86 
House & Garden 
Watch the Luster 
HOSPITALITY FOR BIRDS 
ERNEST INGERSOLL 
Come Back to Your Teeth 
All Statcjiicnts A[>provcd by Ilic/li Dental Authorities 
The Cloud is Due to Film 
When pearly teeth grow 
clingy they are coated with a 
film. 
There is on all teeth a 
slimy film, ever-present, ever- 
forming. It clings to teeth, gets 
between the teeth and stays. 
Brushing in the usual way 
does not end this film. That is 
why so many teeth discolor 
and decay. Most tooth 
troubles are now traced to 
film. 
That film is what discolors 
—not the teeth. It is the basis 
of tartar. It holds food sub¬ 
stance which ferments and 
forms acid. It holds the acid 
in contact with the teeth to 
cause decay. 
Millions of germs breed in 
it. They, with tartar, are the 
chief cause of pyorrhea. 
Now We Combat It 
Dental science, after years 
of searching has found a way 
to combat this film. Able au¬ 
thorities have proved this by ' 
many careful tests. Leading i 
dentists all over America are j 
now urging its adoption. i 
For home use the method ! 
is embodied in a dentifrice 
called Pepsodent. And all 
who ask are sent a ten-day 
test to show them what it 
does. 
Based On Pepsin 
Pepsodent is based , on pepsin, 
the digestant of albumin. The 
film is albuminous matter. The 
object of Pepsodent is to dissolve 
it, then to constantly combat it. 
A recent discovery makes this 
method possible. Pepsin must be 
activated, and the usual agent is \ 
an acid harmful to the teeth. But ] 
science has now found a harmless ! 
activating method. Now active 
pepsin can be constantly applied. 
Pepsodent is now doing for mil¬ 
lions of teeth what nothing else 
has done. We urge you to see 
what it does for your teeth. Com¬ 
pare it with the old-time methods 
and judge the results for yourself. 
The test is free. Make it for 
your sake and your children’s 
sake. Cut out the coupon now. * 
The New-Day Dentifrice 
Druggists everywhere are supplied with large tubes 
296 
Ten-Day Tube Free 
THE PEPSODENT COMPANY, Dept. 28, 
1104 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago, 111. 
Mail 10-Day Tube of Pepsodent to 
Name . 
Address . 
i Watch the Results 
; For Ten Days 
■ Send this coupon for a 
I 10-Day tube. Note how 
* clean the teeth feel after 
, using. Mark the absence of 
I the slimy film. See how 
• the teeth whiten as the 
3 fixed film disappears. 
AN almost forgotten pastoral by a 
New England poet of the last 
generation, Wilson Flagg, paints 
in tender tones a picture of the rustic 
home of "a gentle matron named 
Content”: 
“Placed on a gentle slope her cottage 
stood, 
Sequestered sweetly from the winds 
and flood, 
-■\nd o’er its roof an old ancestral tree 
In summer spread its leafy canopy. 
Down on its slender boughs—aerial 
guest— 
The golden hangbird wove its pensile 
nest. 
There sang the birds their earliest 
morning lays 
.\nd charmed anew the daylight’s 
parting rays." 
The picture of an old-fashioned gar¬ 
den like that is not complete without 
its birds. Robins nervously foraging 
on the lawn, one eye and ear scanning 
the turf for sight or sound of a white 
grub gnawing at the grass-roots, the 
other watchful for cat or hawk; cat¬ 
birds creeping furtively about the rock¬ 
ery; red thrashers courting with ridicu¬ 
lous coquetry where paths intersect; 
goldfinches haunting the lettuce-bed or 
clinging like acrobats to swaying flower- 
stalks; orioles and tanagers that glow 
like jewels as they search the apple- 
blossoms; bluejay and kingbird perched 
in princely dignity on fence-post or 
arbor; emerald-and-ruby hummingbirds 
probing the depths of the golden trum¬ 
pets that half-screen the porch—all 
these and more naturally belong to the 
scene memory paints on the tablet of 
our recollection as we think of youth¬ 
ful days in grandmother's garden. 
Somehow this picture seems not to 
belong to the present. The chiming 
of June bird-music does not seem to 
mingle so intimately with our joy in 
the grouping and color and fragrance 
of the modern floral display; and ever 
in the background is the specter of 
malignant things gnawing at root and 
leaf and blossom. Doubtless these 
devils entered into the older Edens, but 
they did not then appear to be, and 
perhaps were not so evil as now. 
Scarcity of Birds 
Our modern gardens have regular 
parterres, formal paths and borders, and 
clean and orderly ways, instead of the 
picturesque informality of the old 
times; and one would suppose that 
present methods would insure greater 
safety from insect ravages—but some¬ 
how they don’t! To my mind this is 
explained by the comparative scarcity 
of birds, and this in turn is owing to 
the fact that scientific horticulture pro¬ 
duces conditions far less attractive to 
the feathered insect-hunters than did 
the careless gardening of our gran’- 
dames. 
Now it often happens that while man 
is suppressing nature for the sake of his 
“improvements,” nature is resisting in 
precisely equal degree, for every time 
a farmer cuts the timber off an acre 
of land, he lets in sunlight that stimu¬ 
lates weeds to grow for his vexation; 
and every time he plants an acre of 
grain, or “could make two ears of corn 
or two blades of grass to grow upon a 
spot of ground where only one grew 
before,” as Dean Swift wrote, he kindly 
produces so much additional food for 
native insects; and when to, these he 
has added introduced foreigners, nature 
has often got the better of the fight. 
But let us stick to one small phase 
of this mighty and ceaseless conflict— 
the relation between birds and house¬ 
hold gardening. 
An Army of Insects 
The gardener buries seeds and sets 
out plants and nourishes fruit-bearing 
shrubs and trees. This is simply pre¬ 
paring a feast for insects. Innumerable 
beetle-grubs, cutworms, borers, aphids, 
ants, and various flies and caterpillars, 
attack roots and tubers. The plant 
stems are preyed upon by sapsucking: 
bugs, ants, plant-lice, beetles, grass¬ 
hoppers, and other destroyers. The 
leaves are eaten by a great variety of 
bugs as well as by hosts of. different 
caterpillars that defoliate bushes and 
trees, while grasshoppers and locusts 
devour grasses and grains, and beetles, 
bugs, and caterpillars together bring] 
cultivated vegetables and fruit to 
naught. 
.Against this multimischievous and 
tireless army the gardener is almost 
powerless. His tools and poisons help 
him some; toads, mice, and tiger-bee¬ 
tles dispose of a fraction of his enemies; 
and parasitic ichneumons work as hard 
in his garden as elsewhere to increase 
their own race at the cost of other in¬ 
sects. Matters would be worse were it 
not for the activity of these agencies in 
his favor, but the horticulturist has been 
{Continued on page 88) 
An important means of attracting birds is a provision for drink¬ 
ing water and bathing. The bird bath is a legitimate art object 
in garden decoration 
