EXHIBITING. 119 



ideas, after all, as to quality and comparison change as 

 often as the material that we have to judge. A Rose 

 can only be a Rose, after all, and there are limits to its 

 size, if not to its colour and shape. This is a most 

 cheering thought to the enthusiast who sets out to 

 conquer in the show tent, and the sight of some bloom 

 growing in a humble cottage garden as fine as any 

 ever exhibited by the grower of thousands buoys up the 

 hopes of the most despairing amateur, and certainly 

 calls to order the self-confidence of the most successful. 



It is, after all, open to anyone to grow the best, 

 and secure the highest award that his sporting nature 

 and the love of his hobby has led him to compete for, 

 and it is open to all who show to attain sudh a standard 

 of excellence that the best is hardly the best, and it by 

 no means puts his endeavours if beaten into the shade. 



We cannot do better than to consider those points 

 that make for the highest grade, and which, when 

 attained in the Rose, leaves us in possession of a per- 

 fect flower, a medal bloom. When I first began to 

 exhibit, the National Rose Society only permitted an 

 affiliated Rose Society to give two N.R.S. medals to 

 amateurs — one for the best H.P. and the other for the 

 best T. or H.T. It was always a diflScult matter to 

 secure a medal for a good T. Rose when in competition 

 with an H.T., unless, of course, it happened to be a 

 bloom of one of the largest varieties. 



But now, owing to the great increase in varieties 

 of H.T. Roses, the three divisions at shows are be- 

 coming more and more aistinct, and growers who 

 favour either have an equal chance of winning the 

 highest award — i.e., the N.R.S. silver medal. 



Well do I remember one day at Bath, a beautiful 

 Rose I was showing of " Madame Jean Dupuy " being 

 just beaten in the eyes of the judges by a ** Mildred 

 Grant." It is seldom that " Madame Jean Dupuy " is 

 ever fine enough to stand out as a medal bloom 

 amongst Teas, but to have to eclipse an H.T. is too 

 much, when size counts as a principal factor in the eyes 



