68 
THE FLORIST. 
DO EXHIBITIONS ENCOURAGE HORTICULTURE AS 
THEY OUGHT? 
I CAREFULLY perused the article under this head in your January 
number, and had made some “ notes ” for additional evidence on the 
same subject, when with your February number came Mr. Thomson’s 
reply “ mndicalory^' which has compelled me to go a little out of my 
way for the purpose of alluding to the question raised by the discussion. 
In the first place let me thank you, or rather your reporter of the 
show in question, for having had the moral courage, when he saw what 
appeared to him a fault in cultivation, to name it, and assigning his 
reasons for so doing; for depend upon it this straightforward way of 
noticing any particular subject exhibited, is the very base, and only one, 
on which the world of lookers-on may expect to learn anything useful 
from exhibitions. My own opinion why exhibitions do not encourage 
horticulture as they ought (of which you complain), is that it is prin¬ 
cipally owing to the absence of a sound and independent critique on the 
subjects exhibited, which, while doing justice to what was meritorious 
in culture, would not be afraid to condemn what was deserving censure ; 
and show where cultivation was based on false principles, or where 
mistakes had been committed, as your reporter very mildly states it. 
Looking the article carefully through, it appears to me the aim of your 
reporter, both in reference to the Park and North of England Shows, 
has been solely to elucidate this principle, and for which he deserves 
the best thanks of us all. 
Whether Mr. Thomson’s Pelargoniums deserved the comment made 
on them or not, I do not profess to know, nor does it affect the question 
as I view it. They were so considered by your reporter, who refers to 
other specimens near them to show that he was right. But I take it as 
forming a precedent, which I should like to see acted upon at future 
exhibitions ; for if reporters are there for no other purpose than to bandy 
compliments with exhibitors, and indiscriminately praise all they see, 
then I say a heavy blow is being struck at all horticultural exhibitions 
as teachers of practical gardening, and gardening periodicals may from 
henceforth content'themselves with merely registering the prize produc¬ 
tions and their owners, leaving the “ ruck ” below the lowest card in 
blissful obscurity by not posting their names. But assuredly there is 
no motive teaching in this, for if failures teach us a wiser lesson than 
success, then failures should be commented on, and this discussion will 
do more good to Pelargonium culture than you may suppose, for it will 
tend to elicit sound principles, and practically establish them. Well, 
but what your reporter calls a mistake Mr. Thomson states was no 
mistake at all; he tells your readers they were designed for some parti¬ 
cular object, about which your reporter knew nothing (how should he?), 
and that they succeeded admirably, which nobody questions. I am a 
great stickler for the respect due to private opinions, as well as for 
whatever crotchets any individual may indulge in, and acting on this, 
should condemn all attempts to criticise private practice, however absurd 
it may be. But the case has a widely different aspect when plants (or 
