September, 19 2 2 
33 
HOUSE & GARDEN SETS UP 
its BULLETIN BOARD 
A CCORDING to Vogue’s excellent arti¬ 
cles on etiquette, the proper way 
to introduce dinner guests is to say: “Mrs. 
Blank, I want to introduce my husband.” 
Well, readers of House and Garden, we 
want to introduce this new page. It is to 
serve our mutual interests in a number of 
ways, becoming a bulletin board or an ex¬ 
perience meeting, as the case may be. There 
are things constantly happening that would 
interest House and Garden readers, things 
that somehow just can’t be squeezed into 
the body of the magazine. Some of these 
will be noted on this page. It will be a 
regular monthly feature. 
G OOD small houses do not grow on 
every bush. Members of the Ameri¬ 
can Institute of Architects, however, have 
determined to increase the crop. Through 
the medium of the Architects’ Small House 
Service Bureau plans and designs for good 
small houses are being distributed at rea¬ 
sonable cost. Obviously, any one group of 
designs will not suit all sections of the 
country, and there are now being issued 
books of plans for houses applicable to each 
section. The latest to reach our desk is the 
book of the Mountain Division, with de¬ 
signs particularly adaptable to Colorado, 
Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico. 
& 
T HE Bureau of Plant Industry in the 
Federal Department of Agriculture in¬ 
cludes in its personnel many investigators, 
experimenters and hybridists at home and 
abroad. These men are constantly en¬ 
deavoring to discover better methods and to 
produce better varieties for the improvement 
of American horticulture. Ranking high in 
this body was Dr. W. Van Fleet, whose un¬ 
timely death in January, 1922, leaves the 
rose world poorer. Silver Moon, American 
Pillar, Dr. W. Van Fleet, Sir Thomas Lip- 
ton, Bess Lovett, Alida Lovett, Mary 
Lovett, are some of the familiar because suc¬ 
cessful American roses produced by this 
great American worker for the American 
public, and not “made in Europe.” 
VP the time of his death there were on 
x \ trial, of Dr. Van Fleet’s hybridization, 
a dozen or more roses produced by this 
genius with a view of providing what he 
called “dooryard roses,” able to do satis¬ 
factory service with the least care in the 
most places. Some of these roses had been 
tried for years; others were just being prop¬ 
agated for dissemination. But the Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture has no means of selling 
or distributing large quantities of roses. 
Therefore, various members of the Ameri¬ 
can Rose Society suggested a way in which 
these Van Fleet rose creations should be 
given proper distribution. 
T HE Bureau of Plant Industry will 
provide a few plants of each variety to 
be disseminated. These will be put into 
propagation by the American Rose Society, 
so that a reasonable distributing quantity 
may be provided. Nurserymen and rose 
men who are members of the American Rose 
Society are then given opportunity to sub¬ 
scribe to an arrangement by which this 
propagating material is equally divided 
among the signatories. The American 
Rose Society thus becomes the intermediary 
which makes possible simultaneous, coun¬ 
try-wide distribution of these rugged new 
roses. The first rose now in hand under 
this system has been christened Mary Wal¬ 
lace, in honor of the daughter of the Secre¬ 
tary of Agriculture. 
A N ingenious and picturesque method of 
handling a little brook is to be found 
in the Country Club District of Kansas 
City. One of the roads cut across a brook. 
The obvious method would have been to 
build a bridge. But the designer was 
avoiding obvious methods, and instead of 
throwing a bridge across the stream, he dug 
out the stream bed at this point and laid in 
a concrete base the width of the road. Step¬ 
ping stones on each side are for pedestrians. 
Cars and horseback riders splash through 
the stream. In spring and fall when the 
water is too high the ford is closed, and 
traffic goes around another way. 
O NE of the reasons why House & 
Garden is valuable to its readers is 
the fact that it shows the work and prints 
the articles of professionals who are con¬ 
stantly desiging houses, laying out gardens 
and decorating rooms. These professionals 
have more to offer than the mere hack 
writer. Thus, in this number, we show the 
work of, or contributions from, eight prac¬ 
ticing decorators, seven of whom are New 
Yorkers. The work of six architects is 
shown, three from New York and three from 
California. The illustrations are from such 
widely distributed areas as New York, 
Vienna, Paris, Florence, Cleveland, Pasa¬ 
dena, Detroit, England, Boston, Philadel¬ 
phia and Delaware. 
OWN in this corner we purpose to 
print each month something about 
these contributors. For example, old read¬ 
ers of the magazine may often wonder who 
Gardner Teall is. He’s been writing regu¬ 
larly for these pages since 1915. Or what 
Ethel Peyser looks like and why she knows 
so much about kitchens. Or Mrs. Perrett, 
who writes on tulips in this number, or Mr. 
Ortloff, who writes on birch trees. Next 
month, when there is more space, we’ll tell 
who these good people are. 
