ELECTING JUDGES. 



The greatest care and discrimination should be exercised in 

 selecting the judges for horticultural exhibitions by those whose 

 duty it is to appoint them, because the success of an exhibi- 

 tion depends greatly on the confidence with which the awards 

 are received. A common practice is for a committee, or the 

 managers of a flower-show, to appoint the judges from among 

 their horticultural neighbours, without much consideration as 

 to their qualifications for performing the important duties 

 intrusted to them, in a just and equitable manner. Exhibitors 

 quickly find out any defect in the knowledge, fairness, or want 

 of impartiality in the judges, and promptly resent it, thus lead- 

 ing to much discontent and angry feeling, where nothing of 

 the kind should ever be heard of, if due precautions are taken. 

 Where the selection of the judges is left to the secretary alone, 

 as it sometimes is, the duty may be faultlessly performed by an 

 able and clear-headed man, but, as a rule, this is not a satisfac- 

 tory method of selecting them. We believe that the greatest 

 confidence would be secured if the judges were nominated by 

 a much wider constituency than is the custom at the present 

 time. It is already the practice at some agricultural and 

 other exhibitions to employ judges who have been nominated 

 for the office by the exhibitors, and this method is generally 

 found to give satisfaction. A similar method could easily be 

 adopted in connection with flower-shows. When the prize 

 schedule is issued to the members, a form should be sent out 

 with it, and all competitoi-s requested to fill in the names of 

 competent judges of the classes in which they intend to com- 

 pete, and in due course return the form so filled to the secre- 

 tary of the society. The committee would then only have to 



find out those who had i-eceived the most votes, and elect tlieni 



XV h 



