modestly share with them. For 
I have fully declared that as soon as the 
frost is out of the ground, I shall start 
my hen-house. In fact, plans are being 
drawn already. 
Protection Against Lightning 
F or over a century the scientific 
world generally has advocated the 
need of the protection of houses, 
barns, and other property against light¬ 
ning, and experience has now proved 
conclusively that when the equipment 
to secure this protection is carefully and 
intelligently selected and installed the 
protection afforded is almost complete. 
In view of this experience many insur¬ 
ance companies make lower rates for 
protected buildings, while some com¬ 
panies will not insure an unprotected 
building at all. The Weather Bureau 
recommends the protection of all im¬ 
portant farm buildings where thunder¬ 
storms are frequent, particularly when 
human or valuable animal life is in¬ 
volved. The best type of equipment 
should be used when practicable, al¬ 
though almost any kind of an installa¬ 
tion is preferable to no protection at all. 
In fact no one should expose himself or 
his property to lightning, since good 
protection is available for a moderate 
outlay of money. The insurance com¬ 
pany may reimburse the owner for the 
money value represented by a building 
that is destroyed by lightning, but the 
property is nevertheless destroyed and 
represents a waste, while life can not be 
restored. Moreover, a long period of 
time may elapse before a destroyed 
building can be replaced. The loss of a 
farm building will almost surely cause 
inconv'enience and generally an actual 
money loss, even when the building is 
insured. Again, many persons experi¬ 
ence an exaggerated fear during thunder¬ 
storms, and therefore greatly prefer to 
occupy a protected dwelling in which 
they feel and really are more secure. 
To such persons the avoidance of this 
intense discomfort, apart from the safe¬ 
guarding of the property, justifies the 
installation of an adequate system. 
The presence of a system of lightning 
conductors on a building serves in a 
small way to discharge the electricity 
silently during storms, and thus slightly 
to decrease the intensity and number 
of strokes of lightning. But there are 
times when the accumulation of atmos¬ 
pheric electricity is very rapid and the 
aerials and conductors on one building, 
or even on many buildings grouped to¬ 
gether, are entirely insufficient to pre¬ 
vent strokes, as is obvious from the fact 
that trees are struck in the midst of for¬ 
ests. The points and conductors on build¬ 
ings on such occasions merely serve to 
direct the stroke to the ground so that 
only a minimum of damage occurs. 
It is sometimes stated that lightning 
conductors are undesirable because they 
“draw lightning.” That may be true 
to a slight extent. A violent stroke of 
lightning that otherwise would come 
near to a conductor on a building would 
very likely be diverted to it and pass to 
the ground harmlessly. On the other 
hand, if the building was unrodded, the 
stroke would probably cause damage; 
hence it is advisable to protect all build¬ 
ings that are either valuable themselves 
or house valuable contents. 
Housing Plants 
A t the end of the house plant season 
^ there are always losses among ten¬ 
der plants due to their being put 
out too soon or without proper harden¬ 
ing off, and, similarly, mistakes occur 
in the matter of their re-housing. 
More harm is done by re-housing too 
early than too late. Such plants as 
azaleas, camellias and acacias will with¬ 
stand slight frosts with impunity, and 
it is much better to leave them out as 
long as possible than to submit them 
with undue haste to the inferior and 
very different conditions of a green¬ 
house. The proper course is to stand 
them in some such sheltered position as 
under a hedge, or to afford such tem¬ 
porary protection as can be readily and 
inexpensively provided by a batten 
framework over which canvas or mats 
are laid when required. This particular¬ 
ly applies to chrysanthemums. The 
flowering of a batch of these plants 
should always be retarded as long as 
possible, but it is usual to see them 
housed much earlier than need be. 
Of course, the time of housing is only 
one of the details which repay close at¬ 
tention. There are commonly too many 
plants in greenhouses. Far better re¬ 
sults would accrue from a drastic re¬ 
duction of their numbers at the expense 
of the poorer specimens. Again, in sub¬ 
urban districts it is common to see glass 
very badly in need of cleaning, the ad¬ 
mission of as much light as possible in 
winter being of the utmost importance 
for the health of indoor plants, while 
they also suffer from too little ventila¬ 
tion and, above all, from an automatic 
system of over-watering. Anything ap¬ 
proaching forcing conditions for plants 
in early winter is destruction for them, 
hardwooded plants in particular requir¬ 
ing a well-defined season of rest. Even 
such plants as perpetual flowering car¬ 
nations, from which winter results are 
required, must have carefully studied 
gentle treatment, or utter failure will 
result. In some gardens, with heated 
houses, there is a waste of fuel, which 
is not only bad economy,' but does 
actual harm to the plants. Modern 
greenhouses have been greatly improved 
in the matter of cohtaimng much less 
non-transparent roof material than for¬ 
merly. 
W. R. Gilbert. 
