It seems droll to call grave
attention to such humble things in a world so rightly preoccupied with
great sciences and high arts, vast industries, shining discoveries and
international rivalries, strifes and projects; yet what are all these
for, at last, but the simple citizen, his family and his home, and for
him and them in the cottage as well as in the palace? The poor man's
home may shine dimly but it is one of the stars by which civilization
must guide its onward course.
It may well be supposed that those whose office it is to award the
twenty-one prizes of our garden competition among our eleven hundred
competitors have an intricate task. Yet some of its intricacies add to
the pleasure of it.
One of these pleasing complications arises from our division of the
field of contest into seven parts, in each of which prizes must be given
to three contestants. Another comes from our rule that not alone the
competitors who show the best gardening are to be rewarded, but also
those who have made the most earnest effort and largest progress toward
the best gardening. Under this plan one whose work shows a patient and
signal progress in the face of many disadvantages may outrank on our
prize list a rival whose superior artistic result has been got easily
under favoring conditions and reveals no marked advance beyond the
season before.
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