60 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
And Now Find Out About 
U-Bar Greenhouses 
NEW CANAAN NURSERIES 
We have a large assortment of all kinds of 
Nursery Stock, and now is the time when 
one can see Trees and Plants in leaf and 
flower, to make plans for Fall planting. 
We will assist you if you will send a 
card and get our Catalogue D and tell us 
your wants. 
STEPHEN HOYT’S SONS CO., 
Tel. 79-2, New Canaan, Conn. 
Smoky 
Fireplaces 
Made to 
Draw 
No payment accepted 
unless successful 
Also expert services on 
general chimney work 
FREDERIC N. WHITLEY 
Engineer and Contractor 
219 Fullon Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
T^HERE is not a greenhouse 
-*■ like a U-Bar Greenhouse. 
They are constructed distinctly differ¬ 
ent. 
That difference means more and better 
flowers, vegetables or fruits. 
The gardener who has charge of this 
U-Bar constructed house at Bar Harbor, 
says: 
“In spite of the fact that this house is 
in a somewhat shaded position, it gets 
results ahead of all the other houses 
around here built in the old way.” 
Results are what you are after. 
Send for our catalogue or send for us. Why not 
do both, and find out exactly why U-Bar houses 
are the superior houses they are. 
THE HEATING OF 
UBAR GREENHOUSES 
PIERSON U-BAR CO 
ONE MADISON AVE. NEW YORK. 
Canadian Office: 10 Phillips Place, Montreal 
Kitchen or Pantry Dresser Systems Studied and Laid Out 
FAULTLESS IRON WORKS 
Showrooms : 133 West 44th Street, New York 
175 West Jackson Blvd. 
Chicago, Ill. 
Factory 
St. Charles, Illinois 
Lighting the Old House and the New 
(Continued from page 58) 
little more to adapt an old house to 
new methods than it does to plan the 
lighting system for a new dwelling. 
It is, however, not only possible, but 
so simple that many times it is hardly 
necessary to move the furniture dur¬ 
ing the change. This seems unbeliev¬ 
able, but the writer has personally 
tried the experiment and knows that 
it is true. 
Some of the most commonly de¬ 
sired changes in an old house are apt 
to be provision for baseboard and 
floor outlets since the average al¬ 
ready-built house is usually fitted for 
ceiling and wall fixtures, but has lit¬ 
tle provision for the attachment of 
labor-saving devices or portables. 
There are, however, old houses 
that date back to the Colonial period 
which, when they were modernized 
and wired for electricity, were not 
provided with ceiling outlets but 
were fitted with wall fixtures to carry 
out the quaint Colonial treatment by 
means of imitation sconces. 
To provide for such changes the 
science of electrical engineering has 
invented a process known as “fish¬ 
ing” the wires, which eliminates the 
necessity of tearing out a wall or 
floor to get at them. 
The electrician has a long, flexible 
flat steel wire which he calls a 
“snake.” This he cleverly manipu¬ 
lates in and out and up and down 
through the open spaces between 
beams in the walls and under floors. 
Then he uses the “snake” to pull 
through the wires in their flexible 
conduits. These wires thus heavily 
protected are run from one little hole 
to another connecting all the fixtures, 
switches and baseboard receptacles 
to the circuit wires, and wherever 
one wire is joined to another it is 
soldered, wrapped with insulation and 
covered with conduit. This whole 
process means merely the taking up 
of a single board in the floor of some 
room, cutting a neat hole in ceiling, 
side-wall or baseboard, covering the 
holes after the wires have been drawn 
through and connected either by 
screwing on a switch plate or install¬ 
ing a fixture. So cleverly is this now 
accomplished that there is little work 
for the vacuum cleaner after the 
workman is through. 
With gas, while the process is nat¬ 
urally somewhat different because of 
the fact that piping is used, the same 
general methods are employed with 
practically the same results. 
Realizing then how simply these 
desirable changes can be effected, 
lighting fixtures need no longer be 
considered as fixtures—lights that 
are fixed, in contrast to portables— 
lights that can be moved. Fixtures 
can now be readily removed and 
others substituted or they can be en¬ 
tirely removed and the openings 
closed and covered without disfigur¬ 
ing the ceiling or wall and at such a 
very slight cost that it does not pay 
to “get along” with what you have at 
the possible expense of your own and 
your family’s eyes and general com¬ 
fort. 
In the interim, however, while one 
is deciding upon what changes to 
have made, buying new fixtures and 
providing for a general revolution 
in the lighting scheme of the already- 
built home, there are certain tempor¬ 
ary lighting transformations that one 
can make without expert assistance. 
These are correcting bad bracket 
lights, changing a direct to a semi- 
indirect fixture and otherwise making 
wrong lighting conditions acceptable 
until they can be completely corrected 
by the installation of new methods. 
These suggestions apply either to 
electricity or to gas and have to do 
largely with the substitution of 
proper glassware and the addition of 
certain little temporary sight-saving 
devices that one can easily adjust. 
For instance, an overhead pendant 
fixture can be converted into the 
semi-indirect method for electricity 
by first removing the shade and sub¬ 
stituting a small bowl of specially 
designed translucent glassware cost¬ 
ing $1.50. This inexpensive but effi¬ 
cient device merely hooks on to the 
shade frame, thus concealing the 
light source from the eyes and throw¬ 
ing it upward against the ceiling. 
The same bowl is used with gas, sub¬ 
stituting for the ordinary inverted 
mantle a new mantle group espe¬ 
cially invented for the semi-indirect 
method, consisting of a cluster of 
three small inverted mantles which 
give efficient light and take up little 
space. 
Similarly, with gas, an upright open 
flame burner can be easily replaced 
with new small upright mantle lights, 
shaded with semi-indirect glassware 
or silk shades. 
Correcting bad bracket lighting 
with electricity depends upon the pur¬ 
pose for which one wishes to use the 
light. If the fixture is merely a part 
of the decorative scheme, the light 
source, whether for gas or electricity, 
should be completely concealed from 
view behind screens of fabric so 
thick in quality that the fabric is 
merely luminous and not transparent. 
If the fixture must serve a practical 
purpose it may be fitted with shades 
of semi-indirect glassware, the best 
for this purpose being tinted a deli¬ 
cate ivory and of a design that flares 
widely at the top, permitting the ceil¬ 
ing to do part of the work of diffu¬ 
sion. 
Conservatories for the Modern House 
( Continued, from page 47) 
9' x 17', with heating apparatus, boiler 
and fittings all complete, can be had 
from greenhouse architects for $500. 
Without heat it costs $425. 
There are points to consider in 
greenhouse construction that do not 
arise when building for other pur¬ 
poses. The glass must be of double 
thickness and not contain any “burn¬ 
ing” pieces that will scorch plants. 
The frames must be absolutely rigid, 
to prevent breakage in glass; the ma¬ 
terials must be of the best to obviate 
warping, leaks and draughts, and all 
the parts must be perfectly fitted to¬ 
gether. Unskilled work and care¬ 
lessly selected materials in the mak¬ 
ing of a greenhouse bring about con¬ 
stant expenses and losses to the 
owner, so that prudent persons en¬ 
deavor to economize in other ways 
than in greenhouse materials, and the 
same applies to conservatories. 
Relief from domestic labor affords 
women more time than they ever be¬ 
fore enjoyed, and many have sought 
diversion in cultivating plants for 
pleasure as well as for profit and 
with an eye to the decorative side of 
floriculture. Not a few such experi¬ 
menters among plants have sug¬ 
gested practical decorative improve- 
