36 
THE FLORIST. 
point out the mistake of the judges in awarding a medal where none 
was offered, and while they are instructed to withhold from “ great 
mistakes ” even when prizes are offered. It is observable, again, that 
the name of the grower is coupled with the plants, while the names of 
other exhibitions of bad cultivation are never mooted. To be sure the 
names of Mr. Edwards and Sivewright are alone mentioned in con¬ 
nection with fine Dahlias. The fact that these Pelargoniums required 
14 days of June weather to bring them fully into flower is not noticed 
in this case either; that could not serve any purpose except that of 
fair-play. 
Certain other plants in pots not half the size are declared to be nearly 
as large, but it will require no great penetration to see that the state¬ 
ment from first to last is all on one side, and that it carries in its right 
hand an “ evident ” contradiction. If there is to be exactness in any 
inference there must be exactness in its antecedent propositions; no 
conclusion can lay claim to truth that is not dependent on truths that 
are themselves absolute. The geometrician requires, that to deal with 
straight lines they must be veritably straight. Let us apply these rules 
to the statements of the above quotation. It will be found that the 
proposition stands thus:—The pots these plants were grown in were 
very large, the result of which was an “ exuberance of growth,” this 
was the great mistake. The other plants were in pots about half the 
size, there was no “ exuberance of growth,” or else they were mis¬ 
managed too. The question then arises how in pots half the size with 
no exuberance of growth plants could be nearly as large as those in very 
large pots with an exuberance of growth ? 
Surely if the metropolitan shows are to be the great schools for the 
study of horticultural science, some of the schoolmasters need not assert 
their proud position by falsifying that of their pupils, and dragging 
them down to show what mighty pedagogues they are themselves. 
But, depend upon it, they must make the best of a necessity, and be 
conscious of the inevitability of the progress of other people as well as 
themselves. 
In conclusion, as to whether the object I had in view in growing 
these large plants was frustrated, this is best known to myself and to 
the scores of people who saw them during the month of July, in that 
position for which they were designed, and I am quite sure that if the 
object for which they have been so “ harped on ” and misrepresented in 
the Florist has been gained it will do the writer no good and me no 
harm. 
David Thomson. 
Dyrham Park. 
[We regret very much to find that Mr. Thomson has taken our 
remarks in a very different sense from what was intended. In alluding 
to his plants in our last number, we inadvertently instanced them as 
what we considered an example of over-potting, merely to illustrate our 
remarks on what we considered mistakes sometimes committed, and in 
the country unfortunately too often so, in growing things for exhibitions. 
