WANTED, A POEM ON THE DAHLIA 
$ 50 Pri^e Offered 
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 / G Editors of The Garden 
Magazine, Garden City, N. Y. 
Mrs. Stout’s enthusiasm for the Dahlia is well known, she is 
a successful amateur grower and exhibitor, a raiser of meritorious 
seedlings, and her “Amateur’s Book of the Dahlia” is the ac¬ 
cepted manual of cultural practice. Mrs. Stout’s only stipu¬ 
lation in asking The Garden Magazine to be the medium of 
her offer is that the award be made to a composition of intrinsic 
merit, and to this end judges qualified to value poetic composi¬ 
tions are being asked to act on the jury. Their names will be 
announced at an early date. 
A PERMANENT “ILLUSTRATION GARDEN” 
ARDEN 1 NG has come into its own rather more slowly than 
the other arts in this country—possibly because America’s 
vast size and abundant natural beauty have induced a spend¬ 
thrift mood rather than a creative one. But whatever the rea¬ 
sons for its laggardliness, there’s no question about its having 
arrived at last; and one small straw that shows how winds blow 
gardenward is the recent staging of an “Illustration Garden” 
at the Art Center (New York City). 
The purpose of this exhibition (designed by Beatty & Beatty, 
Landscape Architects) was to present “ in a simple way pleasing 
ideas for the home garden ” and a number of firms cooperated 
in supplying materials for a very pleasant effect with tea-house, 
walls and gate, bird-bath, benches against a background of ever¬ 
greens, and the many other appurtenances of a livable and 
lived-in garden. 
The Art Center now purposes to transpose this “ Illustration 
Garden” bodily into its own back yard, thus perpetuating a 
serviceable idea for the benefit of the public as this garden will 
be open to visitors in the early spring as soon as settled in per¬ 
manent quarters. 
IOWA WINS A SPECIAL AWARD 
W HEN the National Garden Week campaign was started 
by The Garden Magazine last spring, the magazine made 
an offer of $50 “for the best article illustrated with adequate 
photographs on what has been accomplished in some one place 
as a result of the stimulus of National Garden Week.” 
The competition closed on October first and a considerable 
number of manuscripts were recorded. It is unfortunate that, 
in the opinion of the judges, not one fell within the require¬ 
ments. In a majority of cases the entry was merely a chronolo¬ 
gical account of some local (usually a school) effort, and some¬ 
times consisting merely of newspaper clippings and fragmentary 
notes and data—not a comprehensive and complete account 
definitely exhibiting the reaction from the National Garden 
Week campaign; and in other respects all entries fell short of the 
required dual interest of an “article” and “adequately illus¬ 
trated.” 
Nevertheless, the judges appreciate the earnest efforts and 
find in the account from Des Moines, Iowa, a very constructive 
article that is full of helpful suggestions for other places, and this 
has been selected for an award. Inasmuch as this account is 
not adequately illustrated, it is given an honorary award of $25. 
Phis article we hope to publish in the February Garden 
Magazine. 
THE OPETf^ C 0LUM:A C 
Readers’ Interchange of Experience and Comment 
White Webs That Spell Destruction 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
OR three years I have been a subscriber to your good magazine, and 
I wish to ask for a little information regarding Cosmos and 
African Marigolds. Last spring I put out 50 plants of each, and when 
they were about 18 inches high, they were covered with a white web, 
which smothered the plants, so that I lost the entire lot without a 
bloom. 1 looked them over for web worms, but never found any. 
Can some of your readers suggest a remedy for plants in this condition? 
—T. H. Walton, IVaurika, Okla. 
A Hospitable Michigan Elm 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
1 THER before or after one has a garden with flowers and shrubs 
one inevitably becomes interested, too, in trees and birds, so I feel 
sure some of your readers will enjoy hearing about my Elm tree and 
the many birds we see in it. There are at least eight or ten good-sized 
Elm trees on my place, but the one I want to tell about was planted 
some twenty-five years ago and differs from all the others in some 
respects. Its foliage is much smaller and it always bears billions of 
seeds which the birds and squirrels both seem to love. In May I get so 
interested watching the birds feasting on these seeds that my work is 
neglected. At one time as many as five pairs of rose-breasted gros¬ 
beaks have been counted in it as well as a pair of orioles and numerous 
warblers. One morning the grosbeaks in this tree were singing at five 
o’clock daylight saving time! Last spring, by May twenty-second we 
had seen in this tree either feasting on seeds or insects the following 
named warblers: black and white, blackburnian, black-throated blue, 
black-throated green, golden-cheeked and magnolia, besides numerous 
others that we couldn’t classify. We had also several pair of redstarts, 
but my little winter wren that has set up housekeeping in a box in a 
Bladdernut tree had a fight with them so they didn’t stay long. 
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