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^[[4434]]
[[stamped]] AUG 13 1924 [[/stamped]]
^[[Ans 8/27/24]]

For the Prize Contest. 

Waterman, Illinois, 
August 11 1924. 

Dear Sir, 

For five years I had lived in sunny India, In Lucknow the city of parks and gardens.Then I came to [[strikethorugh]]Northern Illinois[[/strikethorugh]] make my home on a farm in Northern Illinois where the winters are long and severe. How I missed India's flowers and gardens! Last winter especially when the sun was off duty day after day, my soul starved for a bit of color, and for the joy of seeing things grow. Then same Burpee's ^[[catalog]] with its colored pictures so natural thatthey almost made the room fragrant. 

Hour after hour I had real recreation studying the catalog and making out the lists of things I would like to have in my garden. And in February with the thermometer at zero and the snow deep on the ground I started my window garden; and when the sprouts began to appear, my soul seemed to expand and find itself alive too. 

It has been a trying season for gardens, so cold and dark. Some of my seeds were in the ground so long that I thought they never would grow; but, they were Burpee's seeds-- the [[underline]]had[[/underline]] to grow. 

Respectfully yours, 

[[signed]] Mrs. Roy E. Hipple. [[/signed]]