228 
The Garden Magazine, May, 1924 
Canadian Gladiolus Society, which holds its third annual meet¬ 
ing in association, is available from Prof. A. H. Tomlinson, at 
the college. It strikes a new note for Gladiolus shows in the 
greatly enlarged scope of color definement. 
T HROUGH the generosity of Mrs. Charles H. Stout, The Garden 
Magazine is privileged to announce the offer of a $50 cash prize 
to be awarded for a new and original poem on the Dahlia. 
Verse submitted in this competition must be of joyous mood in any 
lyric form, but not exceeding six stanzas in length. Competition 
closes October 1st, 1924, and all entries must reach The Garden 
Magazine not later than that day. 
Contestants may submit any number of entries, with the name and 
address of the author plainly marked on each one, addressing them 
to the Dahlia Poem Contest, c /o Editors of The Garden Magazine, 
Garden City, N. Y. 
in the fundamentals of gardening, preparation of the soil, how to supply 
and maintain the chemicals needed for the growth of plants, how to 
plant and cultivate vegetables, insect enemies and how to control them. 
These lessons are taught both by talks and practical work, and the 
children are given a short history of the plant and its relation to other 
plants, also a simple way to prepare each vegetable for table use. 
T he young gardeners are encouraged to exhibit specimens from their 
gardens in the annual fall show given by the association and prizes are 
awarded for the best collection. This adds much zest and desire to 
produce finer products. In the summer the youngsters are entertained 
with a picnic, and on Christmas Eve a large tree is erected in the garden 
with gifts for all who had work there during the season. The total 
cost of maintaining the garden for the entire season of 1923 was $137.10. 
The Association plans to establish these gardens in units in all the con¬ 
gested districts of the city.— Mrs. Effie L. Anderson, Supervisor, 
6921 Agnes Avenue, Kansas City, Mo. 
THE OPEPf^ C 0 LUM: Ki, 
Readers' Interchange of Experience and Comment 
So many interesting letters have come in from “garden neighbors'' throughout the 
tVest and Mid-West that it has not been possible to include them all in this one 
issue. A splendidly constructive list of “Forty July Standbys for the Indiana Gar¬ 
den’, “Choice Begonias for Illinois’’, “Scilla from Seed in Wisconsin", “ Pentste- 
mons which Flourish in Utah ", comments and queries from Nebraska, Ohio, etc., 
will follow in June and ensuing months. 
St. Dorothea Makes Herself at Home in Iowa 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
P ERHAPS you’ll be interested to hear that the delightful article 
by the Rev. Joseph Jacob on “Dorothy—Patron Saint of Gar¬ 
deners” in your February issue has inspired a neighbor of mine, Mr. 
Charles O’Donnel, to carve St. Dorothea in wood for his Rose arbor. 
Also this same neighbor has carved on a wooden panel to go over his 
garden gate the little verse by John Oxenham “See this my garden” 
etc. under the picture on page 329 of the same issue. 
On March fifth of this year a Mid-Western Peony and Iris Society 
was organized here in Des Moines and growers from Iowa, Illinois, 
Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska have already indicated their interest 
in this movement, the chief objects of which are to promote the holding 
of shows (beginning in 1925) and to cooperate with the Iowa State 
College in establishing a test garden. 
A state Gladiolus Society has also been recently launched but, not 
being a member, I am not familiar with the details of this organization. 
—Janet Du Mont, Des Moines, Iowa. 
An Illinois Oasis Created in Three Months 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
N O DOUBT it grows tiresome receiving letters from amateur gar¬ 
deners exploiting the merits of their little gardens, but I just 
can’t resist sending you the enclosed snapshots showing the progress 
of my backyard garden in five months. [On the contrary; the more we 
hear from the greater our pleasure.— Ed.] 
The first picture was taken April 1st, 1923. It shows nothing but 
clay, and my husband trying to get rid of some of it. The other was 
taken July 15th of the same season and shows quite a transformation 
with a flourishing display of Garden Magazine’s gift of twenty five 
Gladiolus bulbs around the bird-bath. 
My husband and I did all of the work ourselves and before we sub¬ 
scribed to Garden Magazine in March of last year we didn’t even know 
a perennial from an annual. We live just a block from one of the busiest 
sections in Chicago and our friends say our little colonial home and 
garden are like an oasis in the desert.— Mrs. John H. Wulff, 4/77 
Irving Park Blvd., Chicago, III. 
What Kansas City, Missouri, Is Doing for Its Children 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
I WOULD like to tell your readers of the “Kansas City Children’s 
1 Garden” maintained by the Kansas City Gardens Association for 
the children of our city and which had its origin in the account of the 
Avenue A gardens in the March, 1922, issue of Garden Magazine. 
A vacant lot 75 x 123 ft. was loaned and laid out in individual 
10 x 12 ft. plots with 3 ft. paths between. Each child is provided with 
a hoe, rake, and seeds. There is a general supervisor to instruct them 
A Bird-Bath Made by a Michigan Gardener 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
L ONG a reader of your magazine and now as a subscriber I have 
found much of interest in your pages. 
In the winter of 1923 my husband and I decided to build a bird-bath 
of concrete for our city garden. Our basement, being light and large, 
well afforded a corner to such work which, despite being somewhat dirty, 
really added a youthful zest to our lives by reminding us of our “mud 
pie” days. The bowl or bath proper was moulded around a shallow 
dishpan filled only half way up, and the column was made in a large¬ 
sized mailing tube of cardboard. The circles of cement which bind 
the bath to its pedestal were also made in cardboard. I am sure any 
novice could construct a bath as easily as we did. 
It stood the summer well, and has afforded us many a happy hour, 
both in its making and later when placed. It is in direct view of the 
house and many birds frequent it. The surrounding bed is in blossom 
from early spring, with the Clara Butt Tulips and Kochi Ivies to the 
summer annuals, blue Cornflowers and salmon-pink Zinnias with 
Sweet Alyssum. 
It was a special pleasure to see in print some months ago prize¬ 
winning flower arrangements, particularly as one honorable mention 
was awarded to my present home, and another to Miss Hayden of 
Kansas City, an acquaintance.— Mrs. H. L. Hurst, Pontiac, Mich. 
In Defense of North Dakota 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
E VER since the letter of S. C. Taylor of Columbia, S. D., appeared 
in the June Garden Magazine, 1 have been waiting to see 
whether someone would not appear as a champion of the inhabitants of 
that immense territory stretching from the Mississippi to the Cascades, 
and refute his absurdly comprehensive accusation that in all this sweep¬ 
ing expanse he is the only person who has a flower garden. Such a 
statement is too foolish to merit refutation, perhaps, but its bland 
injustice sort of “riles” a fellow, anyway. 
Having noted replies in a recent G. M. from Oregon at the Cas¬ 
cades end of the territory mentioned, and Iowa at the Mississippi 
border, 1 can no longer resist the temptation to rise up and take a 
verbal wallop at him from nearer home. My home is less than 40 
miles from Columbia, right here on the Dakota prairies that he so 
cruelly maligns. And though like Elijah of old, he is convinced that he, 
only he, is left who has not bowed the knee to the Baal of “grains and 
livestock,” it should need no miracle to show him many times seven 
thousand of his neighbors in whom the utilitarian has never crushed out 
the aesthetic. 
It would probably sound like vainglorious boasting for me to ex¬ 
patiate on my own garden of Gladiolus, for instance, whose spikes last 
summer grew to a height of more than 5 feet, and a number of whose 
single blooms measured 6 inches and more across. Even in St. Paul, 
the Eden so warmly sung by this voice crying in the wilderness, where 
I lived for several years and still visit nearly every summer, I have 
never seen their equals. 
Nor would it be seemly for me to dwell at length on the beautiful 
park in the heart of our little city, with its plantings of various shrubs, 
its winding walks, and the cool shade of its trees on the grass, where 
on the hot summer days one can always find groups of grateful tran¬ 
sients or citizens resting and refreshing themselves. Ask any of them 
if it is a “mere planting of trees with a few very common shrubs!” 
Before 1 came to Dakota, I pictured it much as Mr. Taylor suggests 
it—bleak, wind-swept prairies stretching endlessly to the horizon, a 
