98 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
Qvic Improvement 
Year’s WorK of a Minnesota Improvement Association. 
The Improvement Association of Lir.den Hills, a suburb 
of Minneapolis, has completed its first year of active work, 
which is reported in this interesting contribution to The 
Minnesota Horticulturist, by Mrs. M. O. Nelson: 
"At its inception, the efforts of the association were largely 
directed toward the securing of street improvements, such as 
gas, sidewalks, new bridges and the like. But during the 
past season they have gone farther. Population from with- 
out has been moving in rapidly ; houses of all sorts and sizes 
have been springing up like mushrooms; and for some rea- 
son — perhaps because of the notion that a suburb is a place 
in which one may live as he chooses or because of the raw- 
ness of our new settlement — the home grounds surrounding 
many of these new houses have not always been kept with 
tidiness. It was because of this air of slackness, and because 
of urgent suggestion on the part of certain women of our 
settlement, that the association began to cast about for some 
stimulus to neatness that should be general and possibly 
epidemic. 
A committee appointed for this purpose arranged a con- 
test for a series of prizes to be offered for the best kept 
lawns of various sizes, for the best show of shrubbery, for 
the neatest, most attractive back yards, for the prettiest flower 
garden, for the greatest improvement in home grounds and 
for the best kept vacant lot. About forty prizes in all were 
offered. The contest was well advertised by personal letter 
and through the city papers. But in spite of all the attrac- 
tiveness of the offers, there was at the start no very general 
entry for competition. It was necessary for the enthusiastic 
ones to keep talking about the matter to their less enthusiastic 
neighbors in order to get life into the movement in time to 
begin the work of gardening. Applications for competition 
kept straggling in till well along in June, and when the 
beauty of competitive gardening began to show forth along 
our streets there were many good people who wished they 
had been waked up earlier. Now that the season is over it 
can be seen that the interest in keeping the home grounds 
neat, and the desire for flowers, for shrubbery and for the 
knowledge of how to grow them successfully, has been im- 
mensely stimulated by this prize competition. I venture to 
say that on one or two of our streets there was this season a 
better care of home grounds than could have been found 
in airy other part of the city where householders do their own 
lawn and garden work. The improvement over the previous 
season was most obvious. 
This unusual beauty of the gardens suggested to some of 
the women that a flower show for the neighborhood would 
he a most excellent supplement to the work of the associa- 
tion. A committee was formed, and the suggestion put into 
operation. In spite of the fact that the show was held about 
a week too late for the best bloom of the gardens, and in 
spite also of the fact that for twenty-four hours preceding 
the show' there fell and was hurled from the heavens rain 
water in barrels, so that the gardens looked on the morning 
of the show like a wreck at sea, the show was held and was 
in reality a display of remarkable beauty. It was the only 
flower show held in the city of Minneapolis this season and 
W'as not much behind the great flower shows given down 
town in previous years. Financially also it was a success. 
All this work w'as not done without hard labor and giving 
of time and effort w'ithout corrjpensation. There were also 
those who did not approve of this method of stimulating the 
love of neatness and beauty. Some thought the giving of 
prizes was wrong in principle and that in practice it would 
lead to jealousy. Some were afraid to enter the competition 
for fear people would think they were working for the 
prizes. Others feared, and with some good ground for it, 
that if we refrained from throwing tomato cans in the back 
yard and cleaned the ash piles away from the back steps and 
used a mower on the front lawn, that the assessor would take 
note of the improvement and fine the householder on his tax 
assessment. Yet, in spite of fears and knockings, the good 
work grew and prospered. 
The prizes given this season have been largely in the way 
of flower seeds, of shrubbery and plants from the various 
seed houses and nurseries, or of books on flower lore and the 
keeping of home grounds, and of magazines on out-door art. 
Summing up the result of our summer’s campaign, we 
have substantial reasons to feel encouraged. We hear people * 
inquiring about flowers and vowing to have a brighter and 1 
better flower garden the coming year. The flower associa- 
tion is planning a few meetings after the holidays, when thej 
new nursery catalogues come out. These will serve as a ' 
stimulant for garden enthusiasm to begin the coming year. 
We did not expect to do much the first year, but we have 
done far more than we had hoped for. We believe that the 
coming season will much surpass the past in home ground 
beauty in our suburb and in home ground love. Our gar-^ 
dens are largely made up of the hardy, perennial kinds that 
are planted with the intent that they shall grow better from 
year to year. Our women are learning more about flowers 
and necessarily loving them more. Our men are learning 
to run the lawn mowers with resignation and skill — some 
even with pride.” ‘ 
