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blooms thus, but under no circumstances should a light 

 or dark bloom be introduced for the sake of colour if it 

 is not worthy in itself. I am bound to say that it is 

 very rarely that judges pay any heed to the arrangement : 

 they look at the merits of the blooms themselves and a 

 preponderance of dark over light flowers or vice versa 

 would have usually no effect with them. Successful 

 arrangement is only taken into consideration where rival 

 stands are very nearly equal in the merits of the indi- 

 vidual blooms. 



There will seldom be any need to look over the stand 

 at the last to see if there are any duplicates, i.e., two of 

 the same sort, if care has been exercised in this respect 

 from the beginning, and no Rose is introduced without 

 being sure about it. But a bloom may sometimes be 

 accidentally changed without altering the label, so these 

 should be run over to see that they are right. The 

 National Rose Society authorities are lenient in this 

 matter, provided there be no duplicates, but country 

 judges are sometimes more strict. 



There is room for a good deal of legitimate manoeuvr- 

 ing and generalship in the last hour or so before the 

 judges enter. If a man, who has entered in several 

 classes and is only moderately strong, divides his 

 best specimens among his several stands, he will prob- 

 ably get no first prize and runs considerable risk of 

 being out of it altogether. He should concentrate his 

 strength on one or at most two classes, take a critical 

 survey of his rivals' blooms, and show pluck or dis- 

 cretion as the case may be in selecting the best class in 

 which to put all his finest flowers. 



On one occasion, late in the season when it was not 

 likely that there would be more than one or two serious 

 rivals, I sent my assistant (being unable to go myself) 



