,. Laie. — 
SHADES AND SHELTERS FOR PRIZE ROSES. 91 
than the simple old form, and enable the flowers to be adjusted 
to a greater nicety. 
Foster’s cup and tube (see K, Fig. 41) find favour with many 
exhibitors. A coiled wire support is provided, which may be 
pressed into the cup, higher or lower as required, cannot slip, 
and holds the flower firmly. rnd 
Beckett’s cup is also fitted with a coil wire support. It 
is an excellent article. 
Springthorpe’s cup-and-tube device is very popular. It 
has a side spring to hold the bloom. 
In Tidy’s tube the arrangement is telescopic, and a small 
side screw holds the tube when raised or lowered to the de- 
sired height. 
There is not a great deal to choose between these devices. 
Some exhibitors like one, and some another. They can be 
procured, as a rule, from florists and seedsmen, or from horti- 
cultural sundriesmen advertising in the gardening papers. 
Shades and Shelters. 
It is scarcely necessary to say that the weather is a very 
important factor in connection with Rose showing. What 
does it not affect, from great cricket matches to school treats? 
To grow fine Roses is good, but it is not always enough ; they 
must be at their best at a given time if prizes are to be won. 
Heavy showers and blazing sun often cause the young 
exhibitor anxiety. Rain may dash, damage, and spoil the 
finest flowers; hot sun may burn the colour out of them. 
For this reason protectors are necessary. Rosarians fre- 
quently contrive their own, and it is on record that when the 
Rose season approaches one famous exhibitor regularly hies 
to a railway lost luggage sale and buys up a stock of ancient 
umbrellas! Something smaller, neater, and less liable to be 
blown to smithereens by a summer gale is perhaps advisable 
in a general way. 
Zinc caps make excellent protectors. The first cost may be 
rather greater than that of a paper or cloth cover, but the 
caps are durable. The cap is provided with a socket, which 
slides up and down a stake, and is fixed in the required posi- 
tion by small wedges. Care should be taken not to have it 
so close that the bloom comes into contact with it when 
moved by the wind. 
Selecting and Arranging Flowers. 
The exhibitor should go over his flowers on the evening before 
the show day and select a number of promising blooms. The 
flowers should have so far passed the bud stage that the outer 
petals are half open, but any that show the slightest tendency 
to being, or shortly becoming, blown must be rejected. 
