XI 



EXHIBITING 



187 



It is very unsatisfactory to enter into any competition 

 where you do not know precisely by what rules you will 

 be judged. Classes for artistic display in bouquets, 

 baskets, and so forth have been attempted by the 

 National Rose Society, but for the reasons mentioned 

 have not been found generally successful. 



Thus the charges against Rose 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 Rose, for the 

 increase of varieties not only of show sorts but of 

 every description, and for making England the true 

 home and centre of the national flower ? 



The large and rapid growth of the trade since Rose 

 shows were established would be sufficient answer 

 to these questions. Where ten Roses 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 Roses 

 alone had not then been heard of in England, and the 

 number of Rose nurserymen of note might be counted 

 on the fingers, there are now three large and flourishing 

 establishments for the growing of Roses in one English 

 town, two of which devote themselves solely to this 

 object. 



It cannot be doubted that the popularity of the 

 Rose, and its greatly increased cultivation, have been 

 much fostered by Rose shows and by the National Rose 

 Society which encourages them. With a possible 

 exception in the matter of fragrance, I do not think 

 that exhibitions have fostered any undesirable qualities 

 in the flowers : it is true that some modern show 



