THE FLORIST. 
213 
assistance of a small rule or a pair of compasses, to try the relative 
size of the blooms in the adjoining stands. 
The different shape, painting, and size of the stands, without 
some such plan as this, will be very apt grossly to deceive the eye. 
Pansies will not only look one point out of four better upon one 
colour than they will upon another, but they will also look larger, 
though perhaps equal in size. 
Where the flowers in one stand, shall be found decidedly superior 
in size to another, the Censors will allow that stand four extra points 
for size. Should these additional points alter the place of any of the 
stands, the Censors will shift them accordingly, and then proceed 
lastly to look to arrangement; and where one stand shall be clearly 
more tastefully arranged as to colour than another, let it become 
entitled to two extra points. 
With some such instructions as these, I believe the Censors would 
have little or no difficulty in judging fairly and fittingly. 
I would wish to explain a few of the terms I have used above. I 
have said a flower, to count a point, must be in good character. The 
observing of this fact will be highly necessary. This is the crying 
fault of the stands shewn. Exquisite, for instance, which ought to 
be laced all round the side petals, I saw shewn bald-faced, with the 
lacing gone where it ought to meet above the centre; such I cannot 
count as a bloom. Lady Sale, again, which ought to be laced all 
round the edge of the bottom petal, I saw exhibited with one ugly 
blotch, or a spot here and there, where the lacing ought to be. Such 
a bloom can never count a point, however large, or round, or smooth ; 
for it is as little like the real flower as a horse in a sand-cart is like a 
racer. 
To shew how these things are overlooked, a stand which was 
placed first at the meeting in the Botanic Gardens on the 10th of 
May last, had not less than five very inferior blooms totally out of 
character, while the second stand had only one such flower. I need 
not say the judgment should have been reversed. 
Again, I think we must look to smooth edges. Some persons are 
run away with by the size of a flower; now it is notorious that almost 
all rough-edged flowers are of a large size. 
We must look also to substance. A Pansy without substance is 
a very inferior article indeed, and ought by every means to be dis¬ 
couraged. 
Neither must we be satisfied unless we find a fair average flatness. 
Some flowers never will lie flat, and, if admitted into a stand, ought 
to count for nothing, for they are, in good truth, worth nothing. 
Roundness also must not be overlooked ; nothing looks worse than 
a long straggling bloom, or one with an undersized bottom petal; 
such are worthy of being thrown out of a stand, and, if put in, should 
be accounted at their proper value. 
I have thus endeavoured to lighten the duties of a Pansy Censor, 
by a declaration of how he should be instructed to act, and, by doing 
so, I relieve him of many doubts and difficulties he before laboured 
under. But his work is not yet over. The Censors have to judge 
