HOUSE AND GARDEN 
160 
April, 1910 
The Fireplace Tools 
M OST people keep their fireplace tools 
in a brass rack on the end of the 
hearth. They are then conveniently 
ready for use and ordinarily not in the 
A distinctive set of fire tools and a convenient 
way to keep them 
way. Mr. Ernest E. Calkins, however, 
in one of the many fireplaces in “ Upwey, ” 
his country home, which was described in 
the February issue, has designed not only 
the brass fire tools but another ingenious 
way of keeping them near at hand. Two 
heavy brass rings are nailed directly into 
the brickwork, the diameter of the rings 
being such as to bring the nails on the 
joints, and brass hooks for the four tools 
are welded into these rings. R. F. 
Hotbed Protection 
I T may be of interest to readers of 
House & Garden to know that I 
have discovered that the laying of news¬ 
papers over the earth in hotbeds for the 
first few days after planting seeds therein 
materially aids their germination by 
keeping them from drying out before 
they have time to sprout. H. L. D. 
Natural Bulb Planting 
W E have a delightful country place, 
around an old Colonial farm¬ 
house, and while there is nothing preten¬ 
tious about it I doubt if there is a lovelier 
or more attractive place in the country. 
A few years ago I read, in a foreign news¬ 
paper, a paragraph that interested me 
very much. It suggested that planting 
bulbs here and there in the woods, on the 
edge of a copse and elsewhere about one’s 
country home, would lead these bulb 
plants to naturalize in time. The writer 
suggested that one stand and toss from 
him a handful of bulbs, at a time in va¬ 
rious directions, planting them where they 
fell, thus securing a natural arrangement, 
most delightful in effect when the bulbs 
came into blossom. I tried it and the sug¬ 
gestion worked like a charm. Now our 
place is more beautiful than ever in the 
springtime. Bulbs located in this way 
seem to have sprung up according to 
nature’s'wvn planting. L. B. 
A^plant shelf that is an improvement upon all 
widths of window-sill 
Tbe Plant Shelf Problem 
NE sees many arrangements of potted 
plants to make attractive the sunny 
windows of our living rooms. Usually,how¬ 
ever, the window-sill itself is not wide 
enough to support a medium size pot, and 
even if we put in a wider shelf the usual 
effect is rather untidy. 
The illustration shows one of the 
most attractive solutions of the problem 
we have seen. The shelf is portable, 
and the well designed railing around the 
top of the shelf is one of its most attrac¬ 
tive features, hiding, as it does, the un¬ 
attractive pots, pans or boxes. E 
The little trellis that runs up at the cor¬ 
ner is anot her unusual feature of this ingen¬ 
ious bay window arrangement. H. FI. 
The Insect-proof House 
A HOUSE with windows carefully 
j screened still had considerable 
difficulty from mosquitoes until it was 
discovered that they came down the 
chimneys and entered through the open 
fireplaces. Nets were made for the fire¬ 
places and the difficulty ceased 
C. K. F. 
Wires 
T READ with much interest the article 
by Mr. Schell in the February House 
& Garden on “ The Art of Picture 
Hanging.” He mentions therein the 
advisability of hanging large pictures 
by means of two vertical wires instead 
of by a single wire running from the two 
screw-eyes up over one supporting pic¬ 
ture-hook. There is no doubt that the 
appearance of large pictures, or in fact 
The simple way to hang a picture from two 
hooks with one piece of wire 
any pictures, hung with two vertical 
wires is far more pleasing. Some time 
ago I had occasion to hang a number of 
pictures in this way and naturally found it 
a tiresome matter to arrange the two 
wires so that they were precisely the 
same length. After I had covered all 
my walls with pictures hung in this way 
it occurred to me that the simple and 
natural way to secure the same effect 
would have been to run one wire from a 
picture-hook down and through its corre¬ 
sponding screw-eye, across back of the 
picture through the other screw-eye and 
up to another picture-hook. In this 
way the level of the picture could be 
adjusted at will; after the height had 
been established®! J- S. 
Sash Support for Hotbed 
O NE of the best supports for slightly 
raising the sash of the hotbed is 
the clothes-pin. The forked part holds 
it firmly and prevents jarring or any- 
