106 
House & Garden 
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Correct, Up-to-date Ideas on 
Window Draping in this 
FREE BOOK 
Attractive windows are illustrated for every room,' 
many in colors. Valuable suggestions given as to 
materials, colors, rods. Mailed free on request 
KIRSCH MFG. COMPANY 
241 Prospect Ave., Sturgis, Mich., U. S. A. 
strong, durable and economical. 
The flat construction gives sagless 
strength—the Velvetone brass or 
Velvetone white finish is guaranteed 
to prevent rusting or tarnishing. 
Kirsch Curtain Rods come single, double, triple 
—extension style or cut-tofit for any kind of 
windows. The patented Kirsch bracket is simple, 
strong, practical; permits rods to be put on or 
detached with ease and safety, yet can’t come 
down accidentally. 
Sold by better dealers everywhere. 
KIRSCH MFG. CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 452 Tecumseh St., Woodstock, Ont« 
The patented Kirsch 
bracket is simple and 
strong. Rod easily 
attached or removed 
by tilting. Can’t come 
off accidentally. 
Bracket and End of 
double rod for cur¬ 
tain and valance—for 
curtain and side 
drapes, or for side 
drapes and valance. 
Bracket and end of 
triple rod — for cur* 
tains, side drapes and 
valance. This rod 
used in window illus* 
trated above. 
Remember to ask for { 
GJfie Original yiat Curtain Rpd 
Curtain Rods 
Come Single, ‘Double, Triple—to Secure Any Effect 
Hints for Builders 
( Continued, from page 104) 
ney. This, practically everyone knows, 
but through carelessness or the desire 
to get just a little more space in a room, 
a builder may take a chance, and usually 
with the result of cracked walls. 
Third: Be sure that good water-proof 
paper is put behind all four sides of the 
window frames before they are nailed 
into the walls. Do not let the builder 
put a couple of strips of cheap paper 
behind the two side casings—that is the 
tightest place anyway. Insist that good 
paper be put behind top and bottom of 
the frame also. At the bottom of the 
frame, under the sill, the paper should 
be nailed into the sill and then run out 
and wedged into the groove in which 
the siding fits, the surplus being cut off 
flush with the siding. This point, if not 
made tight, is where most of the wind 
comes in around a framed window. 
Fourth: How many homes have you 
been in where the floor looks as though 
it were dropping down, especially on 
an inside wall over the furnace, near a 
heat pipe or register? In some cases you 
can put your finger between the shoe or 
carpet strip of the baseboard and the 
floor. This defect (figure 3) is gener¬ 
ally caused by the shrinking of the floor 
joists, due in most cases to severe heat 
from furnace or pipes, and can quite 
easily be overcome. 
The usual hurry-up construction is to 
nail the baseboard to the studding, then 
to nail the carpet strip to the baseboard 
as shown in figure 3, so that the painter 
may finish the entire two members as 
one. This looks well for a time, but as 
the joists shrink the opening between the 
floor and the carpet strip appears. The 
following procedure should be observed 
to overcome the difficulty: After the 
base has been nailed to the wall, the 
painter should finish this single member 
entirely to the floor-line. The carpet 
strip should then be painted or stained, 
as the case may be, before it is nailed 
into place. When the floors have been 
scraped and finished the carpet strip is 
nailed on—not to the baseboard, but by 
slanting the nail into the floor (figure 4). 
The nail holes in the carpet strip are 
then puttied up and this member given 
a final coat of enamel or varnish accord¬ 
ing to the requirements. The joists may 
now shrink and the floor go down the 
full height of the carpet strip, but there 
will still be a tight intersection between 
base members and also between carpet 
strip and the floor. Even if more of the 
baseboard is exposed, it has the original 
finish on it and will look the same all 
the way to the floor-line. 
Fifth: To avoid the shrinking and 
cracking of floors, you cannot take too 
much care in the laying of the flooring. 
Circulars issued by large flooring manu¬ 
facturers may be sent for and studied 
and instructions followed, such as, 
“flooring must be delivered when thor¬ 
oughly dry and must be kept dry; all 
plastering must be dry and the house 
heated, etc.” This should apply to every 
home built, but in a great many houses, 
especially in the less expensive ones, it 
is almost impossible to fulfill all these 
requirements. In a great many houses 
the sub-floors are omitted and the finish 
floors are put down before plastering is 
done, this is especially true of the sec¬ 
ond floors. Sub-floors, including a good 
grade of paper, should be used, at least 
on the first floor. The cost is only 
about five cents a square foot. In addi¬ 
tion to this, and it becomes a necessity 
if sub-floors are not used down stairs, 
nail to the bottom of the floor joist 
some kind of fire-proof wall-board or 
plaster-board over an area of at least 
ten feet square directly over the furnace. 
This will deflect the intense heat which 
is bound to be found directly over the 
furnace and heat pipes, and relieves the 
flooring and floor joists of the extreme 
heat to which they would otherwise be 
exposed. 
If your house is built and your win¬ 
dows rattle or stick, with a very small 
additional cost you may install adjust¬ 
able washers and screws in setting the 
window stops. Then all that is neces¬ 
sary to have them work right is a screw 
driver to set the stops in the proper 
position. It is also worth while to use 
these on door stops. This convenience 
will be appreciated. 
The above instructions are simply a 
repetition of what most every home 
owner will eventually discover for him¬ 
self, but how much better it is, if a per¬ 
son is building a home, to know how to 
avoid mistakes instead of later having 
the expense and worry of rectifying 
them. 
H. N- Putnam. 
FIGHT THE CORN BORER 
S PECIAL efforts to prevent the 
European corn borer from spread¬ 
ing, will be made this season by 
the United States Department of Agri¬ 
culture. The most important single 
measure will be the rigid enforcement 
of Federal quarantine regulations by 
the Federal Horticultural Board of the 
Department. 
The Federal quarantine includes 144 
cities and towns in Massachusetts, 3 in 
Michigan, 12 in New Hampshire, 115 
in New York, 42 in Ohio, and 13 in 
Pennsylvania, and prohibits the ship¬ 
ment of corn and broom corn, includ¬ 
ing all parts of the stalk, cut flowers 
or entire plants of chrysanthemum, 
aster, cosmos, zinnia, hollyhock, and 
cut flowers or entire plants of gladi¬ 
olus and dahlia, except the bulbs, to 
other States throughout the year. 
To control the corn borer the Depart¬ 
ment recommends the following prac¬ 
tices: 
1 . Burn, or otherwise destroy, before 
May 1 of each year, all cornstalks, 
corn cobs, corn stubble, vegetable, field 
and flower crop remnants, weeds and 
large-stemmed grasses of the previous 
year. 
2. Keep cultivated fields, fence rows, 
field borders, roadsides and such places 
free from large weeds or large stemmed 
grasses. 
3. Cut and remove sweet corn stalks 
from the field as soon as the ears are 
harvested. 
4. Do not plant corn within SO feet 
of beets, beans, celery, spinach, rhu¬ 
barb, or flowering plants intended for 
sale. 
5. Do not transport outside of the 
infested area any of the plants, or 
plant products, listed in Federal quar¬ 
antine No. 43. 
6 . Do not place in swill container 
any sweet corn ears or portions thereof 
or discarded portions of celery beets, 
beans, rhubarb, and spinach when this 
material is suspected of containing the 
borer. 
7. Do not dump cornstalks, or other 
plant refuse from the vegetable and 
flower garden on public dumps, or on 
the edge of bodies of water where the 
borer can breed. 
8 . Do not feel angry if products are 
confiscated at border lines for viola¬ 
tion of quarantine regulations. Such 
action is the most lenient that may be 
taken under the law. 
Alfred I. Wilder. 
