April is National Garden Month, and soon our friends in the Garden Club of Amherst will be tending the Museum’s flower gardens, just to the east of the Museum. Already the east lawn is a mass of color from the blue scilla growing wild there.

In 2015 the Historical Society helped the Garden Club celebrate their one hundredth anniversary, as Elaine Barker and Patricia Holland gave a talk about the history of the Garden Club; you may view the video of the talk here.

In her talk, Ms Holland mentions a 1950′s-era film about growing tobacco in the Connecticut Valley; Tobacco Valley. Some of us still remember the fields of Hadley and Hatfield when they were covered with tobacco netting; a video of the film is available for viewing here.

And next Friday, April 14, Jane Wald will give a talk on the history and development of the Dickinson Museum. The talk will be at noon over Zoom; here is the link.