November 19,1891. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
427 
I think I made some remarks in the Journal last year upon the 
amount of work which the Judges at the Crystal Palace Rose Show had 
to get through within the hour, and suggested their being helped in the 
business of looking for duplicates, as they are hardly able to do this 
also when their task happens to be unusually difficult. My sentiments 
on this head are not altered, as this year my two colleagues and I had 
to judge Roses in two classes, which occupied, I estimate, more than 
50 yards straight on end of tabling. I did not measure it, but I calcu¬ 
late the distance not only from the fact that a colleague standing at 
one end looked decidedly out of shot from the other if he lnd been a 
partridge, but also from the number of stands I knew were shown, and 
the usual length of boxes in such classes. It looked a large order, and 
when we found after preliminary investigation (and that must take 
some time) that no less than 288 blooms (to the best of my recollection, 
as fortified by my notes) had to be pointed in one class alone, it seems 
pretty evident that we could give no guarantee that duplicates had not 
been passed over, and that no time could have been spared for filling up 
those cards for judging, which were shown and suggested at the last 
general meeting. I do not wish at all to complain, and am very pleased 
and proud to do my best. It is plain that the work in one class cannot 
well be subdivided, but in order to get it done satisfactorily two things 
I believe are necessary. 
First, is a suggestion I made last year—That when you have, in 
accordance with the rules, chosen your three-point standard Rose, this 
should be carried about by one of the Judges for immediate comparison 
directly there is any difference of opinion. I said, I think, that as one 
end of a large stand often becomes gradually weaker in setting up as 
the exhibitor gets short of first-class blooms, so in the time of judging as 
that end is approached, the ideal or standard of the judge involuntarily 
becomes lower. I thought, as a rule, in any large stand the tendency 
with judges would be, if anything, gradually to lower the standard ; 
but the season of 1891 proved an exception. We had considerable 
trouble to start with in finding a three-point Rose at all, and were 
obliged at last to select one below our mental ideal ; consequently, 
being naturally somewhat hurried, we were continually raising our 
standard unconsciously to that of ordinary seasons, and the frequent 
production of the standard Rose generally showed that we were esti¬ 
mating the disputed bloom too highly. A low standard throughout 
increases the trouble in judging, for a comparison of mediocrities is 
always tedious and uncertain. Secondly, though of course this is more 
important and should be first, it is essential that the judges should be 
absolutely agreed upon the first principles of judging, or, I need hardly 
say, it is difficult to get on at all. This is by no means meant as a 
reflection on my excellent coadjutors at the Crystal Palace, for as the 
work was done in the time, it is plain we got on very well. Still I 
would like to have my say. The N.R.S. definitions give the points of 
a good Rose as “ form, size, brightness, substance, and good foliage ; ” 
and I have no fault whatever to find with this definition, especially if 
we may take it that the points are mentioned in order of merit, but I 
think this ought to have been stated. 
Form first of all and above all. I had an idea that this was well 
understood as the prominent article in the florists’ creed, but from what 
I have heard I am not sure that it is so. “ Size ” is defined to “ imply 
that the bloom is a full-sized representative specimen of the variety,” 
and “ brightness ” to “ include freshness, brilliancy, and purity of colour.” 
Brightness therefore means what is generally spoken of as colour, since 
dullness would generally be looked upon as a deficiency in colour. I 
should put size and brightness as thus defined as of about equal value, 
but the difficulty with novices generally is that they do not realise the 
importance of form over colour. Yet I feel sure that the N.R.S. will 
uphold the value of the one above the other. I do not pretend to know 
much of art; but it is sufficiently plain, even to one who does not, that 
form must be above colour, for a drawing may be beautiful without 
colour, but a painting without shape or drawing cannot. I forbear 
classical allusions, such as that the Roman word for beauty was forma — 
“form”—and for beautiful, formosus —“shapely”—but I have some¬ 
times when judging thought of the well known line— 
“ 0 formose puer, nimium ne crede colori” 
as very appropriate. Let us rather think of the sneer in our own 
language, “ Beauty is but skin-deep.” It is indeed, if it be dependent 
only on colour, but not if relying on form, for true beauty is in the 
shape, the outline, and even in the substance. And when I have seen 
a three-cornered thing of a Dr. Andry because of its bright flush placed 
upon an equality with a grand Horace Yernet that has somewhat lost its 
colour, it has seemed to me like estimating a newly painted gimcrack 
villa as of equal beauty with a noble old cathedral whose stones have 
become grimy and time-stained. 
Now, though I should be disposed to put size and brightness (as 
defined) upon an equality, the N.R.S. puts size first of the two. And I 
am glad of this, because there seems to me to be now a considerable 
and increasing tendency to take little heed of the authorised rule that 
size is a point—and the second point toe—in the definition of a good 
Rose. A show bloom should be developed “ in the most perfect phase of 
its possible beauty,” and I protest against Roses which are not developed 
and are under-sized, having a full amount of points allotted to them, 
and I believe my protest to be needed. I take the reason of the apparent 
preference sometimes shown for smaller blooms to lie in the ignorant 
statements made against exhibitors that they care only for size ; and 
what I complain of is, I believe, the result of the little bit of mud which 
is proverbially said to stick out of a handful thrown. I remember 
seeing a short article in the gardening columns of a well-known paper, 
headed “ Ugly Roses,” and it was all a tirade against size. There are 
two words, “coarse ” and “ rough,” which are very easily applied to any 
particularly fine blooms, and it might well be a temptation to a judge 
that his reputation for good taste might suffer if he awarded merit to 
blooms which others spoke of as “coarse.” Let the N.R.S. manfully 
maintain size (as defined) as one of the important points of a good Ro3e, 
for after all it is, and must be, the principal sign of good culture. To 
have good form without size it is only necessary to have the best 
varieties, and with many of them it is much easier to get good form 
(without substance or staying power) from plants that have not been 
very strongly grown or much thinned ; but to have the best of colour 
you must have the vigour from which size is born. Our principal object 
in careful culture through many months is to get the health and 
strength which is legitimately shown in size, and for which we hope to 
be rewarded ; but pretty well-formed buds may be got from an utterly 
neglected plant of a good sort. And let it be remembered that a show 
Rose is for show—for the exhibition tent, or for a vase by itself— 
and that it is not meant for wear or decorative purposes of an ordinary 
kind. 
In nothing should the strict regulations and definitions of a perfect 
Rose be more sedulously observed than in choosing the medal H.P. or 
Tea. It should be the nearest approach to absolute perfection, as de¬ 
fined, to be found in the show. It is meant to be the best obtainable 
specimen of a standard or ideal Rose to serve as a pattern. Yet 
I remember some years ago a bloom of General Jacqueminot was chosen 
at the Metropolitan Exhibition which was a mere spike, with only one 
or two petals open—of lovely colour certainly, for which alone it was, 
I believe, avowedly chosen ; but it was quite undeveloped, and had no 
pretension to form. I have also seen elsewhere a Tea Rose chosen that 
was literally only a buttonhole. We must expect mistakes sometimes, 
but a medal bloom at a National or affiliated show should not be 
grievously lacking in any one of the three points required. 
I am forgetting, however, that there are five points mentioned ; but 
“ substance ” is actually included by definition 4 under “ form, ’ 
though it is not necessarily coincident with “ size.” And “ g:od foliage,” 
I fear, we often do take little notice of. The rosarian’s eye wanders 
from bloom to bloom, and the foliage is scarcely noticed against the 
moss, though, of course, any serious defect would be detected. The 
foliage is pretty sure to be right if the Rose is, and under any circum¬ 
stances it must, I think, be the last consideration. 
In conclusion, I still think it would be fairer to exhibitors and judges, 
and more satisfactory in general uniformity, if in each cl iss the same 
length of box or boxes was required from all exhibitors.—W. R. 
Raillem. 
FRUIT CULTURE AND EVAPORATING. 
Mr. J. G. Wilson, Ledbury, writes as follows in the Worcestershire 
Echo on the Gloucester Fruit Show :— 
“ I think one of the most interesting exhibits in connection with 
fruit culture was seen at the above Show, reflecting great credit upon 
the enterprise of Mr. F. Ricardo of Bromsberrow Place, Ledbury. I he 
exhibit consisted of a variety of fruits—Plums, Pears, and Apples— 
grown and dried at Bromsberrow by the process known in America as 
fruit evaporating. The samples shown were in point of appearance quite 
on a par with any imported from foreign countries, and in flavour 
evidently superior. 
“ The subject of profitable fruit culture is at the present time a 
matter of great interest, and it has been proved conclusively that the 
best varieties of British grown Apples wdl fetch considerably more 
money than the best varieties of American Apples, one grower in 
Herefordshire this year having realised 303. per cwt. for his Peasgood’s 
Nonesuch, when the best American Pippins were realising 19s. 3d. per cwt. 
But still, though the best varieties will command good prices, there remains 
the question, What is to be done with a quantity of inferior fruits / The 
mode practised by our cousins across the Atlantic has been to select 
the best grown fruits for the fresh fruit markets, and utilising the 
other by the evaporation process, and thus supplying us with the Apple 
ringlets and other fruits which we see exposed for sale in our grocers 
and fruiterers’ shops. 
“ Mr. F. Ricardo has been the first to illustrate to the landowners, 
farmers, and fruit growers of this neighbourhood the utility of this 
process in a practical manner ; and the thanks, not only of the fiuit 
growing community but of the general public, are certainly due to him 
for his enternrise, for he has proved that when a glut occurs in one kind 
of fruit, like* there has been this year in Egg Plums, instead of the 
grower having to part with them at an unremunerative price, lie can 
preserve them and get a good price for them in the wintei, when 
fruit is fetching prices almost prohibitive, or at least quite so to the 
working classes. Not only will this process save the destruction of 
enormous quantities of health-giving fruit in times of superabundance 
