152 
FLORAL AND HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 
nothing for Horticulture. Thereare thetrees: 
whoever by chance occupies tlic garden has 
them, ami Can produce the fruit; it fails in 
any and everygood purpose to merely reward 
the casual occupier of a garden containing 
Buch trees. Then, again, as regards the shows 
themselves, what novelty is there in seeing 
common orchard fruit served up in dishes, 
when the neighbouring market shows them up 
in as many bushel baskets? So much for the 
first object, which we think is a failure every- 
where. 
The second proposition is, that there should 
be an object in encouraging the cultivation of 
anything intended for a prize, and herein con- 
sists the great value of Horticultural Societies. 
Now, the object may be the improvement of 
the subject itself, or it maybe that the subject 
itself is a grand feature in a show. Let us 
take collections of flowering plants. The im- 
proved culture of plants in collection is an 
object which interests every gentleman who has 
a garden ; and it is further an object always 
foremost in the mind of those interested in a 
show. Handsome prizes for collections of 
plants should invariably be the first to be 
secured, because, independent of the encou- 
ragement it holds out to the gardener to keep 
his houses in good order, it brings interesting 
subjects to the exhibition, such as cannot be 
seen at markets nor elsewhere on ordinary 
occasions. But it may be desirable to en- 
courage the growth of anything not equally 
inviting to the company, but nevertheless 
interesting to horticulturists. Say, for instance, 
the growth of vegetables. Well, there are 
two ways of doing this : you may throw away 
pounds in giving something for the best Cab- 
bage, something for the best Lettuce, some- 
thing for the best Peas or Potatoes, all of 
which are individually very unimportant ; 
whereas, if you give a series of prizes to the 
best collection of vegetables fit for table, 
there is, first, a general encouragement to be 
foremost in a garden, which is what the 
master requires, and, secondly, a particular 
encouragement to show off among his fellow 
gardeners ; and the collections afford some 
interest. Again, in the article fruit, — that 
fruit which requires the gardener to use his 
knowledge, and assist nature, not mere orchard 
fruit, — encouragement may be wanted, and 
may advantageously be given ; but let the 
prizes be for collections, and expel from the 
tables the ordinary rubbish with which the 
provincial dishes are crowded. Peaches, Nec- 
tarines, Pines, Grapes, and even Plums, may 
be admitted. But to see, as we have seen, 
single prizes awarded to scores of plates of 
fruit not worth half the prizes given, and 
when there was not the least merit, is to see 
money thrown away, and no good done. Why, 
it is as if the prizes were made as numerous 
as possible to give the possessors of general 
gardens an opportunity of taking a regular 
sweep. With regard to cottagers, let their 
prizes be for collections of vegetables, that is 
to say, useful vegetables, — Onions, Potatoes, 
Cabbages, Celery, Turnips, Parsnips, Carrots, 
and Leeks, those are the kind of productions 
the eottagcrs' friend takes delight in, and let 
the prizes go to those who can produce them 
best, and second best, and third best, and 
down to the tenth best, if necessary. Yet 
we see two single prizes for Potatoes, two for 
Cabbages, two for Carrots, two for Parsnips, 
and so on, through we know not how many, 
and fifty or sixty dishes of Potatoes (half-a- 
dozen, perhaps, by one man) are handed up to 
claim these single prizes. Onions the same ; 
perhaps half-a-dozen of one man's ; and other 
vegetables in proportion ; so that, instead of 
getting the most useful selection of vegetables 
for his use, some more knowing cottager will 
bring forward as many sorts of Potatoes as he 
can get, and three or four sorts of Onions, 
merely to multiply his chances of prizes for 
these two articles. We would not allow a 
cottager to show more than one dish of any- 
thing for the competition, because the best 
grower could, by pulling up several dishes, 
sweep all away. In short, to be useful, the 
cottager's garden should be varied in crops ; 
and, to encourage this, the prize should be for 
collections of vegetables ; say not exceeding 
five sorts, or six sorts, and let the prizes be 
fair and numerous. The money would be 
much more judiciously distributed, than when 
a leviathan of a cottager, better off than his 
neighbour, perhaps, sweeps off the best prize 
for six or eight different things, not because 
they are first rate, but because there are no 
better. 
This brings us to the third proposition, 
that any production, therefore, to entitle the 
grower to a prize, should be above an average 
quality, owing to his superior culture. It is 
one of the great evils of Horticultural Shows, 
that the great majority of the productions are 
not above the average quality, consequently, 
have in reality no business there. How to 
get rid of this evil we know not ; but one 
great stride towards it, would be to throw 
open the shows to the public, instead of con- 
fining them to members. For the former 
would be to invite anybody who has a sub- 
ject above the average quality, whereas the 
latter shuts out all who do not happen to be 
members, and as all the members together of 
a very large Society would be scarcely a hun- 
dredth part of the number of growers, the 
number of good things shut out is immense. 
Exclusiveness is the bane of Societies ; from the 
moment it is introduced, a Society is lessened 
