JUDGING CHRYSANTHEMUMS '. MEN AND METHODS. 



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not offensive. Good foliage, then, must be combined with good 

 blooms, while a well-finished margin is essential for rendering a 

 group the most pleasing in appearance and generally effective. 



The huddling of the plants together, making a smooth flat 

 face of colour, and staking the blooms upright with unsightly 

 sticks, imparting a stiff, formal, bristly appearance, are defects ; 

 and a group so presented, though it contained the best blooms, 

 lost the first prize in an important competition last year. With 

 much shorter stakes, and a continuance in length of bending 

 wire, the blooms could have been displayed to the best advantage, 

 and the group would have won the position it lost. The blooms 

 should be so disposed that their individual beauty is displayed, 

 and the almost natural corollary of this is a certain relief, or 

 freedom, that appeals to the judgment of persons of taste. Clear 

 and decided colours are more effective than a conglomeration of 

 neutral tints. 



Freshness is an important feature, and large fading blooms, 

 with the accompanying exhausted foliage, cannot be so highly 

 regarded as blooms somewhat smaller yet bright and clean, with 

 foliage fresher and greener ; but it must never be forgotten that 

 plants which do not represent good culture, no matter how 

 dexterously they may be grouped for the hiding of defects, nor 

 how well the colours may be associated, cannot be relied on for 

 winning a high position. A few well-grown incurved varieties 

 give weight to a group, the Japanese sorts imparting elegance 

 and richness of colour. 



High quality blooms, fresh bold foliage, no unsightly stakes 

 and stems, with freedom in arrangement, and pot exposure 

 reduced to a minimum, are the chief factors in a first-rate group 

 of Chrysanthemums, and in proportion as they are represented 

 so will the prizes be awarded. 



We next pass to trained specimen plants, and in no other 

 form is high culture, with skilful manipulation, better displayed 

 than in the production of the best examples. I wish to state 

 very emphatically that, in my opinion, the large "stretched 

 out " specimens which occasionally astonish the multitude do 

 not of necessity represent excellence in production. They more 

 frequently represent artificiality and distortion. Kegard should 

 be paid to the natural habit of Chrysanthemums in training 

 them for exhibition. They are not trailing plants, yet the 



