The love of flowers, especially the rose, is universal, one of the simple but beautiful things of life that cannot be destroyed even by the mechanization, noise, and overcrowding of modern cities. The poorest home in a city slum will have its geranium, its hollyhock, its cactus or its wallflower, and usually its rose, struggling for existence perhaps, but bravely representing man's undying love for plants.

The word lawn comes from the Celtic word Launde or Lande, denoting an uncultivated or untilled and infertile area covered with ferns, broom or heath, certainly not the modern idea of what a lawn is or should be. Because this name conveyed the idea of an expanse of open space, the word gradually came to mean an open grassy glade in the forest.

It was in this sense that Tennyson spoke when he wrote, "Those long, rank dark wood walks, drenched in dew, leading from lawn to lawn.

The rose is, by general consent, the queen of flowers. This is acknowledged even by those who specialize in such flowers as dahlias, chrysanthemums, sweet peas, carnations and many others. Why this should be is not easy to explain because, after all, most flowers seen through the eyes of those who grow them have an equal claim to be the most beautiful, and yet who would deny the pre-eminence of the rose?

It can be truthfully said that the rose is the only plant with which a complete garden can be made.

There are few features in the garden that provide such a variety of interests in so little space as a well-planned and carefully planted rock garden. The smallest plot may contain a rock garden which will house a representative and charming collection of alpine plants; but, on the other hand, there are few features in the ordinary garden that are so neglected and so ill-understood.

When you buy a new house or decide to improve your old one, you are, of course, concerned with every foot of ground that goes with it. New methods of soil improvement, grading, fencing and terracing make even sloping, hilly lots, hitherto undesirable, now attractive and choice. Modern chemistry has brought new nutrients to the soil and has provided weapons against the traditional enemies of the garden: disease and insects.

The grower of orchids is favored above other men. He belongs to a starry-eyed fraternity, to whom each small chore, accomplished in its turn for the better culture of his orchids, is a source of never-ending and absorbing delight. The beauty of the orchid's line and color is known to all who bask in the offerings of the florist's window.

The appearance of each new growth and root is cause for rejoicing; the slimy mark of a snail or the cottony warning of the presence of scale is cause for distress.

Good basic house cleaning equipment is not expensive and no one can do a really good job without the proper tools. If you have been struggling along with beaten-up brooms and brushes and old-fashioned mops and pails, take inventory. Then investigate the prospects of new streamlined models.

STORAGE. Good equipment deserves proper care and storage.

Lots of heedless home owners believe that trees prune themselves and they should just leave it at that. Of course, they are quite right, too. Nature does see to it that trees shed members that have become excessive or shaded out or badly damaged. The forest floor is strewn with kindling wood. But the very fact that Nature does so provide only proves that pruning is necessary.

When people get ready to construct a beautiful backyard, they often forget to use what's already there. We get so preoccupied in developing the "perfect" yard that we are oblivious to the beauty lying in our own yard.

Every one cherishes his trees to some degree, but no one really thinks money grows on them. Between the most affluent, experienced owner and the most modest and inexperienced, prudence is a common denominator.

Within the wonderful world of trees lies another world - that of the organisms which harbor in trees as pests and parasites. Of these there is no end in numbers or variety. New home owners are scarcely to be blamed for becoming dismayed, as they often do, upon encountering one invader after another for the first time. This writer's counsel to clients undergoing such baptism has always been: Cheer up, few kinds of attack on trees are fatal.