And what room he finds for tact! He sees a grave-like bed of verbenas defacing the middle of a small greensward—a dab of rouge on a young cheek; a pert child doing all the talking. Whereupon he shrewdly pleads not for the sward but for the flowers, "You have those there to show off at their best?"
"Yes. Don't they do it?"
"Not quite." He looks again. "Nine feet long—five wide. If you'll plant them next year in a foot-wide ribbon under that border of stronger things along your side boundary they'll give you at least forty feet of color instead of nine, and they'll illuminate your bit of sward instead of eclipsing it."
In another garden he says, "Splendid sunburst of color, that big tub of geraniums!" and the householder is pleased to admit the fact. "If you'd sink the tub into the ground clear down to the rim they'd take up no more room and they'd look natural. Besides, you wouldn't have to water them continually."
"That's true!" says the householder, quite in the incredible way of an old-fashioned book. "I'll do it!"
"And then," says the caller, "if you will set it away off on that far corner of the lawn it will shine clear across, showing everything between here and there, like a lighthouse across a harbor, or like a mirror, which you hang not in your parlor door, but at the far end of the room."
"When you come back you shall see it there," is the reply.
Sometimes, yet not often, a contestant is met who does not want advice, and who can hardly hide his scorn for book statements and experts. The present writer came upon one last year who "could not see what beauty there was in John Smith's garden, yet we had given him and his wife the capital prize!"
Frequently one finds the house of a competitor fast locked and dumb, its occupants being at work in some mill or shop. Then if the visit is one of official inspection a card stating that fact and dated and signed on the spot is left under the door, and on its reverse side the returning householder finds printed the following:
"In marking for merit your whole place is considered your garden. It is marked on four points: (1) Its layout, or ground plan; (2) its harmonies—of arrangement as to color of blooms and as to form and size of trees, shrubs and plants; (3) its condition—as to the neatness and order of everything; and (4) its duration—from how early in the year to how late it will make a pleasing show.