XI EXHIBITING 209 



show them the best. A large advantage is held, as 

 it is, by those who are gifted in the power of display, 

 especially in Tea Eoses, but if all the merit were in 

 the showing there would be small encouragement 

 for the cultivator in his yearly round of work. 



And also that as the judging must be accurate and 

 by strict rule, so only those formal styles of beauty 

 which can be judged by rule can be held admissible. 

 It is very unsatisfactory to enter into any competi- 

 tion where you do not know precisely by what rules 

 you will be judged. 



Thus the charge against Eose shows are that they 

 encourage size and formal beauty, and care nothing 

 for fragrance or artistic elegance. Even if these 

 accusations were unanswerable, which I do not 

 think they are, it must be considered whether 

 exhibitions have not done very much for raising 

 the popularity of the Eose, for the increase of 

 varieties not only of show sorts but of every descrip- 

 tion, and for making England the true home and 

 centre of the national flower ? 



The large and rapid growth of the trade since 

 Eose shows were established would be sufficient 

 answer to these questions. Where ten Eoses were 

 at that time raised by nurserymen and grown by 

 amateurs, a thousand would now be a more likely 

 figure : and whereas such a thing as making a living 

 out of raising Eoses alone had not then been 

 heard of in England, and the number of Eose nursery- 

 men of note might be counted on the fingers, there 

 are now and have been for several years three large 

 and flourishing establishments for the growing of 

 Eoses in one English town, two of which devote 

 themselves solely to this object. 



