33^ State Horticultural Society. 



upon each of the characteristics considered in the score card, it could 

 only obtain a bronze medal at most. 



The rules provided that no exhibitor should receive more than one 

 award in one group, and as Groupe- 107 included all kinds of fruits and 

 nuts, tree, bush, citrus and tropical, it will be seen tliat a fruit grower 

 would be limited to one award. In many cases thirty or forty entries 

 were made by single exhibitors, who showed apples from cold storage 

 and, later on, made frequent shipments of small fruits, followed by the 

 larger fruits as they ripened. In arriving at the award that should be given 

 in such cases account was taken not only of the scores given the several 

 entries that had been made from time to time by each individual, but 

 of the number of plates and of varieties shown. Thus, a man who made 

 a single entry of ten plates of peaches that were given a score of 75 

 points would receive a silver medal, while several exhibits made by one 

 person aggregating 500 plates and 30 or more varieties, would entitle 

 him to a gold medal, if they scored at least 75 points. The grand 

 prizes were only given to very large collective exhibits, and the awards 

 were confined with two or three exceptions to the larger State exhibits. 



From the fact that there were only two awards that could be given 

 higher than a silver medal, for one of which 300 plates might be a 

 minimum requirement, while 2,000 would be required for the other, it 

 was not possible to so grade the awards as to have them accurately rep- 

 resent the value of an exhibit. To illustrate this, one man might obtain 

 a silver medal with an entry of ten plates of apples, while another 

 might have 200 plates of 20 varieties of equally good fruit and yet only 

 get the same award as the man with ten plates of one variety. In the 

 same way a gold medal would be the highest that could be secured upon 

 a collection of 1,000 plates of fine fruit, while another collection of 300 

 plates of no better fruit would also be given a gold medal. 



Several states are bragging upon the number of gold medals secured 

 iipon their exhibits, but this may be misleading, especially if the number 

 of other medals is overlooked. In some cases most of the fruit shown 

 from a state came from half dozen persons, each of whom might re- 

 ceive a gold medal. In such cases there would be comparatively few 

 silver and bronze medals. Adjacent to it there might be another exhibit 

 that was more extensive and of better fruit, but it might not carry oflf 

 more than five gold medals. At first thought it would seem unfair for 

 the smaller and inferior exhibit, to carry off more awards of gold 

 medals than the other, but the apparent unfairness could be explained by 

 the fact that while in the latter case there were only five extensive ex- 

 hibitors, there were several hundred small exhibits most of which were 



