530 COTTAGE GARDENS ASSOCIATION. 



The weight or number of each exhibit should not be 

 large. In addition to the prizes for productions of the 

 garden, the show would almost certainly be rendered 

 more interesting and more useful if small prizes were 

 offered to children for collections of wild flowers. 



The exhibits at cottagers' shows should be judged by 

 gardeners or seedsmen, men of character and knowledge, 

 that the awards may not be open to suspicion of favourit- 

 ism or incompetency, and that the articles brought to the 

 front may be accepted as standards of excellence. The 

 practical teaching conveyed by the awards of such men 

 would be valuable to the cottager as a guide for the future 

 provided all exhibits were labelled with their proper dis- 

 tinguishing names. 



Perhaps there is no feature of cottage gardening as it 

 is and has been in which the ideas of charity and patron- 

 age occasionally come out so disagreeably as at the 

 cottagers' show. Let anyone enter the tents of certain of 

 these exhibitions on the morning of the show, when the 

 cottager is bringing in his exhibits, and note the move- 

 ments and bearing of some of the managers, subscribers, 

 and patrons. I say some of them, because the ill-timed 

 assumption of social superiority is not universal nor even 

 general, but it is nevertheless too common to pass without 

 a word of comment. Sometimes the managers of the 

 show seem to expect from the cottagers the same amount 

 of courtesy and address to which they are accustomed in 

 the refined and educated circle of society in which they 

 ordinarily move, and grow indignant at the freedom or 

 irritated by the want of ready intelligence which they 

 meet with. Hodge is civil of course, but he is probably 

 excited and on new ground. If brusque in manner, and 

 slow in understanding " rules and regulations," this should 

 not be imputed as an offence. He does not mean it to be 

 so, and bigger men than he are often puzzled by " rules 

 and regulations." 



It has often seemed to me that the custom of accepting 



