498 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



During the last year or two I have been carefully collecting 

 examples of errors in Schedules which have come under my own 

 supervision, and of the difficulties arising therefrom; — and this paper 

 has been written in order to bring a few of these actual examples 

 to your notice. For just as the interpretation of the common law of 

 our land is based upon the cases tried in the Courts, as explaining and 

 establishing it, so, somewhat similarly, the interpretation of the laws 

 governing a Flower Show will be better understood if examples of 

 defective, inexact, or erroneous wording of Schedules, or the mis- 

 understanding of them by exhibitors, are considered. And as the 

 E.H.S. Code of Eules for Judging, the latest revision of which was 

 published this summer, has become, or is becoming, the generally 

 accepted code throughout this country and the Colonies, I shall, as 

 far as possible, bring these Eules to bear on the points considered. 



As I open this Code of Eules, my eyes immediately catch these 

 lines in the Preface: " Too great stress cannot be laid upon the 

 necessity which exists that Schedules should be framed with the 

 utmost care and exactness. Too frequently indefiniteness, or loose- 

 ness and ambiguity of expression . . . are responsible for much of the 

 dissatisfaction which so often arises." 



The following are actual examples of such inexactness of expres- 

 sion : — 



1. Class for " The Best Display of Peeserved Feuits." 



This immediately suggests the question, "What is meant by the 

 word * preserved '? " Is it bottled fruit, or is it jams, or is it dried 

 fruit — or is it all or any of them? The Schedule nowhere gives any 

 clue to the interpretation of the word, and an intending exhibitor 

 must decide for himself which he will show, and risk loss of points 

 or even disqualification. The Schedule could so easily have used the 

 word ''bottled" instead of '^preserved, " if bottled fruits only were 

 intended; or if the wider scope of any preservation " was allowed, 

 it should have run "Display of Preserved Fruits; Bottled, Dried, 

 and Jams all admissible." 



Perhaps you will s,ay, "But anyone could have written to the j 

 Secretary." Well, now, as it happens, one exhibitor did so write, and 

 the reply was that " Bottled fruit was meant " — and, of course, that 

 exhibitor showed only bottled stuff. And what was the issue ? That 

 exhibitor's bottled fruit was superior to anyone else's, but the judges 

 gave the first prize to a collection of bottled fruit and jams, with one 

 or two specimens of dried fruit, holding that the larger and more 

 varied exhibit overpassed the slight superiority of the other's bottled 

 fruit, and that as the variation was distinctly permissible, according to 

 the Schedule, they could not accept the interpretation of the Secretary, 

 especially as it would disqualify all the other exhibitors, who had, one 

 and all, included jam in their display. 



