32 ON EXHIBITING FLORISTS FLOWERS. 



biting Carnation blooms, in a class of six scarlet bizarres; and A 

 produces six first-rate flowers from one variety, say, for instance, 

 " Twitchett's Don John," and B and C six distinct flowers, each 

 from inferior sorts : I ask, would it not be both " mischievous and 

 impolitic " to place only one of A's blooms first, and, after excluding 

 the others, to choose five flowers from B and C's inferior blooms to 

 fill up the class ? Yet such, I aver, is the usual practice at some of 

 the principal provincial shows. 



On referring to the judge's award at the Cambridge exhibition of 

 Carnations and Picotees in July last, I find my idea was there fully 

 carried out, viz. " in allowing the best flower to be placed as many 

 times as the class would admit," it being recorded that " Twitchett's 

 Don John " was placed six times in the class for scarlet bizarres, to 

 the exclusion of other varieties ; and at the same place two Picotees, 

 a purple, named " Hufton's Queen of England," and a red, named 

 " Headley's Sarah," each obtained the same honour. 



I am perfectly aware it is an invariable rule at all exhibitions for 

 a " stand " to consist of dissimilar blooms; but'not'so in classes, as a 

 prize is frequently offered for the best and second best flower of a sort, 

 if Dahlias, in the following colours, dark, purple or shaded purple, 

 and so on, through each class of colours ; and it is here where the 

 gist of my complaint arises, of not allowing two flowers of one name 

 to be exhibited in its class. 



I perceive your correspondent has taken the terms " class" and 

 " stand " to be synonymous, which I beg to inform him is not the 

 fact, they being two distinct modes of exhibiting : the former, in my 

 opinion, to test the merits of flowers singly ; the latter to show new or 

 old flowers in collections. Besides which, the practice of exhibiting 

 in " stands" is not even alluded to in my previous article. 



I am still inclined to think, that if my suggestions were carried out 

 and acted upon more fully, there would be every encouragement to 

 attempt the production of new varieties by growing and saving seed 

 from first-rate sorts; and, I imagine, by so doing, every amateur 

 might succeed in raising new varieties worth exhibiting. 



I trust I have made it intelligible to a " Junior Florist," and that 

 he will now coincide in my opinion, " that the exhibition of flowers in 

 classes is both mischievous and impolitic, " unless carried out to the 

 extent I have contended for, 



