ROSES AND ROSE SHOWS. 175 



hardly be accomplished without material physical suffer- 

 ing. Hence I hold that the fact of being able to win 

 prizes with Rose blooms does not logically lead to the 

 conclusion that the prize-winner's sale plants are the best. 

 Reasoning from analogy, would anyone maintain that 

 the exhibitors of prize sheep, prize oxen, and prize pigs, 

 produce the best mutton, beef, and pork ? Now I argue 

 that the exhibitors of " fat " Roses are entitled to all the 

 money and all the honour of their prizes which, as in 

 the case of exhibitors of prize cattle, are not won without 

 a large expenditure of money ; but to assume from their 

 " fat " flowers that their " fat " plants are better than other 

 people's plants is not only unwarrantable, but is contrary 

 to evidence and contrary to fact. 



THE EOSE CONTROVERSY. 



{From ''The Gardeners' Chronicle? September igth 1874, p. 369.] 



YOUR correspondent Mr G. Paul seems to forget that 

 he was the attacking party in this controversy. If 

 he is making good his case, why the remarkable change 

 of front displayed in his last letter ? Your correspondent 

 tells us that he applied for space at the Rose show but did 

 not get it. Is it good taste after so applying to depreciate 

 what he incorrectly terms the "happy thought of Mr 

 Sowerby," and the labour of another grower and exhibitor? 

 Against his opinion of this show (which he did not see and 

 inaccurately describes) are arrayed the opinions of all the 

 gardening papers, the leading daily papers from The Times 

 downwards, the Council of the Royal Botanic Society, and 

 nearly 10,000 visitors. The idea which prompted it was 

 not conceived or worked out in opposition to existing 

 Rose shows, but to occupy ground which they failed to 

 touch ; to show Roses in a free and natural, rather than in 



