116 
House & Garden 
The 
New 
Brand 
V ictory 
Chateau 
T hierry 
The Brand Peony Farms 
The largest plant breeding es¬ 
tablishment in the world that is 
devoted to the originating of new 
varieties of the Peony. 
L AST year the members of the American Peony 
/Society voted upon the comparative merits of all the 
good named peonies of the world. According to this vote 
where a flower received not less than 20 votes there were 
22 varieties that received a vote of 90 or better. 
Of these 22 World’s Best Peonies 
Four are Brand Varieties 
This year, at the first great International Show of 
Peonies held by the American Peony Society at London. 
Ontario, Canada, we showed 9 different New Brand 
Seedlings in a large class, and upon these 9 entries we 
were given Three Awards of Special Merit. These 
awards were made by Judges Fewks, Farr and Norton. 
Next year we will have blooming on our grounds, over 
Eighteen Thousand different seedlings from carefully 
selected seed. Among them are some as fine as anything 
we showed at the London Show. 
If you wish good stock grown in Minnesota’s Virgin 
Soil in such superb Brand Varieties as Brand's Magnifi¬ 
cent, Charles McKellip, Chestine Gowdy. E. B. Brown¬ 
ing, Frances Willard, Judge Berry. Longfellow , Lora 
Dexheimer, Mary Brand, Richard Carvel, and Martha 
Bulloch; or if you want any others of the World’s very 
best peonies. 
Send for our 
1922 Peony Catalog 
This is what one of the best informed peony growers in 
America said about our 1920 Catalog: 
“I started on the first page and read it right through. 
It is the finest catalog on peonies I ever saw.” 
Our 1922 Catalog is vastly superior to the 1920 Catalog. 
It is the greatest book ever written on the Peony. It is a 
true Peony Manual. 
It tells you everything you may wish to know about 
the culture, the varieties, and the history of the Peony. It 
gives valuable tables and beautiful pictures. 
BRAND PEONY FARMS 
FARIBAULT, MINNESOTA 
On House & Garden’s Book Shelf 
( Continued, from page 114) 
There are such opportunities for beauty 
offered by the iris, according to Miss 
Hampden, that one wonders how it is 
possible (having by this time forgotten 
about the tulips) to give up any space in 
a garden to other loveliness than the 
irises. They belong in the rock garden 
and in melancholy, wet soil places, they 
will flourish in the sunshine if there is 
moisture enough, they will bloom under 
deciduous trees or in well drained bor¬ 
ders. They are haughty and humble, 
and of every shade, and so accommodat¬ 
ing in manner of growth and size that it 
seems essential to have every variety, 
and become an iris expert. For who 
could do without the Japanese roof iris, 
the Iris stylosa for the nooks of the stone 
walls, the lovely white Iris Albiensis? 
And here Miss Hampden breaks away 
to talk about snowdrops and bluebells 
and crocuses. And she writes so feeling¬ 
ly about “long grass walks in early 
spring”, flanked by crocus gold, Chiono- 
doxa blue and snowdrops, and she tells 
us so enthusiastically about the English 
snowdrop, the Italian snowbell and the 
Russian Galanthus Plicatus which flour¬ 
ish in those sad fields of the Crimea, 
that we realize it is going to be impos¬ 
sible to give all our garden space to the 
iris; we simply must have some “winter 
flowering crocuses” as well as “spring 
flowering crocuses”, though we can save 
our garden space a little by cultivating 
some of the spring flowers in moss fibre 
and sea-shells. 
Miss Hampden writes delightfully 
about bluebells, but confuses our ama¬ 
teur mind by the paradox that “blue¬ 
bells are not always blue”. As for the 
chapter on lilies, especially Madonna 
lilies, all other thoughts of gardening 
were swept out of our mind, and we 
knew that no garden could satisfy or 
truly intoxicate that did not show a 
hedge of Madonna lilies in June, with 
larkspur guarding them on either side 
and pale yellow violas at their feet. 
Interesting Neighbors, by Oliver P. 
Jenkins. P. Blakiston’s Sons & Co. 
Prof. Jenkins is a physiologist, first, 
last and always. The animal kingdom 
alone holds his interest. How the most 
devastating little animals are propagated 
and perpetuated, the detailed routine of 
their evanescent little lives absorbs his 
interest. The relation of the animal and 
vegetable world and of their joint signi¬ 
ficance to man does not seem to be in¬ 
volved in his philosophy. 
And just so far as he separates his in¬ 
terest in the actual doings of the insect 
world from the progress of the human 
world, just as far as he tells romantic little 
stories of destructive animals, his book 
“Interesting Neighbors” is not good 
reading for children. This does not 
mean that one questions for a moment 
the verity of his writing, the absolute 
quality of his facts. But as Browning 
once said to an unimaginative friend 
who had been arguing with him, “God 
knows what a fact is worth”, and cer¬ 
tainly they are not worth very much 
unrelated to other facts upon which 
they have direct and vital bearings. As 
for instance, in one chapter Prof. Jenk¬ 
ins tells us quite a thrilling story of a 
carpenter bee, how it makes its nests 
and the clever way it takes care of its 
eggs; the quite unusual intelligence it 
uses in arranging successfully for its 
own family life. He goes into the detail 
of how it bores “right into solid wood 
. . . a fence post, a timber in the house 
or barn”, or for that matter “the stems 
of plants that have pith in the center” 
and here the eggs are laid. All of this 
sounds picturesque—a fascinating little 
story, but what about the posts that are 
destroyed, the plants that wilt and 
wither, because of the making of these 
homes? 
This is one instance of what occurs re¬ 
peatedly through the little book. There 
is a sentimental story about caterpillars, 
how they make their nests on leaves; a 
habit of the tent-caterpillar moth. It 
builds a very clever, fairylike little home, 
and nothing is said of the fact that the 
devastation of this caterpillar moth is at 
times nationwide. There is actually a 
sentence like this in the story, “But sup¬ 
pose she should make a mistake and lay 
the eggs on a wrong tree, a tree that 
had leaves which the little children cater¬ 
pillars could not eat. That would be 
terrible”. To sentimentalize about the 
tent-caterpillar moth is like showing a 
tender interest in and making an effort 
to safeguard a yellow-fever germ. 
It is all very well for children to know 
the ways of all curious animals, of all 
kinds of insects, but such material 
should be presented from the wider 
outlook of the man who sees life as a 
whole and who relates his facts to the 
bigger problems of existence. Prof. 
Jenkins is not helping children to see 
life truly, in making them accept the 
sentimental side of destructive forces. 
It is not enough to weavd a silvery tale 
about a caterpillar, as a caterpillar does 
a web about a leaf. One is no more im¬ 
portant than the other, and both with¬ 
out significance, except as the tale and 
the web are also woven into a much 
bigger fabric, namely, the truth about 
life. 
Lutyens Houses and Gardens, by Sir 
Lawrence Weaver. Charles Scribner’s 
Sons, New York. 
It is not because Edwin L. Lutyens 
was appointed architect for the Viceroy’s 
palace in Imperial Delhi that we are 
profoundly interested in his life and 
accomplishment. But because, probably 
no one man in modern times in Eng¬ 
land has done so much for the develop¬ 
ment of the beautiful modern home. 
Lutyens is never frightened by tradition, 
and is equally fearless in the face of 
a fresh, original impulse in architecture. 
He has worked sincerely and quietly as 
a creator, and yet earnestly as a stu¬ 
dent, with the result that he has in¬ 
fluenced the making of houses and 
gardens in England to an extent that 
would seem difficult for any one quite 
unpretentious man to accomplish. The 
book is profusely illustrated with fine 
engravings of houses and gardens. His 
three finest Surrey houses are shown, 
with some of the most famous in his 
Tudor manner. “Heathcote” is of course 
presented, and some very modern houses 
built by him from 1005 to 1907. 
His method of altering houses and 
restoring houses is also shown, as in 
the reparation of Sussex Manor house 
and Howth Castle. His knowledge of 
all periods of architecture, his reverence 
for them, yet his appreciation of prog¬ 
ress and development in homemaking 
render inestimable his contributions to 
modern domestic architecture in Eng¬ 
land. He is a craftsman as well as an 
artist; his designs for furniture both for 
the garden and the house are a delight¬ 
ful addition to furniture making. And 
interesting pictures are given of his 
craft work. 
This is a book of great value to the 
trained architect and to the student in 
architecture. Detailed plans are shown 
of both houses and gardens, and much 
valuable information is given for land¬ 
scape gardening, and also for decorators 
in the fine interior fittings of these beau¬ 
tiful homes. 
The Principles of Interior Decora¬ 
tion, by Bernard C. Jakway. The 
Macmillan Company. 
In the preface to his book Mr. Jak¬ 
way says that his object in writing this 
volume is “to interest the housewife who 
is concerned with the attractiveness of 
(Continued on page 118) 
