100 
House Garden 
A Mahogany Suite 
of Rare Qrace 
at Alodest Cost 
Were Heppelwhite at work today, 
he might design just such a lovely 
bedroom suite as “The Drayton.” 
Other pieces available, in 
addition to those sketched 
and priced, are tivin beds, 
water-stand, chair and 
standing toilet for the 
chiffonier. 
This shop-mark is inset in 
every Uerkey & Gay pro¬ 
duction. It is the custom¬ 
er’s protection when buy¬ 
ing and his pride ever after 
It is fashioned of that beautiful wood 
in the use of which he was most expert— 
mahogany—set off by inlays of acacia burl 
and ebonized ornamentation. It has the 
perfect proportions, the lightness, the 
graceful simplicity of line that distin¬ 
guished his productions — and that make 
them as admired today as when, a century 
and a quarter ago, he furnished Drayton 
Manor, home of the illustrious English 
statesman, Sir Robert Peel. 
To the toilet table mirror, his charac¬ 
teristic shield shape gives a delightfully 
distinctive note — the sort that endows a 
room with “personality.” And, with its 
drop-leaf ends, this toilet table achieves 
more than ordinary utility as well. So, 
too, in the several other members of the 
suite, convenience and charm unite 
harmoniously. 
You may purchase these exquisite 
Berkey & Gay pieces at prices as low as 
true economy will permit you to pay! 
These prices, quoted below, are uniform 
throughout the United States. To them 
your merchant will add freight from 
Grand Rapids, Michigan. 
Bed . . $ 80 Chiffonier . $115 
Bureau . $165 ToiletTable . $100 
Bench.$15 
New York Wholesale 
Showroom: 
115 West 40th Street 
(Admittance by letter from 
your merchant or decorator) 
See “The Drayton” this month at your Berkey 
& Gay merchant’s! Write for brochure illustrating 
and describing this suite. It will be sent on request, 
together with name of your nearest dealer. 
Berkey & Gay Furniture Company 
444 MONROE .WENUE, GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIG.AN 
Berkey & Gay 
FURNITURE 
FOOTLIGHTS AND FURNITURE 
{CoHlimicd Ji 
acters to the actual homes, or clubs or 
department stores; puts them inside a 
moving train or on the deck of a real 
steamer; takes them to the desert or to 
Mentone; shows you, the observer, a real 
wood or a real torrent of water. Pic- 
torially the moving picture can be exact 
as a Kodak is exact. But even here the 
producer has to do a bit of selection; for 
what he is after is an agreeable picture; 
he wants vistas and perspectives. He can 
get these without any thought of canvas 
and expense. He can take you upstairs 
and downstairs, through successive rooms, 
onto balconies; he can sj^eed you through 
towns and highways. By the side of the 
reel, the drama is static pictorially. All 
the more reason thatwhat there is of back¬ 
ground on the stage should add warmly 
to the spiritual content of the play. 
The newly decorated house that looks 
new, that creaks with unused furniture, 
that looks white with unused linen, that 
has vases unfilled, books unopened, clocks 
unwound, windows unlocked, curtains 
not drawn, beds unslcpt in, piano un¬ 
touched, cigarette-box unbroken, is nei¬ 
ther a home nor a stage set. The interior 
decorator’s object is to give the place the 
comfortable feeling of having been lived 
in. The stage decorator knows that his 
characters have lived in these rooms many 
years before the curtain rose. The human 
problem flows through each. You see I'm 
considering only that type of play which 
is drawn from common environment; not 
the drama of abstract values, of poetic 
content, of romantic background. Here 
the stage decorator’s realm is vast, his 
creative ability taxed to its uttermost. 
In such drama, housekeeping on the stage 
departs entirely from the kind of house¬ 
keeping we have around us daily. 
'0111 page 98) 
I can imagine a stage director and a 
dramatist going into a regular home and 
drawing therefrom a play. “Madame”, 
says the stage director, “it’s not necessary 
to throw your best china dishes at your 
husband in your incompatibility scene. 
Remember that you have to do it for 
fifty or a hundred nights, and those plates 
cost ten dollars a piece”. “But that’s 
what really happens here”, says the 
heroine in her one thousand dollar even¬ 
ing gown—which maj' actually cost as 
much on the stage, for our feminine 
audiences go to the theater to look at the 
actress as they look at a store mannikin. 
“Yes”, explains the stage manager, “but 
this is not the real thing; it’s only pre¬ 
tend”! “In the meantime might I sug¬ 
gest”, interposes the dramatist, “how 
this quarrel really began”. “I know”, 
pouts the heroine in the real home. “Yes, 
but the audience doesn’t”, declares the 
dramatist. 
Don’t you see ho\v far apart the drama 
is from life, and yet how vitally suggestive 
it can be of life, if only the dramatist and 
the stage director and scenic designer 
work together. The stage room is fur¬ 
nished for a night, or a season, to repre¬ 
sent a room that to the characters has 
existed for a generation or more. It never 
sees the sunlight, but exists beneath the 
rays of lamps; it is swung hither and 
thither, set and reset. Through its doors 
characters pass to life or death, yet only 
actorsinmake-upmove hither and thither. 
You are not asked to step on the stage 
and ha\e a cup of tea with Ihe cast; you 
are not asked for a friendly smoke with 
the hero—who often makes me long for 
my pipe. Yet with all this difference, 
the stage is the ver.v nearest thing to life 
there is in the whole realm of art. 
PUTTING ON A 
A n obvious evolution of the wide- 
. spread organization of Garden Clubs 
is the desire to hold a flower show in con¬ 
nection with the season’s meetings and 
activities. A flower show properly organ¬ 
ized and efficiently conducted is unques¬ 
tionably a powerful stimulus to better 
gardening. 
It incites a spirit of friendly' rivalry 
among the members and furnishes a 
means whereby their garden products may' 
be classified, arranged and judged as to 
their relative merits or superiority. 
The best that skill can produce is 
always an excellent object lesson and 
finds its expression in greater efforts to 
bring one’s own garden products up to the 
high standard of those that have been 
awarded premiums for merit. 
Since the majority opinion undoubtedly' 
favors the flower show it is needless to 
further argue the question of desirability. 
We are going to have shows and more 
shows and there is a need for knowledge 
as to how to organize and operate them, 
if we are to “hold them true to honest 
purpose” and make them really' worth 
while. 
Behind the great New York Flower 
Show which has become one of the events 
of the year is an organization which plans 
and perfects its purposes far in advance, 
hence the apparent smoothness of opera¬ 
tion. Proper organization is fundamental 
and just as needful for a small show as a 
large one. It makes for order and system, 
inspires the confidence alike of the ex¬ 
hibitors who make the show and of the 
public who visit it. 
First there should be appointed a spe¬ 
cial Flower Show committee which on 
meeting should elect a chairman and 
secretary, this last officer to keep a com- 
FLOWER SHOW 
plete record of all transactions. The date 
of the show having been decided upon, 
this committee, or if more desirable a 
sub-committee thereof, should proceed to 
prepare a schedule of classes for competi¬ 
tion, which of course would be arranged in 
accordance with such flowers or garden 
products as are likely to be available at 
the date of the projected show. Just 
what these classes are, will,inthe main,be 
governed by local conditions. 
Certain flowers will be dominant in one 
locality, others in another, often by reason 
of special adaptability or climatic condi¬ 
tion. In a general way', however, the 
membership of any' Club giving a Flower 
Show will naturally' be well informed as to 
the particular flowers to be featured. My 
observation from such Garden Club 
shows I have visited tends to the conclu¬ 
sion that their competitions are among 
members only'. It might be well to have 
some non-member classes and invite 
exhibits from smaller gardens as, for 
example, a vase of Asters, IMarigolds or 
Zinnias. This would be a distinct en¬ 
couragement and widen the field of pos¬ 
sible participants. 
Having decided upon the nature and 
number of classes in which competition is 
invited, be most explicit in the specifica¬ 
tion of details, as for example one spike or 
sjrray' or individual bloom, or three or six, 
so that every' entry in competition com¬ 
petes on an ecjuality' of number. In 
classes calling for a display' of any' one 
variety' of flowers, or of any' number of 
varieties, state e.xactly the amount of 
square feet of table or ground space such 
e.xhibits are to occupy as this places all 
entrants on an equal basis and admits of 
competent judgment. 
{Continued on page 112) 
