THE AMATEUR GARDEN 



success. When we saw fit to increase their 

 number we increased the total outlay as well, 

 and at present we award twenty-one prizes a 

 year, the highest being fifteen dollars, and one 

 hundred dollars the sum of the whole twenty-one 

 prizes. So we have gained one of our main pur- 

 poses: to tempt into the contest the man of the 

 house and thus to stimulate in him that care and 

 pride of his home, the decline of which, in the 

 man of the house, is one of the costliest losses of 

 hard living. 



One day on their round of inspection our 

 garden judges came to a small house at the edge 

 of the town, near the top of a hill through which 

 the rustic street cuts its way some twelve or fif- 

 teen feet below. The air was pure, the sur- 

 roundings green, the prospect wide and lovely. 

 Here was a rare chance for picturesque garden- 

 ing. Although the yard was without a fence 

 there had been some planting of flowers in it. 

 Yet it could hardly be called a garden. So desti- 

 tute was it of any intelligent plan and so un- 

 cared for that it seemed almost to have a con- 

 scious, awkward self-contempt. In the flecked 



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