80 
CHRYSANTHEMUMS. 
respective positions that each vase is to take on the exhibition 
table, the exhibitor should give proper consideration to the 
association of colours, so that pleasing harmonies or equally, 
pleasing contrasts may be created. It is astonishing how 
much the exhibit may be improved when consideration is 
given to this important matter. 
By a proper disposition of the colours of the different 
varieties one may be made to lend advantage to another, and 
where consideration has to be given to the decorative effect 
of the display, the exhibitor should blend the colours or 
create pleasing contrasts, both of which have distinct 
advantages. This question of colour association has already 
been considered under another heading earlier in this book, 
and the reader will be well advised to refer to the methods 
therein laid down. Exhibits of the early flowering garden 
varieties, as well as those of a decorative character, are 
occasionally met with at local and other shows, and where 
provision is made for such displays it cannot be denied that 
they are usually distinctly charming. 
Groups of Plants. — Free-flowering and partially dis- 
budded plants lend themselves very effectively to arrange- 
ment in groups. They should never be rigidly tied, as are 
the formal flowers of the florist's ideal, but should be left 
to develop their terminal buds ; and the latter, to be seen at 
their best, and their decorative qualities amply illustrated, 
should have grace and ease observed in the system of 
tying finally. Such exhibits well illustrate the value of 
these plants for greenhouse and conservatory embellishment, 
and it cannot be denied that the thousands who admire these 
flowers for their beauty and their profuse display would be 
led to take up the cultivation of these plants where the 
larger blooms fail to encourage them to do so. The early 
sorts require plenty of root room, so that any grower desiring 
to cultivate them in pots, etc., in the hope of exhibiting 
them, should give the plants plenty of root room. Two or 
three plants in a large tub make a very handsome display, and 
not long ago, at one of the fortnightly meetings of the Royal 
Horticultural Society in London, an exhibit was made in 
which several plants of that splendid early sort, “ Horace 
