CHAPTER XV. 
*A FLOWER GARDEN COMPETITION 
Hr HE Carnegie Flower Garden Competition of North- 
* ampton, was started by the President of the Home- 
Culture Clubs, now the People’s Institute, in 1899. Be¬ 
ginning with only a score of competitors, the interest in 
the competition and its wonderful results has steadily 
grown until over one thousand homes (a fourth of the 
homes in the city) are competing for the prizes offered 
each year. 
The work has grown so that the city is divided into 
seven different districts (ward boundaries) and in order to 
distribute the prizes more evenly, each district receives 
three prizes. The amazing numerical growth of the com¬ 
petition shows the enthusiasm of the competitors and the 
general interest throughout the city. But this awakened 
interest, wonderful as it may seem, is overshadowed by the 
astonishing results accomplished. 
Many garden competitors started in the competition 
with their lawns merely grassless yards or a waste of sand 
and weeds. Now in place of these unsightly yards are 
beautiful, well kept lawns with appropriately planted 
shrubberry. This is done not only by persons who are 
well to do, but by persons working in mills, who are 
simply tenants in the places where they live. 
So silently and gradually has this work been done, 
that many fail to realize the wonderful changes that have 
taken place until other cities are visited or pictures taken 
ten years ago, and now are contrasted. One visitor in the 
city after riding for two hours through the factory section, 
*The Carnegie Flower Garden of Northampton Mass., has been carried on 
for a decade with so much success; the rules so carefully worked out, and suc¬ 
cesses obtained when the same rules and methods have been adopted else¬ 
where, that they are here given in the hope that they may prove helpful to 
others interested in beautifying homes in other communities. 
