If one can employ a
landscape-architect, all very well; but the most of us cannot, and after
all, the true landscape-architect, the artist gardener, works on this
principle and seeks to convey into every garden distinctively the soul
of the household for which it springs and flowers.
"Since when it grows and smells, I swear,
Not of itself but thee."
Few American householders, however, have any enthusiasm for this theory,
which many would call high-strung, and as we in Northampton cannot
undertake to counsel and direct our neighbors' hired helps, we enroll
in the main branch of our competition only those who garden for
themselves and hire no labor. To such the twenty-one prizes, ranging
from two dollars and a half up to fifteen dollars, are a strong
incentive, and by such the advice of visiting committees is eagerly
sought and followed. The public educative value of the movement is
probably largest under these limitations, for in this way we show what
beautiful results may be got on smallest grounds and with the least
outlay. Its private educative value, too, is probably largest thus,
because thus we disseminate as a home delight a practical knowledge of
aesthetic principles among those who may at any time find it expedient to
become wage-earning gardeners on the home grounds of the well-to-do.
[Illustration: "Beautiful results may be got on smallest grounds.
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