56 
House & Garden 
Estate of S. D. Van Rensselaer, Ft. Washington, Pa. 
How to Maintain Beautiful 
Lawns at Minimum Expense. 
F OR a number of years Ideal Power Lawn Mowers have 
been demonstrating their efficiency in caring for large lawns. 
Many of the largest and best kept grounds in the country are 
cared for the Ideal way. 
Because actual use by thousands of Ideal owners has shown 
conclusively that this combination power mower and power 
roller keeps beautiful lawns in better condition than was ever 
possible with hand mowers or horse drawn mowers. 
Not only does the Ideal permit better care, but also effects a genuine 
economy in up keep. For one man with an Ideal Power Mower can cut 
from four to five acres of grass per day with little effort and at small 
cost. Then the fact that the Ideal is also a power roller practically 
doubles its usefulness. 
It provides exactly what is needed for the early spring- rolling, and 
keeps the sod in excellent condition the season through. 
Ideal Power Mowers are used in caring for the grass on industrial 
grounds, private estates, public parks, cemeteries, golf courses, college 
grounds, school grounds, polo grounds, etc. Here are just a few names 
from the thousands of Ideal users: Archibald M. L. Dupont, Montchanin, 
Dela.; Dr. C. S. Hoover Alliance O.; Detroit Golf Club, Detroit, Mich.; 
Public Parks Dept., Hartford, Conn.; Cypress Lawn Cemetery, Colma, 
California. 
With riding trailer the Ideal makes one of the most practical and 
economical riding mowers possible to procure. Furnished either with or 
without riding trailer. 
Special putting green cutting unit c^n be provided for work on golf 
courses. 
Any of our dealers will gladly demonstrate the Ideal for you. Special 
illustrated catalog upon request. 
Ideal Power Lawn Mower Company 
R. E. OLDS, Chairman 
403 Kalamazoo St. Lansing, Mich. 
Chicago, Ill., 533 S. Dearborn St. 
New York, N. Y , 270 West St. 
Boston, Mass.. 52 N. Market St. 
Philadelphia, Pa., 709 Arch St. 
Los Angeles, Calif., 222 N. Los Angeles 
St. 
Portland, Ore., 55 N. Front St. 
Toronto, Canada, 17 Temperance St. 
Solomon B. Griffith Estate, Springfield, Mass 
^DBA-L p >ower lawn mower. 
Curtains That One Remembers 
(Continued from page 54) 
delicate pattern in the shimmering un¬ 
der-draperies. 
In a bedroom that had an all-over 
chintz paper, vivid blue taffeta hang¬ 
ings were used. This color brought out 
the blue in the wall paper and was the 
striking note the room needed. An¬ 
other room had striped blue and gold 
silk curtains against a blue wall and 
pale gold silk gauze glass curtains. The 
furniture was upholstered in blue velour 
and the lamps were bright yellow jars 
with parchment shades decorated in blue 
and black. This was a room where the 
blue walls were more than offset by 
the golden glow created by lamps, cur¬ 
tains and accessories. 
The hall is usually neglected, espe¬ 
cially if it is small and dark. I re¬ 
cently saw a hall that had been com¬ 
pletely changed and made attractive 
through the judicious use of paint and 
hangings. It was very dark so the walls 
were painted orange and the woodwork 
gray, striped in orange and green. At 
the one small window orange gauze 
Polishing Youi 
glass curtains were used with a gray 
and emerald green striped linen for 
over-draperies. This same linen cov¬ 
ered the two gray chairs on either side 
of a wrought iron console that had an 
old gilt mirror above it. The lighting 
fixtures were painted black. The small 
hall had become smart. 
Another hall had a mulberry and gray 
color scheme. The woodwork and walls 
were painted light gray and the hang¬ 
ings were a lovely shade of mulberry 
silk. A fitted valance was made of a 
mulberry, gray, green and black cre¬ 
tonne which also covered the chairs. 
The rug was a deeper shade of mul¬ 
berry and the lighting fixtures were dull 
silver. 
In all these rooms color was the 
dominant factor. Its great value in 
decoration lies in the fact that it makes 
for individuality and this, provided it 
is attractive and not merely freakish, 
is what we must aim for if our 
homes are to have distinction as well 
as charm. 
Water Supply 
(Continued from page 48) 
and how they are used. For example, 
coarse gravel as a medium through 
which to purify water might be good to 
take out bits of sediment—big bits— 
but it would not act on the bacteria. 
In general, the materials used in filters 
through which the water must pass 
to be purified are: sand, quartz, char¬ 
coal, cloth, paper, etc. Another class of 
filters passes the water through a bougis 
or candle made of unglazed porcelain 
(Kaolin), natural stone, artificial stone, 
asbestos, diatomaceous earth, etc. The 
pores through which the water flows 
catch the bacteria and sediment. 
With this list before us we must ask 
ourselves if we need only a strainer. 
Is our water free from bacilli? Have 
we a municipal chlorinating plant or 
filter plant? If so, any good filter 
will do to strain out suspended matter; 
but if we are very anxious to have per¬ 
fect water we cannot go wrong by hav¬ 
ing a filter which will catch bacteria 
which may have accidental entry, in any 
community whatever. 
If we know we have dirty water and 
no municipal plant we cannot be too 
careful as to what we use in rendering 
safe the water from well, stream or 
any other source. 
The most reliable faucet filter is the 
diatomaceous earthen candle type which 
is simply cleaned by brushing off its 
soft surface and boiling occasionally to 
kill furtive bacteria. The great draw¬ 
back to this type of filter is that it is 
not a reformer and cannot force the 
user to keep it clean. Therefore it is 
up to the user, and as its agent told the 
writer, “Filter use in a city like New 
York is a matter of temperament. Some 
people enjoy caring for a filter in order 
to make a splendid water supply fool¬ 
proof, others dislike the care and do 
not mind the slight risk in any city 
water supply or the discoloration that 
is often inherent.” 
Filters, whether installed or attached 
to faucets, are built to fit the occasion. 
It is interesting to realize that nearly 
every fine home in New York, especially 
on Fifth Avenue, has a filter, despite 
the city’s excellent water supply. Not 
so much to save life, as it so often 
does owing to frequent invasions of 
germs into even excellent water, but for 
the feeling of clean, unflavored, unfishy, 
unwoody water and for the insurance 
of long life of the plumbing system— 
and to save deterioration in plumbing 
is a thing devoutly to be wished. 
Sand or quartz is the usual medium 
foi filtration in the home. Bone char is 
often added to them to destroy taste, 
for there is nothing as disagreeable as 
water with a decided taste. 
There are a few filters today which 
when installed in the cellar consist of 
one or two vertical tanks attached to 
the water supply. In one tank is quartz 
through which the water passes and in 
the other is bone char to carry away 
flavor. 
In one case the filter has a simole 
lever which when set at a certain spot 
on the dial washes out the filter beds 
and frees them from contamination. 
As the impurities in the water are 
removed by a filter they accumulate in 
a mass or cake on top of the filter bed. 
If this cake or matted formation is not 
broken up and thoroughly disintegrated, 
it will roll up during the washing process 
and not only clog but contaminate a 
filter bed, utterly destroying its effi¬ 
ciency as a purifying medium, steadily 
diminishing the water supply. Hence a 
cutting plate is placed immediately 
above the bed of quartz. As soon as 
the operating lever is moved to the 
point “Washing”, the washing current 
is introduced at the bottom of the filter, 
the filter bed is lifted bodily upward 
and forced through the cutter, which 
literally tears the matted film of im¬ 
purities into fragments. At the same 
time it thoroughly breaks up the bed, 
separates and perfectly scours each grain 
of filtering material, by the force of the 
reverse current of water in a space 
twice the size it occupies during the 
filtering process. 
The impurities having been separated 
from the bed and broken up into mi¬ 
nute particles are carried out of the filter 
through the waste pipe by the reverse 
current of water. During this process 
a screen at the top of the filter pre¬ 
vents the filtering material quartz from 
escaping out of the filter. 
In this way by the least effort—the 
turn of a handle—once a week—the 
filter becomes a boon and not a menace. 
After the cleaning process is over, a 
matter of from ten to twenty minutes, 
the lever is turned to another point 
“designated in the bond” and the filter 
goes back to normal. The agitated sand 
and char are calmed down and ready 
to chasten the next lot of water. 
In some localities where the water 
(though it may be chlorinated and bac- 
teria-free) is dark and turbid and full 
of the finest sediment, the usual sand 
or quartz (even with the tiniest of 
spaces between the grains) cannot pre- 
(Continued on page 58) 
