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DUMB WAITERS FOR SMALL HOMES
  All of the perennial class thrives from
June seeding. And although these plants do
not flower until the second year after ger-
mination, they offer, perhaps, the best solu-
tion of the flower problem for the busy
housewife. Yes, it will pay to plant peren-
nials, for after these plants have become
once established they are fixtures in the
garden and one need give no special thought
to the flowering scheme. In spite of neg-
lect or the thousand-and-one things that
may interfere, the planting of perennials
will mean a never-failing flower display.
THE USEFULNESS OF THE
DUMB WAITER FOR SMALL
HOMES
WELLERS in city apartments are
        so accustomed to the dumb waiter
        which forms a part of their kitchen
        or kitchenette equipment, that both
its presence and efficiency are taken as a
matter of course. But in the ordinary pri-
vate house-except where the owner is quite
wealthy and many servants are kept-a
dumb waiter is not even thought of.
  Strange as this fact may seem it is readily
accounted for. We have used our practical
inventions, our up-to-date labor-saving de-
vices in the interests of the financial enter-
prises of the cities, and tried to overcome
the discomforts of congested population and
make life at least livable in its sunless and
airless homes, by the adoption of many me-
chanical contrivances. But we have over-
looked the fact that the families who live
in smaller private houses in our towns, sub-
urbs and outlying farm districts could also
derive a great deal of help and satisfaction
from the installation of some of the devices
which the city person considers indispensa-
ble to hygiene and comfort. We have stud-
ied and an)ulied the principles of economy
and efficiency in the management of our
business, in the equipment of our factories,
stores, restaurants, public utilities, but it is
onlv recently that we have discovered that
such principles are equally applicable to
the simpler problems of our homes. We
are finding out that the devices which facili-
tate the labor of the janitress and add to the
comfort of the tenants in a six-story city
apartment house, would be equally wel-
comed by the housewife, servants and fam-
ily in a two- or three-story private dwelling.
  Think what a help it would be for the
mother of the family who does her own
housework-and nowadays such women
form a great majority-if she could have
a small dumb waiter installed in her
kitchen! How much back-aching work of
carry up and down stairs it would save her,
how much time and energy it would con-
serve. Cellar stairs are apt to be poor af-
fairs at the best, generaUy much too steep
for ease or safety, and almost invariably
they are badly lighted. The task of bring-
ing up a heavy scuttle of coal or kindling
for the fires, or taking down the ashes and
garbage (for the menfolk often are not
there to help), the storing and fetching up
of potatoes, apples and other vegetables,
trays of jelly glasses and canned fruit-all
the countless carrying and climbing that a
housewife's daily round of labor involves-
could be simplified by the use of a dumb
waiter.
  The various types of dumb waiters upon
the market are designed for many different
kinds of uses, for light loads and rapid fre-
quent service, and for heavy and less fre-
quent work, the prices and the expense of
installation varying, of course, accordingly.
With each outfit the manufacturer supplies
drawings and directions for its proper in-
stallation. As one authority puts it, "sat-
isfactory results from the installation of
hand power elevators and dumb waiters de-
pend first upon the selection of an outfit
suitable to the conditions and requirements
and second upon the proper installation of
the outfit selected."
  With one of these useful, step-saving de-
vices in the house, and the additional com-
fort of whatever other mechanical aids the
owner can afford which will put the domes-
tic system on an economical and scientific
basis, the housewife should find her work
both easier and more agreeable. And at the
end of the day, instead of feeling too tired
and nervous with the drudgery of house-
work done under difficulties to relax and
enjoy the "fruits of labor," she would be
able to take part in all the interests of the
little evening reunion, in the quiet of dusk
and in the pleasant social hours after the
lamps are lit.
  In a house where there are many children
to be cared for or where there is an invalid
who may not have the inestimable blessing
of a trained nurse, a dumb waiter pays for
itself many times over in the comfort it
affords to not only the woman who must
take the many steps, but the people who
need to have the steps taken for them.
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