82 
House & Garden 
Detroit’s latest pride, the massive 
First National Bank Building, stands 
where once stood the famous Hotel 
Pontchartrain. Albert Kahn's genius 
created this superb edifice, which The 
Foundation Company as general con¬ 
tractors erected. The Schroeder Hard¬ 
ware Company, of Detroit, supplied 
the hardware. 
Stability! 
T owering massively in Detroit’s teeming public 
square, this splendid pile befits the institution it 
houses. An abiding monument to stability! 
Stability:—steadiness; firmness; fixity of char¬ 
acter; age-defying strength. These are traits as vital 
to a great bank building as to the sine'ws of that 
building’s many sturdy silent doors. 
McKinney Hinges, chosen to give these doors that 
stability, ■were selected on the strength of the good 
character which, through more than fifty-seven years, 
has been wrought into the very fiber of these beauti¬ 
ful, suitable adjuncts to well-ordered buildings and 
well-planned homes. 
Your own home, or any building which concerns 
your money, merits hinges as good as McKinney 
Hinges definitely are. For stability’s sake! 
Many people have welcomed the guidance of the 
practical book called “Suggestions for the Home¬ 
builder.’’ It adds much useful data to its concise 
story of dependable hinges. Tell us where to mail a 
copy for you. Free and postpaid, of course. 
McKinney manufacturing company 
Pittsburgh, Pa. 
Western Office: Wrigley Building, Chicago 
MCKINNEY 
Hindes and Butts and Hardware 
SPANISH DOOR KNOCKERS 
{Continued jrom page 80) 
pattern, to give a flower-like effect. 
The hood over the vertical knocker 
is an idea particularly Spanish. At first 
crude in form, it blossoms into rich 
crowns, semi-circular in form, a feature 
of Spanish door knockers even through¬ 
out the Renaissance days. Seeming lack 
of stability and finish at both sides of 
the back-plate caused the Spanish smith 
to add attentuated buttresses invisibly 
riveted from the back and further ar- 
chitecturalizing his work by cabled edg¬ 
ing surmounted by small pinnacles. 
Detailed as the knockers may be, the 
appearance of richness and elaboration 
was but a fundamental feature in Span¬ 
ish ornament, for in the massive sim¬ 
plicity of the Spanish house of old, it 
was the treatment of the doors that 
produced the final effect. The same 
result could be achieved in the modem 
house with simple and not costly labor. 
THE MARVELS of 
MID-SUMMER PLANTING 
{Continued jrom page 62) 
plants grow is usually 6" or 8" deep 
with a layer of sand below it into 
which the roots do not penetrate. 
The plants can then be taken out 
with a sharp spade with solid chunks 
of peat surrounding their roots. 
One particularly worthwhile phase of 
mid-summer planting is that any large 
sized individual plants for a garden 
background can be seen and known ex¬ 
actly as they are going to look. One 
does not have to imagine them in leaf 
as in the case of spring and fall planted 
shrub masses. The ability to get these 
immediate effects often times more than 
balances the slight extra labor involved. 
Such shrubbery is the making of the 
late planted flower garden which is in 
great need of backgrounds and enclo¬ 
sures for shelter and seclusion. 
We are getting rather accustomed to 
the moving of all kinds of evergreens 
at almost any month in the year. Au¬ 
gust seems to be as favorite a month as 
any. For evergreens August is better 
than July because by August the new 
growth has had time to harden. If 
this new growth is not sufficiently hard¬ 
ened the new ends of the branches are 
apt to droop during transplanting and 
they remain in this wilted position. 
When next year’s growth stands out 
straight in its normal position it gives 
the tree a curious crimped look which 
it is apt to retain for several years at 
least. 
TRANSPLANTING TECHNIQUE 
The successful mid-summer planting 
of deciduous trees requires a great deal 
more technique in the mechanical art 
of moving and a great deal more knowl¬ 
edge of tree physiology than flower or 
even shrub planting. The present day 
methods of ball and platform moving 
upon specially constructed trucks has 
made successful mid-surnmer moving of 
deciduous trees an accomplished fact. 
They are moved by what is known as 
the “ball”, the “half-ball” and “bare 
root” methods. The ball method is 
that in which the tree is dug with a 
ball of earth entirely inclosed in a can¬ 
vas cover and lashed to a platform. 
This method is most suitable for the 
difficult varieties such as oaks, gums, 
tulips and magnolias, and would apply 
only to trees up to about 6" in calibre 
as the weight of a ball for a larger tree 
would be too great to handle readily. 
It is used also for nursery grown plants 
whose root systems have been developed 
close about the base of the tree. The 
half-ball method is used for slightly 
larger trees or for small trees of a 
variety more readily moved, such as 
elms and maples. In this case the 
roots of the trees are dissected out for 
their entire length and are wrapped in 
wet straw. A ball of earth is, how¬ 
ever, retained about the base of the tree 
which is held tight by a canvas which 
allows the roots to stick out. The 
w’hole is then lashed to a good-sized 
platform. I have seen trees up to 10" 
and 12" in calibre handled by this 
method. The bare root method is 
probably not so suitable for mid-sum¬ 
mer work inasmuch as all the dirt is 
shaken from the roots and the roots tied 
up in bundles and wrapped in straw. 
It is necessary, however, to resort to 
this method if very large trees are 
moved on account of their great 
weight. 
The usual method of soil preparation 
for large trees is followed except that 
no heating manure is put in the bottom 
of the holes. 
TREATMENT AFTER TRANSPLANTING 
There are three methods used in the 
treatment of the trees after the plant¬ 
ing is done, in order to counter-act 
the disturbance to which the root sys¬ 
tem has been subjected. Sometimes the 
tree is severely pruned. This method 
gives the tree an unnatural shape for 
the time being and spoils its immedi¬ 
ate effectiveness which is of course one 
of the very reasons for moving it at 
mid-summer. Sometimes the tree is 
stripped of its leaves. This has been 
found worthwhile in some cases but 
it again spoils the immediate effective¬ 
ness of the tree and its winter-like ap¬ 
pearance during the middle of the sum¬ 
mer is anything but pleasant. Some 
people do not seem to be annoyed at 
the appearance of a dead or dead-look¬ 
ing tree in the midst of abundant leaf¬ 
age while many think that even the 
late leafing of the sycamore and of the 
catalpa makes them objectionable for 
lawn planting. 
Some trees and shrubs will' lose their 
leaves at mid-summer planting just as 
they sometimes lose their tender new 
leaves in the spring transplanting. This 
does not often hurt them. They may 
recover their leafage during the sum¬ 
mer or wait until the next spring even 
before regaining their real beauty. Ru- 
gosa roses transplanted in August have 
lost their leaves and come into full 
leafage again during September. Pin 
oaks, beeches, hawthorns and red maples 
have been known to stand bare and 
bleak until the next spring without any 
injury. It is an interesting fact that 
summer transplanted trees and shrubs 
begin to color earlier and lose their 
leaves earlier than the shrubs around 
them. 
Sometimes, how'ever, the tree is 
{Continued on page 84) 
