THE ADVANTAGES AND EVILS OF SIZE IN FLOWERS &c. 407 



THE ADVANTAGES AND EVILS OF SIZE IN FLOWERS, 

 FRUITS, AND VEGETABLES 



By E. T. Cook, F.R.H.S. 



When I was asked to read a paper upon the advantages and evils of size 

 as affecting flowers and fruits, I felt that it was a subject that could have 

 been handled by many others in a far more masterly way than by myself. 

 The remarks, however, which I may make will, I hope, have some influence 

 in reforming the bad practices of those to whom we may rightly appeal 

 for a due proportion in the ideals which have been set up by them as a 

 standard of beauty in flowers and of quality in fruits or vegetables. 



The desire of some growers is to exaggerate a flower to the destruction 

 of natural beauty, and in fruits and vegetables to the point of deteriora- 

 tion. 



The Rev. G. H. Engleheart, whose opinion I desired and obtained, with 

 many others recorded in several letters which I shall read to you, takes as 

 an illustration a flower which offers an object-lesson of the evil of abnormal 

 development, which is of course an offence against the canons of good taste. 

 He says, and with his words I am in full sympathy : 



" The flower of all others which appears to me to have suffered from 

 bad taste is the one under our eyes at the present season — the Chrys- 

 anthemum. So long as size stands first of the criteria which guide the 

 judges at our shows — and this is true of other flowers besides the 

 Chrysanthemum — there will remain a great impediment to the bettering 

 of the public taste. Vividness and refinement of colour should, and 

 ultimately will be, the first touchstone of excellence. Fortunately the 

 splendid material now available in the outdoor class of Chrysanthemums is 

 fast educating the public taste in this contest of mere size versus other 

 qualities. Indeed appreciation of attributes other than bigness has within 

 my memory advanced 'all along the line.' Just as such a Rose as ' Paul 

 Neyron ' has vanished from Rose shows and even from most catalogues, so 

 perhaps in no flower, except a restricted department of the Chrysanthemum, 

 do mere length, breadth, and thickness count for much, apart from the 

 superior qualities of colour, fragrance, and profuseness of bloom. In my 

 own particular flower, the Narcissus, the most brilliant of the purest 

 colour has not yet been joined to the maximum of size, and possibly never 

 will be. But I find that more and more a shade nearer to scarlet or pink 

 or of purer white, or some gain towards perfection of form, is set higher 

 in the general estimation than the simply gigantic." 



In horticulture, as in most things, the middle course is safest and best, 

 and anything beyond a certain proportion is a step backward. To take an 

 illustration of a popular garden flower, Coreopsis grandiflora is not an 

 improvement upon the C. lanceolata, the bigger flower possessing a certain 

 coarseness which detracts from the true merit of the plant ; and several 

 forms of Chrysanthemum maximum, praised for their bigness, are at the 

 same time much coarser and certainly less beautiful than the parent. 



