September, i p 2 j 
43 
rhe 
HOUSE GARDEN 
BULLETIN BOARD 
L loyds, that remarkable British Company 
I which will take a bet on almost anything, has 
not, so far as we know, laid a wager on gardening. 
Imagine laying a bet like this: If I plant a peony 
garden this fall, what odds do you take against it 
giving me flower ne.xt INIay and June? Although 
Lloyds hasn’t done it, practically every gardener in 
the land lays just such odds with himself when he 
does his autumn work. Perhaps Lloyds hasn’t 
dared take that bet because the odds are so heavily 
against it. In order to make it a sure thing, we 
have a Fall Gardening Guide, published in October 
and these are a few of the subjects to be found in it: 
Plans and suggestions for a peony and iris garden. 
Imagine a little enclosure 16 ' x 20 ', or a great hillside 
planted to iris and peonies, to be the glory of spring! 
Robert S. Lemmon designed these gardens. 
Planting suggestions for a fragrant garden, ar¬ 
ranged by Elsa H. Rehmann. 
An outline of the necessary fall gardening work. 
A description of English cottage gardens and 
wherein lays their charm. 
Three pages of beautiful gardens—a tulip garden, 
a small formal garden and a garden for a small coun¬ 
try cottage. 
To these Richard Le Gallienne adds an essay on 
the garden, the best he has done on this delightful 
subject. 
For the reader who plans to build, Ernest I'homp- 
son Seton describes how he made his own house; 
Matlack Price prepares a questionnaire on remodel¬ 
ing old houses, two pages show a variety of enclo¬ 
sures and four houses of differing sizes and types 
display a wealth of suggestions. 
Nor is the third major topic of the magazine 
neglected, for in this issue will also be shown a stim¬ 
ulating Portfolio of Interiors, an article on corner 
furniture, rooms in silver and gold and some sug¬ 
gestions for concealing the telephone, a page of 
Spanish furniture besides two pages of articles se¬ 
lected by the House & Garden shoppers. 
L \ST month we mentioned the awakening inter- 
i est in Spanish furniture now evident among 
manufacturers of furniture and decorators. To this 
news we must add the fact that in England Regenc}^ 
furniture is enjoying quite a vogue. It is said that 
the King and Queen have accepted plans for the 
renovation of several palace rooms in the Regencj- 
taste. It may be that this style will come to us and, 
anticipating such a revival. House & Garden takes 
pleasure in presenting an article on Regency furni¬ 
ture in this issue. In the next issue, as noted before, 
there will be an appreciation of Spanish furniture 
and its usefulness and decorative possibilities in the 
modern American home. A year from now these 
two styles may be sought by every one who appre¬ 
ciates the latest taste in furniture. In anticipating 
this House & Garden gives its readers the first tip. 
That, incidentally, is one of our endeavors. .As 
Vogue anticipates the style in dress and Vanity Fair 
the style in the arts, so House & Garden serves its 
purpose in gardening, architecture and decoration. 
T LIE name of Jackson Thornton Dawson will 
always be held in grateful memory by those who 
know and love gardens. A great man in horticulture, 
a foremost propagator of woody plants in our coun¬ 
try, a pioneer in the field of hybridization, his good 
deeds follow him, not only at the Arnold Arboretum 
where he labored but in gardens throughout the 
world. It is fitting then that a tribute should be 
paid his memory. This tribute is taking the form of 
a fund to be placed with the trustees of the Massa¬ 
chusetts Horticultural Society, the interest of which 
is to be used for prizes, lectures and medals, or, as 
the trustees may direct, to commend and encourage 
the science and practise of hybridization and propa¬ 
gation of hard wooded plants. 
A nother inadequacy that strikes Americans 
. visiting England is the limited number of tele¬ 
phones in private houses. When one sends a mes¬ 
sage it is sent by telegraph. This process requires 
the services of several people and considerable time 
—the writing of the wire and its transmission to a 
telegraph central and the delivery of the wire at the 
other end. If there is an answer, the process has to 
be repeated. How much simpler it is merely to lift 
a telephone receiver and deliver the message direct, 
simpler in time and efforts. The telephone is a sym¬ 
bol of efficiency, a vehicle of indiscretion and a bless¬ 
ing by no means unmixed, connected up by countless 
wires with our every activity, both business and so¬ 
cial. It saves untold time, and in return exacts its 
toll of wasted time, for every unlicensed pest (who 
would never send his idle chatterings by messengers) 
can unhook a telephone transmitter anywhere he 
happens to be, and without let or hindrance rob 
you of fifteen or twenty minutes while he yammers 
aimlessly of this or that to while away some of hi.s 
own idleness. There remains yet to be written a 
work on “The Psychology of the Telephone,” and if 
someone does it, it will prove, no doubt, that the 
advantage of the instrument far outweighs its dis¬ 
advantages. Some become more truthful, others un¬ 
blushing liars by virtue of a few miles of wire; some 
become more courageous, others more cowardly 
than normal; some more polite, others more rude, 
again by virtue of a few miles of wire. Take away the 
telephone and most of us would have far fewer vain 
promises and downright lies to make good on, and 
our lives would thereby be purified and made 
simpler, but at the same time virtually all the 
business of living and working, as well as playing, 
would be slowed down and made more difficult. 
In this country, not a doubt of it, we live on the 
telephone, and if we were suddenly forced to become 
as chary of its use as the English, it would be as 
though we had been deprived of one of our cardinal 
senses. 
I T has been said that you may know a good gar¬ 
dener by the fact that he can mouth well in botani 
cal Latin. And yet there are readers who ask us why 
we bother with clumsy Latin names of flowers %vhen 
the common names are so much simpler, prettier 
and easier to remember. The answer, of course, 
is that common names are not common, they are 
local, whereas Latin names are universally used. 
There is Aconitum Napellus. Use that term, and 
gardeners in France, Italy, England, America and 
the farthest isle will understand what you mean. 
But you couldn’t expect them to know all the 
common names, of which a few are: Grandmother’s 
Nightcap, Helmet flower, Adam and Eve, Bear’s 
Foot, Cat’s Tail, Jacob’s Chariot, Jackie’s Match, 
Monk’s Cowl, Face-in-a-Hood, Cuckold’s Cap and 
IMonkshood. The humble Verbena masks under 
such common names as Holy Herb, Juno’s Tears 
and Mercury’s Moist Blood. Chieranthus Cheiri is 
called Gilliflower,Wall Flower, Jilliver, July Flower, 
Keyry and Heartsease. The Viola is also known as 
Heartsease; and therein lies another disadvantage of 
common names—-the same common name is applied 
to quite a number of different flowers. The Aquilegia 
is called Columbine and, in some localities, so is 
verbena officinalis. The Prim ula is known asHens and 
Chicks and so, by some people, is one of the Seduvis. 
By all means preserve local names, but do not 
scorn the universal tongue of botanical Latin. It 
will carry you where even Esperanto will not. 
T his paragraph should be called “Britain and 
Bathrooms”. It is apropos of an argument 
which has been conducted in London papers. Some 
old houses, it seems, were being remodeled into mod¬ 
ern apartments and the architects were planning, as 
is natural in this country, to provide a private bath 
to each flat. Then the storm broke. Indignant read¬ 
ers of the papers couldn’t understand why such 
valuable space was wasted. They suggested that 
one bathroom on each floor would be ample. Im¬ 
agine such a controversy arising in American papers! 
Imagine an architect planning a modern flat without 
a private bath! What amuses us about the incident 
is the fact that, of all the nations, the British lead in 
talking about their morning tubs and bathing in 
general and yet their provision for taking these 
baths is generally inadequate. 
¥ 
O F the authors, architects and decorators who 
contributed to this issue, a few names are new. 
Mr. Ralph Erskine is President of the Erskine, 
Danforth Corporation and Mrs. Elsie Sloan Farley 
is a decorator practising in New York. T. A. Wolfe 
is an English authority on period furniture. Ethel 
Davis Seal is a Philadelphia decorator and a writer 
on decorating. Phyllis Ackerman is an authority on 
wall coverings, her last book being “Wall Paper: Its 
History, Design and Use”. Montrose J. Moses, who 
has contributed before to House & Garden, is a 
dramatic critic and author of a long line of books on 
the drama, .'\nnette Hoyt Flanders is a landscape 
architect practising in New York. She has many 
gardens to her credit. Her photograph was shown 
on the Gardener’s Calendar page in July. Samuel 
Fraser is a well-known authority on fruit, living 
in Geneseo, New York. H. Stuart Ortloff is a land¬ 
scape architect, practising in New York. Mr. & 
Mrs. G. Glen Gould are well-known for their author¬ 
itative articles on art and furniture topics. Frank J. 
Forster, whose houses have appeared from time to 
time in these pages, is a New York architect. 
Finally, Charles Hanson Towne occupies the edi¬ 
torial page this month with an essay on little gar¬ 
dens. He will be remembered for his e.ssay on little 
houses in the July, 1922 . issue. 
