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News Letter 
June, 1950 
Dear Friends¢ 
Most of the spring violet shows are over. A 
queer time, you think, to talk about grooming 
show plants? Not on your life. The time to start 
to work on a blue-ribbon plant is about three 
months after it first breaks ground. If you want 
single crown plants, this is the ideal time to 
divide. Even multiple-crown show plants will 
need to have some of the smaller crowns cut out, 
or more added, and this, also, can best be done 
when the plant is three of four months old. If 
division is delayed until later, you might have 
trouble training the center to grow flat, particular- 
ly if you’re dealing with a Supreme or a DuPont. 
But let’s digress long enough to find out what 
we’re trying to do here. Many of you are al- 
ready familiar with the National Point System for 
Judging but for the benefit of those who are new 
to organized violetry, will submit it here: 
Leaf pattern (symmetry) -........ 35 points 
Qilantitvior lool 6 ee 20 
PLZ OLOL SDLOOII weer eee 10 
Color (according to variety) -...... 10 
Condition (Cultural perfection) ..25 
Perfection —...... 100 
After a brief study of this scale you will see 
that the emphasis is on long-term plant perfection 
rather than on a profusion of bloom which may 
be gone a week after the show. A well-grown 
specimen with leaves symmetrically layered from 
the center out to the edge, with nary a spot, burn 
or blemish would rate 80 points even if it only had 
one open flower of good size and color. On the 
other hand, a more bizarre neighbor on the show 
(Copyright, June, 19850, by Russell Gray) 
