COTTAGE GARDENS 



dents, that we, the Northampton townspeople, 

 estabHshed and maintain another branch, our 

 concerted gardening. 



One evening in September a company of 

 several hundred persons gathered in the main 

 hall of the institute's "Carnegie House" to wit- 

 ness and receive the prize awards of their twelfth 

 annual flower-garden competition. 



The place was filled. A strong majority of 

 those present were men and women who earn 

 their daily bread with their hands. The whole 

 population of Northampton is but twenty thou- 

 sand or so, and the entire number of its voters 

 hardly exceeds four thousand, yet there were one 

 thousand and thirteen gardens in the competi- 

 tion, the gardens of that many homes; and 

 although children had taken part in the care of 

 many of them, and now were present to see 

 the prizes go to their winners, not one was sepa- 

 rately a child's garden. By a rule of the con- 

 test, each garden had been required to comprise 

 the entire home lot, with the dwelling for its 

 dominating feature and the family its spiritual 

 unit. 



113 



