July, 1923 
35 
The 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
BULLETIN BOARD 
R eading the advance news of the forth¬ 
coming features of a magazine should im¬ 
part the same sort of quiet delight that 
reading a menu imparts to the palate. You con¬ 
sider the bill of fare, order what you want—and 
then sit back and wait in happy expectation. 
The carte de jour for August contains plenty 
of solid food and a wide range of desserts. Being 
called “The Household Equipment Number” it 
has many offerings to tickle the palate of the 
householder-—an article on built-in furniture 
and conveniences; a three page spread of rooms 
for children—children from the babe in arms to 
the boy at school; designs for the perfect kitchen; 
a survey of the new things that help lighten 
kitchen and laundry labor; and—quite a new idea 
—suggestions for furnishing a radio room. In 
addition to these the decorator will be tempted 
by the Little Portfolio of Good Interiors, the 
page of color definitions (do you know what 
color aubergine is?) and the article on the furni¬ 
ture of William Savery and another on the style 
of Adam. 
This issue appearing in the midst of summer 
gardening activities, the lover of green growing 
things will find her attention attracted by an 
article on trees, by an article on the Family of 
Pinks, on daffies, on how to make a pool and on 
the page of garden statuary. 
For the builder we have prepared a delectable 
dish compounded of a rarely beautiful California 
house, a discussion on how to paint walls interest¬ 
ingly, a group of two excellent houses, a con¬ 
tinuation of this month’s log cabin series and 
an excellent exposition of the remodeling of old 
frame-houses into livable country homes. 
These make a pretty August dish to set before 
the king of the household! It will be ready— 
on time, absolutely on time!—served hot and 
fresh from the fire on the 2Sth of July. 
L ast winter the Horticultural Societies of 
Pennsylvania, New York and Massachu¬ 
setts feeling that horticultural interests of the 
country were being injured by the introduc¬ 
tion each year of hundreds of seedlings under 
new names which were neither superior to nor 
distinct from existing varieties, appointed a com¬ 
mittee to consider this problem. The Committee 
met in New York on March 15 th and after a 
thorough discussion of the whole problem passed 
the following resolution; 
“This Committee feels that all Horticultural in¬ 
terests are being injured by the introduction each 
year of hundreds of seedlings under new names 
which are neither superior to nor distinct from 
existing sorts; and they believe that this tendency 
to introduce new things is increasing yearly and 
constitutes a serious menace to horticulture in this 
country. 
“This Committee believes that the Massachu¬ 
setts, New York and Pennsylvania Horticultural 
Societies, being among the oldest and foremost 
organizations in Horticulture, should take the lead 
in bringing this state of affairs to the attention 
of all gardeners, both amateur and professional. 
It believes that this condition of affairs must be 
thoroughly understood by the public before a 
remedy can be found.” 
The Committee believes that if this resolution 
is approved and adopted by a number of the 
leading organizations it will act as a check upon 
this evil. 
After sufficient time has elapsed to receive sug¬ 
gestions from all Society publications the indi¬ 
viduals interested in this problem or committee 
will meet again to consider what further steps 
may be taken. 
B y the time this reaches the readers their 
imaginations will be stimulated and their 
purses sorely tempted by the new bulb cata¬ 
logs. Garden temptations never cease. This 
year the bulb temptation will be more acute 
than hitherto, because it is hoped that the Federal 
Horticultural Board will loosen the Quarantine 
bonds a little and permit the importation of some 
of the lovely spring flowering bulbs which have 
lain under an interdict these past few years. 
Scillas, grape hyacinths and a number of other 
perfectly innocuous bulbs have been kept beyond 
the three mile limit. Doubtless by this time the 
Dutch growers have been able to raise up a race 
of bulbs that are perfectly immune to disease. 
In a quaint way gardeners on the other side have 
retaliated against our absurd Quarantine; when¬ 
ever they find a new plant ailment, they speak of 
it as “the American disease.” 
S OME months back the Bulletin Board 
noted the fact that design in decoration 
was going to enjoy a revival; people would 
seem to have wearied of chaste plain walls. Con¬ 
sequently, and quite naturally, the pendulum is 
beginning to swing back to decorated walls. 
Those to whom money is no object can afford to 
employ the services of a mural artist; to the aver¬ 
age person the desire for design will find satisfac¬ 
tion in wall paper. This paper can either be hung 
to cover the entire surface or used in panels with 
molding frames. 
Will this mean that the burden of design, hither¬ 
to carried by figured hangings, will now be 
shifted to the walls alone? Will we now enter 
an era of plain hangings? By no means. There 
can be design in both; chintz, linen and other 
figured fabrics will still contribute to the color 
and interest of the room. 
iSik 
T his change from plain to figured walls 
has not come about over night; fashions 
in decoration never do. The pendulum swings 
very slowly and it moves of its own natural 
volition, not through the dictates of this or 
that group. Whereas fashions in clothes may 
be dictated by the Rue de la Paix and Bond 
Street, fashions in decoration are not established 
and (destroyed at the word of Grand Rapids. 
Clothes fashions are more ephemeral and the 
desire for change more necessary. In decoration, 
however, we live with furniture and hangings 
fot a long time and when, gradually, we tire 
of them, we seek to surround ourselves with a 
new home environment. To change the style of 
one’s clothes is to change the impression one 
makes on other people—which is eminently de¬ 
sirable ; to change the style of one’s furnishings is 
to change the impression one makes on one’s self. 
A FRIEND of ours (a man of parts) re¬ 
cently remarked that a gentleman prefers to 
walk on side streets. He was speaking of walk¬ 
ing in town. On side streets one is less conspicu¬ 
ous, he argued. “Well,” said we, “what about 
the country? Does the gentleman choose the 
highway to walk or the side roads?” To 
which he replied, “The highroad, if he is a fool. 
Walking in the country has been relegated to 
side roads. To walk along a main highway is only 
tempting Providence and motorists. My argu¬ 
ment about side streets holds good in the coun¬ 
try, as well as in town. On the side road he is 
a less conspicuous target.” 
This bit of wisdom should be remembered by 
country motorists. If they must speed, let them 
speed on the highways. Please, for the sake of 
those who enjoy to ramble afoot, slow down on 
the side roads! Avoid side roads, if possible—leave 
them for portly gentlemen, for lads and lasses, 
for lovers, for old-fashioned folk who like to ride 
in a buggy or en jamille, in a carry-all. 
Of the various methods of transportation we 
prefer first, to walk; second, to ride behind a safe 
horse in a buggy. Our ideal of the ideal honey¬ 
moon or vacation is to retire to some sequestered 
country town and there to hire a buggy and 
drive up and down the solitary and silent side 
roads. The more solitary and more silent, the 
better. In this preference we can find plenty of 
corroborative statements, but none of them so 
touching as that which Boswell quotes Dr. 
Johnson as having once remarked: “If I had no 
duties and no reference to futurity, I would 
spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise 
with a pretty woman.” . . . That, sirs, is pre¬ 
cisely our idea of how to spend a pleasant life. 
The majority of folks today drive so briskly 
that there’s no telling whether the woman with 
them is pretty or not. Let such keep to the high¬ 
road. But for us who, having a pretty woman, 
would drive with her, spare the side roads! 
T hose who have visited Versailles have 
doubtless noticed the inverse ratio of the 
buildings there. First the Palace, then the 
Grand Trianon, then the Petite Trianon and 
finally the Hamlet with its tiny Swiss chalet. 
The French Court gradually came down to earth! 
Most of us, had we the money and the power, 
would have built just as the French Court built; 
we dream of castles in Spain, but finally attain 
reality in a Dutch Colonial house in the suburbs. 
Fortunately the majority of people haven’t the 
money to build a palace, besides, we realize that 
the day of palaces is over. It had its sunset in 
the late war, when the last of the kings who 
claimed divine right retired into ignominious 
Dutch solitude. So long as a king could back up 
his claim to divine right, it was logical that he 
should live in the sort of place that reflected, in 
spirit at least, those hypothetical Heavenly man¬ 
sions. 
The lord of the manor was just a little king 
with a little court and a little army of retainers. 
His day, too, has passed or is passing. We are 
entering a new era: the day of the small house. 
The big house is the tag end of an era that sup¬ 
ported a court; the small house is the indication 
of a new time, the symbol of a growing democ¬ 
racy. 
