THE AMATEUR GARDEN 



gardens under the limit of size. This happy 

 thought had a good effect, for, although in the 

 first and second years Father Gallen's people 

 took prizes for gardens above the minimum 

 limit in size, while his own two prizes fell to 

 contestants not in his flock, yet only in the 

 third year did it become to all of us quite as 

 plain as a pikestaff that fifty square yards are 

 only the one-fiftieth part of fifty yards square, 

 and that whoever in Northampton had a door- 

 yard at all had fifty square yards. In 1903 

 more than two hundred and fifty gardens were 

 already in the contest but every one was large 

 enough to compete for the Carnegie prizes, and 

 the kind bestower of the extra ones (withdrawn 

 as superfluous), unselfishly ignoring his own large 

 share of credit, wrote: 



"Your gardens have altered the aspect of my 

 parish." 



Such praise is high wages. It is better than 

 to have achieved the very perfection of garden- 

 ing about any one home. We are not trying to 

 raise the world's standard of the gardening art. 

 Our work is for the home and its indwellers; 



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