416 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
Monthly | 
November, 1909 
Comment 
The Garden Competition and Its Prizes 
§O MORE agreeable task has fallen to the 
lot of the editor of AMERICAN HoMEs 
GARDENS than to announce the results in 
the Garden Competition, generously insti- 
tuted by the publishers of this magazine 
some months ago. Pleasant as this duty 
is, it is not more so than was the pleasure 
of examining the multitude of photographs once the Com- 
mittee of Judges had finished their task and announced their 
award. For weeks the office mail has been weighted down 
with packages and bundles of all sorts of shapes, sizes and 
weights, addressed, as directed, to the Garden Competition 
Editor. You may be sure that, if it were a task to care 
for this valuable mail, it was even more onerous for the 
judges to examine it, weigh the respective merits and 
reach a decision—a decision that was fair to the conditions 
of the competition, fair to the competitors and fair to the 
gardens entered in this novel contest. 
2 
a ass ; 
LN f, 
DANCES 
AND now, that the work has been finished, the competition 
closed, the photographs, plans and papers submitted, ex- 
amined, and the judgment rendered, the editor may be per- 
mitted a personal word of satisfaction in the success that 
has attended the competition from the beginning, in the 
wide attention it has attracted, in the beautiful results it has 
disclosed, and in the care and discretion with which the judges 
have performed their work. Thanks, many, many thanks, 
to all concerned in this competition; thanks for the interest 
shown by entry in it, and thanks especially for the delightful 
privilege it has afforded of an opportunity of studying many 
gardens that might otherwise have remained unknown, or 
at least unvisited. 
Ir may be well, at this time, to recall the terms of the 
competition and what it was about. The circular and the 
advertiseements that have appeared from month to month in 
our pages of late were quite precise and definite. ‘The 
competition was founded by the publishers for the express 
purpose of enabling the magazine to help its army of readers 
by teaching them, through actual examples, how to beautify 
their surroundings. Every one who establishes himself in 
the country in his own home desires a garden of his own. 
This is really one of the reasons, although, perhaps, not 
always the principal one, that has induced and occasioned 
the remarkable movement countryward that has become so 
marked a feature of rural life. But the desire to own and de- 
velop a garden is often baffled, and sometimes stifled, by a 
lack of knowledge as to how to proceed and what to do. 
There is no other stimulus, in such a contingency, than know- 
ing what other people have done, if not under identical condi- 
tions, perhaps under similar ones; if not just your individual 
problem, then a problem that approximates yours, and which 
may, it is to be hoped, include some of the vexations that 
have vexed you and yet which have emerged triumphant 
and successful. 
Tuis is what the competition was about and this is 
what it was for. The editor believes this wads a useful thing 
to do and a wise one. There are precisely two things that 
lead to good results in gardening, namely, example and 
practise. A successful garden is a work of art, but one 
must know just what one is going to do and what results 
will be obtained before starting out to win the success that 
it is hoped to obtain from the beginning. This knowledge 
can only be acquired by the study of good gardens already 
existing. Thus it happens that the intelligent observer 
may gain from a garden that in no way resembles his, 
ideas, suggestions, inspirations and arrangements that will 
stimulate and help him in his own work, and which, some- 
times in an unconscious way, may help on his own success. 
ONE can, therefore, never view too many gardens, nor 
study them too attentively if one is a true garden-lover. 
Nature there speaks aloud in her most beautiful forms. Not 
naturally, perhaps, for somehow all gardens are more or 
less artificial, since the most delightful of flowers and plants 
do not always grow in regular order or even in “natural” 
groups. The first step is to know what has been done; and 
then, after due study and preparation, to proceed to do it 
oneself. Not, if you please to note, to reproduce another’s gar- 
den as your own, but to use such ideas as seem best suited to 
your own needs. At the most, you can only do the best you 
can, but the bravest of efforts should be made to end this. 
I HAVE delayed, perhaps, more than need be, in present- 
ing the Roll of Honor in the Garden Competition, and will 
delay this pleasure no longer. Here is the list: 
ROLL OF HONOR 
First Prize, $100 
CHARLES J. “PELLING? sh tide cane cee eee ae eee LanspowngE, Pa. 
Second Prize, $50 
CHARLES Di DAVIES!. 0 eseee. canes hearer eee ENGLEwoop, N. J. 
Third Prize, $25 
ANTHONY. PocPINDER \c.crcc+s00n essence eae een eee eens Troy, N. Y 
Fourth Prize, $15 
Mins: “ANNA CONDICTY sescenn ocenecatenct oe tee Essex Feris, N. J. 
Fifth Prize, $10 
EDWARD S:,: PAYSON(.c.6ss2.cGccctamsect eet enas Lexincron, Mass 
Honorable Mention 
Mrs. “JAMES “Rs MELONws. scence see sec oreeceeee New Fr orencr, Pa. 
I congratulate these ladies and gentlemen most heartily 
on the success that has attended their devotion to garden- 
craft. [hat they will be gratified at the prizes awarded 
them by a disinterested committee of judges may also be 
expected; but over and above the money prizes awarded 
them, is the real value of their individual contributions to 
gardening and gardening art. 
Now, that this competition has come to a successful 
close, it may be of interest to state that a second garden 
competition, on somewhat similar lines, is being planned by 
AMERICAN HoMES AND GARDENS for 1910. (The date 
looks a bit far off, but actually it is no more distant than next 
year.) It is too early to tell of this in any detail at this 
writing, or even to announce it formally; but mention of the 
plan seems suitable here, and it is made in the hope that it 
may lead to greater stimulus in obtaining results than in 
the notable competition whose conclusion is now made public. 
To THE garden, then, one and all! It is now too late to 
get out the spade and the rake and start the garden for next 
year, but it is not too late to begin on the planning and study 
that must precede successful garden work next spring. The 
garden must be put in proper order for the winter, and in 
the ordinary routine of work the garden-lover will find much 
to occupy him, even in the closing months of the year. But 
now is the season of preparation, and when the glad spring- 
time comes along next year, as it is bound to do in any event, 
let our friends who are interested in the practical side of 
gardencraft be ready for a new activity and a new interest. 
Depend upon it, AMERICAN Homes AND GARDENS will have 
something of interest to say in that season THE EDITOR. 
