ON FLOWER SHOWS. 1 
though not least, (for on them the matter chiefly depends,) appre¬ 
ciated by gardeners themselves, as may be seen by the most 
cursory glance at any individual plant, fruit, or vegetable to be 
found at any exhibition throughout the kingdom, on which the 
utmost care, attention, and skill within the command of the 
gardener is lavished. 
Few persons who visit a Flower Show merely as spectators are 
aware of the many weeks or months of untiring assiduity and care 
there seen in the form of some favourite plant or flower, or the 
intense interest entertained on its account by its cultivator, whose 
brightest hopes may be marred, his highest expectations frustrated, 
nay, his very daily bread lost, by its being passed unnoticed, it 
may be, for it has been, through 1 had almost said the caprice of 
some undiscerning individual who officiates as judge. Hence it 
appears of the utmost consequence that the committee of each 
and every society of the kind should use the greatest possible 
caution in their appointments to that onerous office ; for though, 
when properly conducted, nothing can tend more towards the 
general improvement of gardens and gardening ; yet, on the other 
hand, the design of the institution is lost, and its tendency warped 
to quite a contrary direction, by any unfair or partial awards—let 
them arise from what source they may ; for in that case the 
society immediately loses the confidence of exhibitors, and then 
the greatest trickster is the winner of the greatest prizes. 
A very natural question arises here, Who are the most proper 
persons to be appointed as censors ? Nurserymen are very gene¬ 
rally chosen at most provincial shows. Now, with the highest 
respect for the gentlemen who kindly take upon themselves the 
very difficult task of judging between rival productions of so many 
grades as are usually found at Flower Shows, 1 would submit that 
nurserymen or commercial gardeners are not the most proper 
persons to judge of private gardeners’ productions, because the 
means employed in raising such productions should be taken into 
account as well as the actual qualities exhibited,—a subject on 
which scarce any commercial man has an idea. There cannot 
be a greater difference in two branches of any business than in 
those named. Perhaps not one nurseryman in fifty does, or ever 
did, grow a bunch of grapes. The same applies to vegetables, 
which, though classed lower, are of equal importance to general 
cultivators. The man who grows them for sale does not place 
