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Show ' Garden Veek to Be Observed Yearly Until America Is the Garden Nation Ey MRS. JOHN D. SHERMAN, General Federation Women's Club3. GARDEN WEEK, so successfully observed throughout the country coun-try the last two years, has become a natioual ai'air. It will be observed every year until America becomes the Garden Nation of the World. Gardens mean a better home and community spirit, and a deeper sense of the meaning of good citizenship. The qualities of a normal and harmonious life which makes for good citizenship are based upon health, contentment, industry, tolerance and a spirit of co-operation. These are crops that I hope will be grown along with the radishes and spinach when we plant gardens. I hope that some degree of contentment will be found in our 1924 gardens. This state of mind is not entirely dependent upon pleasant surroundings but upon the inner serenity of soul. And nowhere can tins be so quickly acquired as in the garden. All the wonders of creation are born anew in the tiniest garden. There the eternal cycle of birth and re-birth goes on without ceasing. In tho garden man finds himself admitted ad-mitted into the glorious enterprise of storing up the vital energy of the sun at his pleasure. He is in harmony with the universe. There creeps into his consciousness a friendly feeling for his fellow man. And little by little he loses his discontent and envy. There is no time in a garden, after the frost is out of the ground until the bulbs and vegetables are safely safe-ly stored for the winter, to nurse a real or fancied grievance. As a sure, swift route to good comradeship there is none better than the common love of gardens. You may not agree with your neighbor on anything else, but if you have swapped tomato plants and watched them grow and talked over your garden plans together, you are friends. I hope that gardens will help to strengthen the family group. The j greatest menace of our modern day is the disintegration of the family group. The garden will help to draw the members of the family together to-gether and to establish friendlier and closer relations. |