After the manner of Dunfermline again, our rules are that no gardener by
trade and no one who hires help in his garden may compete. Any friend
may help his friend, and any one may use all the advice he can get from
amateur or professional. Children may help in the care of the gardens,
and many do; but children may not themselves put gardens into the
competition.
"If the head of the house is the gardener-in-chief," shrewdly argued one
of our committee, "the children, oftener than otherwise, will garden
with him, or will catch the gardening spirit as they grow up; but if the
children are head-gardeners we shall get only children's gardening. We
want to dispel the notion that flower-gardening is only woman's work and
child's play."
Our rule against hired labor sets naturally a maximum limit to the
extent of ground a garden may cover. Our minimum is but fifty square
yards, including turf, beds, and walks, and it may be of any shape
whatever if only it does not leave out any part of the dooryard, front
or rear, and give it up to neglect and disorder. To the ear even fifty
square yards seems extensive, but really it is very small. It had so
formidable a sound when we first named it that one of our most esteemed
friends, pastor of a Catholic church in that very pretty and thrifty
part of Northampton called for its silk mills Florence, generously added
two supplementary prizes for gardens under the limit of size.
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