96 
House & Garden 
I I 
“Little Home”, Fercl. Von Beren 
New Haven, Conn. 
Plant Evergreens 
This Fall 
Fall is. an ideal time for setting out Evergreens. 
In the photograph of the garden above, arbor 
vitae, dwarf pines, hemlocks, rhododendrons and 
spruce serve as a delight to the eye during hot 
days of summer, or when winter’s white mantle 
falls o’er the landscape. 
Various types of evergreens are suitable either 
in a formal garden, or as sentinels posted at the 
entrance of a drive or walk, as a foundation plant¬ 
ing, or as single specimens on a broad lawn. We 
can tell you which varieties fill your horticultural 
need best. 
And while planting shrubs this autumn, add a 
few beautiful varieties of roses to your garden. 
Fruit trees, both dwarf and standard, and hedge 
plants, can also be planted to advantage at this 
season. 
The Elm City Nursery Company gives especial 
care to the growing and cultivation of evergreens 
and hedge plants. We are the originators of the 
famous box-barberry plant. A visit to our nurseries 
will convince you of the high quality of our stock. 
Our Landscape Service 
has been of aid to owners of estates, of suburban 
homes, and to directors and trustees of country 
clubs, hospitals, schools, churches, and industrial 
plants. Write and tell us your landscaping prob¬ 
lems and secure additional information about the 
landscape work we do. 
Send today for our beautifully illustrated 48- 
page catalogue, and place your order early for fall 
planting. You are cordially invited to visit us at 
our nurseries. 
Elm City Nursery Co. 
WOODMONT NURSERIES, Inc. 
New Haven, Conn. 
“The Pioneer Landscape Nurseries of New England” 
Elm City Nursery Co.—New Haven, Ct.—Box 194. 
Gentlemen :— Please send me your 48 page catalogue. 
Name ... 
Street No. City . State . 
August Emphasizes Cool Shower Baths 
( Continued, from page 65) 
work. It is sometimes a three-cham¬ 
bered valve with places marked for hot 
and cold water. The graduation of hot 
and cold is controlled by a plunge so 
arranged that you can set it to all de¬ 
grees of temperature from hot to cold, 
to no water at all. The volume adjuster 
too, is a great convenience. 
When building a recess for the shower 
a cabinet can be placed in the wall, 
taking up no bathroom space whatever, 
thus leaving the bathroom clear and 
free even if small. A door or sheet 
here saves the room from splashing. 
Many people crave the luxury of the 
shower where there is no space; for 
such there are installations which in¬ 
volve no extra “fussing” or demoliting 
of the bathroom. This is a device 
which fastens to the faucet (one that 
ejects hot and cold out of the same 
vent is most desirable) and is attached 
to the shower head by rubber woven 
cord and seamless tubing. Shower head 
and sheeting of finest quality are avail¬ 
able for such an installation. 
Shower heads can be placed in the 
ceiling or on the side wall. The first 
is a head wetter, the second is set at 
such an angle that it can be used whilst 
leaving the head dry. Some people 
use douche, needle sprays on the three 
sides of the cabinet and a shower head 
above for a very stimulating type of 
shower bath. There are various types 
of sprays and water flows to suit these 
tastes. 
In some installations nothing but the 
valves and nameplates (made of nickel, 
silver, gold or porcelain) show. In 
others all the pipes show. One shower 
installation shows a battery of vertical 
pipes, the pipes perforated their entire 
length and a thermostatic device regu¬ 
lating heat and volume. 
Though open plumbing openly ar¬ 
rived at is a good scheme, the recessed 
closet with pipes is also good. Here the 
pipes do not show, yet their doings are 
easily reported. However when a good 
firm installs the shower with the fix¬ 
tures cavity re-packed from the out¬ 
THE BOOK OF 
The Amateur’s Book of the Dahlia, 
by Mrs. Charles H. Stout. Double¬ 
day, Page & Company. 
The planting and raising of dahlias, 
to Mrs. Stout, seems no less important 
than the establishing and developing of 
nations, and it is for this very reason 
that her book of the dahlia is so signifi¬ 
cant a volume. Taking the story of the 
dahlia so seriously, she has brought to¬ 
gether in her charmingly and practically 
illustrated book, a volume of material 
of overwhelming interest to the stu¬ 
dent as well as the lover of this today 
most popular flower. 
Not only does this book contain com¬ 
prehensive instruction on the propaga¬ 
tion of dahlias, their birth and growth, 
all the detail of cross-breeding and fer¬ 
tilization, but in addition to these homely 
details, Mrs. Stout gives a fascinating ac¬ 
count of the discovery of the dahlia in 
Mexico centuries ago. We read that Her¬ 
nandez was sent as an envoy by Philip 
II. to “study the plants and animals of 
New Spain”, all because Mexico had 
produced the dahlia, which had caught 
the fancy of kings and queens, of gar¬ 
deners and other royalties. 
At the beginning of the 19th century, 
Mrs. Stout tells us, a perfect craze for 
dahlias swept over Europe. No garden 
was complete without it. Every variety 
of color and combination of colors was 
undertaken and accomplished. A Na¬ 
tional Dahlia Society was formed in 
Great Britain, and enormous sums of 
side, the hidden plumbing is a safe 
venture. 
The soap dish and sponge rack are the 
only accessories needed in the shower 
bath—outside you can hang your towels. 
Where the floor of receptor is slippery 
a rubber mat or something equally as 
stable should be used. Some mats come 
with suction cups, so that it is impos¬ 
sible for the mat to slide. These can 
be had in various sizes and shapes. 
A mat directly outside the shower is 
a necessity, for you are wet-footed and 
may slip on the bathroom floor unless 
the non-skid device is surely in place. 
If you are traveling in by-ways there 
is a brush device with shower valve— 
which enables you to carry your shower 
with you. Use it in connection with a 
faucet and an ordinary water basin, and 
be refreshed. 
A few final words of caution, to be 
remembered when you are planning to 
install a shower: 
1. Automatic mixers and thermostats 
are more or less dependable according 
to the manufacturer. They are genu¬ 
ine luxuries, but not absolutely neces¬ 
sary. 
2. The valves of the thermostat 
should be near the entrance of the cab¬ 
inet, so that the arms or shoulders need 
not be showered until the water is the 
desired temperature. 
3. If the piping is done well, you can 
temper your hot and cold water usually 
with little trouble even without extra 
devices. 
4. Remember that you are often 
urged to buy “hifalutin” things which 
are sometimes excellent and sometimes 
rubbish. Be careful. Keep the bath¬ 
rooms simple. Dispense with what is 
dispensable and get what is comfortable, 
studying economy when possible. 
5. Tiled or honed marble floors have 
proven wiser than porcelain for recep¬ 
tors. 
6. Before deciding on your shower, 
look at many manufacturers’ things 
and select the simplest that is well made 
and of the best materials. 
THE DAHLIA 
money were spent on every novelty. 
In the course of time naturally the 
meteoric way of the dahlia brought it 
back to America and here its success 
continued and increased. Of course we 
have a dahlia society here, and accord¬ 
ing to Mrs. Stout’s wonderful story of 
the dahlia there are over five thousand 
varieties to be found in trade catalogues. 
Strangely enough the dahlia does not 
seem to have grown arrogant with its 
international triumph. It still consents 
to grow on mountain slopes, in lowly 
gardens, near the sea, far north in Eng¬ 
land and south in America. But two 
conditions must always surround dahlia 
culture, fresh air and moisture. The 
ideal place is an open, level bit of land, 
with the morning sun, a few trees for 
shade, a gentle rise of ground at the 
back to bring enough but not too much 
rain. In fact this sounds like an ideal 
set for a charming cottage where hu¬ 
man beings could flourish as well as 
dahlias. 
A summary of Mrs. Stout’s book 
would really make an interesting article 
in itself. And with all its importance 
to dahlia lovers, it is no easy matter to 
bring it down to the space allowed in 
a mere book review. In the introduc¬ 
tion to the book of dahlias, we are told 
that if dahlia culture in America con¬ 
tinues to increase in the future, we shall 
have a place in the world of horticulture 
as the propagator of a race of magnifi¬ 
cent flowers. 
