In your May number some remarks were made on the above topic. Thirty years ago in Scotland, the limiting of the sizes was practised and considered the best means of bringing out and testing the ability of the competitor. Much discouragement has been caused by the present prevailing practice of giving all the best prizes to large plants. It is generally known beforehand to whom the prizes will go, thus deterring the exhibiting of smaller specimens by others, although often of far superior cultivation. In many cases these large specimens have been handled by several persons during their growth, so that no merit is due to the exhibitor for their production; yet it would not be prudent to rule them out entirely because of their decorative properties. For hard-wooded plants such as Azaleas and other slow-growing ones the limiting of pots is not so practicable, because of the length of time it takes to produce them; but for all soft, rapid growing plants the limit should be definite, if the true intention is what it should be in all Horticultural Societies, to develop and bring out the best cultivation.

What does more to add beauty to an exhibition than nice, healthy young stock, the product of a short time?

There is also another good point in this that it enables the judges to give a much more satisfactory decision by bringing the plants more into line as it were. For my own part superior culture should always have the preference. What is wanted in all Horticultural Societies is to advance culture, and everything tending to do so should have a foremost place in their prize lists. Competent and reliable judges are very necessary to the prosperity of such societies.