84 



THE FLORAL WOULD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 



really required, for in dull weather delicate flowers -will attain per- 

 fection without it ; but if an east wind and a scorching sun, or a 

 sou'-wester with heavy rain, prevail, the shades must he used to 

 protect the more highly-finished flowers, and especially such as are 

 of thin texture and light colour. The caps must be covered with 

 fresh cabbage or rhubarb leaves, or paper. A shade may be im- 

 provised by means of a board and a flower-pot, as in the subjoined 

 figure. The board must have a hole in the centre, and a slit cut 

 from it to the edge to pass the stalk of the flower through. The 

 beards will of course be firmly fixed to stakes, and the flower-pots 

 will have their bottoms knocked out and covered with wire gauze or 

 glass. In place of a flower-pot a bell-glass may be used. 



To have cards and moss in boxes in readiness will be one good 

 step toward? achieving conquest in the strife. You will, of course, 

 have severally thinned the buds on your best trees, especially if 

 they stand remote from the garden in a nursery quarter, and you 

 will have supplied with regular doses of liquid manure such of them 

 as may have appeared to need it, taking care also not to overfeed 

 any, lest, instead of huge perfect roses, they should present ugly 

 green centres. Tery well. You have next to cut the flowers. 

 Now, the best time for this business is the morning of the show, 

 and you cannot be too early, for the flowers will bold their own 

 longer if you can cut them before the sun has shed one ray on their 

 perishable petals. It is good practice to cut and stage them at 

 once ; therefore your boxes and tubes should be taken to the garden 

 shed the night before, and your man should be encouraged to meet 

 you on the ground at daybreak by any kind of encouragement you 

 consider best adapted to his constitution. If he is one of the right 

 sort, it will be enough to say, " Call me at three, Sanders, and don't 

 cut a flower until I come." 



Always cut your finest flowers first, and arrange them as you 

 proceed, to insure a telling effect, placing the largest at the back, 

 and putting the yellows as far apart as possible, and taking care to 

 have light flowers at each end of the lot, and here and there in the 

 back row to draw out the eyes of the judges, but in such a way as not to 

 betray any strict formality. If you have but a few light flowers, 

 and put them close together near the centre, you will spoil the very 

 best of the dark flowers that happen to be on the outsides. Spread 



