POMPONS RECOGNISED 49 



tion here for several years. It is not surprising this should 

 have been the case, for both raisers and growers were then 

 so unremitting in their attentions to the individual bloom as 

 to regard the plant as of quite secondary importance. The 

 pompons as originally introduced were comparatively neat 

 in growth and free in flowering, but the individual blooms 

 were very different to those with which present-day growers 

 are familiar, and were certainly not specially attractive. 

 Slow in attaining popularity, they did not make their appear- 

 ance very quickly at the exhibitions. The schedule of the 

 first National Dahlia Show, which was held in St. James's 

 Hall, London, in 1859, did not contain a single class 

 specially provided for them, and during the ten years 

 (1851-59) over which the work of the National Floricultural 

 Society extended no award was made to a pompon 

 Dahlia. 



It was not, indeed, until the National Dahlia Society in 

 1871 included the pompons in its schedule that they were 

 recognised as florists' flowers, and worthy of being associated 

 with the other sections at the exhibitions. This recognition 

 gave a great stimulus to their culture and to the raising of 

 varieties. This inclusion in the scheme of the leading Dahlia 

 shows was a distinct advantage, inasmuch as the pompon 

 flowers were staged with some length of stem, and thus they 

 helped to relieve the flatness characteristic of exhibitions 

 where the blooms are shown close down upon sloping boards. 

 From this period new flowers were multiplied at a rapid rate, 

 the principal raisers being John Keynes of Salisbury and 

 Charles Turner of Slough. Immense improvements in the 

 form and colour of the flowers were quickly effected. The 

 habit of the plants was improved, and the usefulness of the 



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