1881.] TRANSACTIONS. 73 



A perfect Schedule may be beyond our attainment. It is 

 worth striving for, liowever ; and the very effort to secure it 

 must be productive of advantage. If a competent sub-Committee 

 could revise the list of premiums as established for A. D. 1881, 

 reporting their conclusions, if thought desirable, to the entire 

 Committee of Arrangements ; a decided amendment might be 

 hoped for and, in all probability, realized. Confidence must be 

 reposed somewhere. And you need not go far astray, with the 

 ample ability and experience from which you can select. 



And now, with reference to the proper appointment of Com- 

 mittees of Award; — your Secretary desires to repeat advice 

 which is based upon long years of observation. Why should 

 you not choose two persons ; — one, and one only, for each, to act 

 upon the respective Committees of Plants and Flowers, and 

 Fruits and Vegetables ? The work would be better done ; — 

 done more promptly : while your Secretary^ and Librarian^ left 

 to their appropriate duties, would yet be able to afford the assist- 

 ance that is occasionally required in the suitable arrangement of 

 articles. The persons, thus selected to dis(;harge an onerous and 

 thankless task, should be paid a reasonable sum for the time 

 spent in your service. This is a matter that you cannot longer — 

 in justice to yourselves or others — postpone or heedlessly neglect. 

 Gentlemen have purposely refrained from competition in tlie 

 Floral Department, during the past year, whose earned awards 

 in former seasons were quite considerable. For a competent 

 Judge, — you need and should have an expert and active Florist. 

 In Fruits and Yegetables, you would not require to look far to 

 find one suited, both by long practice and shrewd insight, to 

 meet all the exacting requirements of the position. In both 

 departments, — the advance of the Society has been and continues 

 such that you are in imperative need of the very best talent that 

 you can command. 



Not so many years have elapsed since the good taste of our 

 members was rudely offended by the display of what were tech- 

 nically termed Floral Designs. Severe criticism and a more 

 rigid judgment excluded them from our Schedule ; and, left 

 without the stimulus of pecuniary encouragement, they have 

 ceased to disfigure our tables. At the Hink, recently, a few 



