110 
House & Garden 
FREE! 
A can of Old English Wax 
will be given free, for a 
short time, with every Old 
Englis It Waxes- Polisher. 
The Waxer-Polisher is a 
new labor-saving device that 
does two things—it waxes, 
then polishes the floor. A 
great improvement over any 
weighted brush, which doe's 
not apply the wax but merely 
polishes. Lasts a lifetime, 
if your dealer can’t supply 
you. take advantage of our 
short-time offer. Mail 
the coupon below. 
Now is the time 
to get at your floors 
Give them the rich, lustrous finish you 
have so often admired in other homes. 
You can do it quickly and easily. 
Old English Wax brings out' the hidden 
charm of the- wood in a mellow, velvet)’ 
lustre. Such a finish is hard, lasting, and 
proof against scratches and heel-marks. 
Once waxed, the floors will retain their 
beauty for a lifetime, with only an occa¬ 
sional “touching up” of the places most used. 
Wax floors the new, easy way 
Just as easily as you push a carpet-sweeper, so can 
you use the Old English Waxer-Polisher. It does 
two things—waxes and then polishes the floor. Of 
course, a soft cloth will always be a satisfactory way 
to apply wax and polish the floor. But the \Vaxer- 
The A. S. Boyle Co., 2100 Dana Ave., Cincinnati, O. 
□ Send me your free book. “Beautiful Floors, 
Woodwork, and Furniture—Their Finish and Care." 
□ Send me. all charges paid, an Old English 
Waxer-Polisher with a Can of Wax Free at the 
special time-limited price, $2.50 (Denver and 
West, $4.00; Canada, $4.50; Winnipeg and West, 
$5.00), which I enclose. 
Mail Coupon for Free book 
Filled from cover to cover with informa¬ 
tion that every housewife should have. 
Explains the proper treatment for floors, 
woodwork, furniture, linoleum, etc. Shows 
how simply and economically you can have 
permanently beautiful floors. All expert 
advice based on over 25 years' experience. 
Get Old English products at your paint, 
hardware, drug, house-furnishing, or de¬ 
partment store. Or write us direct. 
At least mail the coupon now for the free 
book. 
Name. 
Address. 
Poggio A. Cajano, from the garden, a palace designed from C osimo the El¬ 
der. It is one of many types illustrated in "Villas of Florence and Tuscany ” 
On House & Garden’s Book Shelf 
(Continued from page 108) 
phases are now put out in permanent 
form between covers—bright red covers. 
And this brilliant red is symbolic of 
the writing beneath. The average house¬ 
hold article is as dull as dishwater; 
we often wondered why anyone ever 
read them. When Miss Peyser began 
writing for House & Garden her in¬ 
structions were that, in addition to 
being authentic, her copy must attract 
and hold the interest of readers. She 
has done this admirably. Her articles 
have been a successful feature in 
House & Garden, and constitute one of 
the factors in its healthy and steady 
ad;vancement. But it has taken a 
quick twist of the pen, an. almost Hou- 
dini-like touch to make the subject 
of pinks readable, to catch and hold 
interest with pots and pans, to cast 
such a glamor around kitchen knives 
that you forthwith want to go out and 
buy a lot of them. 
This is the artistry that makes 
“Cheating The Junk Pile” an eminently 
readable book. The title, of course, 
establishes her thesis. It is one thing 
to acquire household equipment and 
quite another to maintain it in such 
a perfect state that it will serve all 
its purposes. Consequently, you are 
not only told the knives that you ought 
to have, but how to sharpen them and 
how to hang them up so that they will 
keep in good condition and be handy; 
you are not only told what to expect 
from ice-making machines, but how to 
handle them so they will be of con¬ 
stant service; electricity in the home is 
made so plain to you that you can be 
your own repair man. But, the author’s 
idea, of course, is to keep the junk 
pile as small as she can. “Ignorance 
in buying is the junk pile’s subsis¬ 
tence,” she says. It is a book of house¬ 
hold fore-knowledge. Following its 
instructions the purchaser cannot go 
wrong. In all modesty we recommend 
this as the Bible among kitchen books. 
B E Your Own Decorator, bv 
Emily Burbank, Dodd, Mead & 
Co. Miss Burbank has the cour¬ 
age of a very commendable conviction. 
She believes that the average educated 
woman in America has sufficient taste, 
with the assistance of such a book she 
has written, to be her own decorator. 
Unquestionably that is true. While as a 
whole the American people cannot be 
said to have made much progress in the 
past ten years, this last decade has seen 
an unusual advancement in the average 
taste. The mediums through which this 
taste is disseminated—the schools, maga¬ 
zines and books—have set themselves a 
constantly increasing standard. To meet 
this rising average standard and to help 
maintain it Miss Burbank has written 
a decoration book that for simplicity 
has few equals. 
It is also, so far as we know—and we 
read most of the decorating books—the 
most human on the subject. It is the 
first book which has come to our atten¬ 
tion in which the man of the household 
has been given the slightest attention. 
The instruction not to place fancy 
padded coat hangers in a man’s closet 
ought to go a long way toward helping 
martial felicity in this country. In 
fact, the author's acquaintance with a 
man’s likes and dislikes is both amusing 
and amazing. 
Nor have we ever seen a decorating 
book which took into account in so 
helpful a way the needs of an, old 
lady, an old gentleman and servants. 
The book opens with five excellent 
chapters—How to Analyze a Room, 
How to Recognize the Points of Beauty 
in a Room, Sorting Your Possessions, 
and Placing Your Furniture, After this 
the problems of the individual rooms 
with their accessories are considered. 
There are also practical chapters on how 
to stencil, how to dye, how to make 
lamp-shades and how to arrange man¬ 
tels, mirrors and pictures. The chapter 
on Chintzes and Cretonnes contains some 
excellent advice, especially in the hand¬ 
ling of figured materials. Toward the 
end of the book Miss Burbank considers 
such subjects as The Art of Shopping, 
The Furniture Periods and Periods in 
Color Schemes, and some don’ts and 
questions on decorating generally. 
Parts of the material in this book have 
appeared in House & Garden. A great 
deal of it might have appeared, because 
it is excellent in taste and practical in 
presentation, but we must disagree with 
Miss Burbank on several points. In her 
desire to be helpful we think she has 
advised the use of things which will 
not wear and some things are in ques¬ 
tionable taste. A dressing table made 
from a packing box is all very simple 
and economical, but people who would 
read and follow the advice in this book 
(Continued on page 112) 
