THE WORSHIP OF FALSE GODS
Several times during these notes I have spoken in a disparaging manner
of the show-table; and I have not done so lightly, but with all the care
and thought and power of observation that my limited capacity is worth;
and, broadly, I have come to this: that shows, such as those at the
fortnightly meetings of the Royal Horticultural Society, and their more
important one in the early summer, whose object is to bring together
beautiful flowers of all kinds, to a place where they may be seen, are
of the utmost value; and that any shows anywhere for a like purpose, and
especially where there are no money prizes, are also sure to be helpful.
And the test question I put to myself at any show is this, Does this
really help the best interests of horticulture? And as far as I can see
that it does this, I think the show right and helpful; and whenever it
does not, I think it harmful and misleading.
The love of gardening has so greatly grown and spread within the last
few years, that the need of really good and beautiful garden flowers is
already far in advance of the demand for the so-called "florists"
flowers, by which I mean those that find favour in the exclusive shows
of Societies for the growing and exhibition of such flowers as Tulips,
Carnations, Dahlias, and Chrysanthemums. In support of this I should
like to know what proportion of demand there is, in Dahlias, for
instance, between the show kinds, whose aim and object is the
show-table, and the decorative kinds, that are indisputably better for
garden use. Looking at the catalogue of a leading Dahlia nursery, I find
that the decorative kinds fill ten pages, while the show kinds,
including Pompones, fill only three. Is not this some indication of what
is wanted in gardens?
I am of opinion that the show-table is unworthily used when its object
is to be an end in itself, and that it should be only a means to a
better end, and that when it exhibits what has become merely a "fancy,"
it loses sight of its honourable position as a trustworthy exponent of
horticulture, and has degenerated to a baser use. When, as in
Chrysanthemum shows, the flowers on the board are of _no use anywhere
but on that board_, and for the purpose of gaining a money prize, I hold
that the show-table has a debased aim, and a debasing influence. Beauty,
in all the best sense, is put aside in favour of set rules and
measurements, and the production of a thing that is of no use or value;
and individuals of a race of plants capable of producing the highest and
most delightful forms of beauty, and of brightening our homes, and even
gardens, during the dim days of early winter, are teased and tortured
and fatted and bloated into ugly and useless monstrosities for no
purpose but to gain money. And when private gardeners go to these shows
and see how the prizes are awarded, and how all the glory is accorded to
the first-prize bloated monster, can we wonder that the effect on their
minds is confusing, if not absolutely harmful?
Shows of Carnations and Pansies, where the older rules prevail, are
equally misleading, where the single flowers are arrayed in a flat
circle of paper. As with the Chrysanthemum, every sort of trickery is
allowed in arranging the petals of the Carnation blooms: petals are
pulled out or stuck in, and they are twisted about, and groomed and
combed, and manipulated with special tools--"dressed," as the show-word
has it--dressed so elaborately that the dressing only stops short of
applying actual paint and perfumery. Already in the case of Carnations a
better influence is being felt, and at the London shows there are now
classes for border Carnations set up in long-stalked bunches just as
they grow. It is only like this that their value as outdoor plants can
be tested; for many of the show sorts have miserably weak stalks, and a
very poor, lanky habit of growth.
Then the poor Pansies have single blooms laid flat on white papers, and
are only approved if they will lie quite flat and show an outline of a
perfect circle. All that is most beautiful in a Pansy, the wing-like
curves, the waved or slightly fluted radiations, the scarcely
perceptible undulation of surface that displays to perfection the
admirable delicacy of velvety texture; all the little tender tricks and
ways that make the Pansy one of the best-loved of garden flowers; all
this is overlooked, and not only passively overlooked, but overtly
contemned. The show-pansy judge appears to have no eye, or brain, or
heart, but to have in their place a pair of compasses with which to
describe a circle! All idea of garden delight seems to be excluded, as
this kind of judging appeals to no recognition of beauty for beauty's
sake, but to hard systems of measurement and rigid arrangement and
computation that one would think more applicable to astronomy or
geometry than to any matter relating to horticulture.
I do most strongly urge that beauty of the highest class should be the
aim, and not anything of the nature of fashion or "fancy," and that
every effort should be made towards the raising rather than the lowering
of the standard of taste.
The Societies which exist throughout the country are well organised;
many have existed for a great number of years; they are the local
sources of horticultural education, to which large circles of people
naturally look for guidance; and though they produce--and especially the
Rose shows--quantities of beautiful things, it cannot but be perceived
by all who have had the benefit of some refinement of education, that
in very many cases they either deliberately teach, or at any rate allow
to be seen with their sanction, what cannot fail to be debasing to
public taste.
I will just take two examples to show how obvious methods of leading
taste are not only overlooked, but even perverted; for it is not only in
the individual blooms that much of the show-teaching is unworthy, but
also in the training of the plants; so that a plant that by nature has
some beauty of form, is not encouraged or even allowed to develop that
beauty, but is trained into some shape that is not only foreign to its
own nature, but is absolutely ugly and ungraceful, and entirely stupid.
The natural habit of the Chrysanthemum is to grow in the form of several
upright stems. They spring up sheaf-wise, straight upright for a time,
and only bending a little outwards above, to give room for the branching
heads of bloom. The stems are rather stiff, because they are half woody
at the base. In the case of pot-plants it would seem right only so far
to stake or train them as to give the necessary support by a few sticks
set a little outwards at the top, so that each stem may lean a little
over, after the manner of a Bamboo, when their clustered heads of flower
would be given enough room, and be seen to the greatest advantage.
But at shows, the triumph of the training art seems to be to drag the
poor thing round and round over an internal scaffolding of sticks, with
an infinite number of ties and cross-braces, so that it makes a sort of
shapeless ball, and to arrange the flowers so that they are equally
spotted all over it, by tying back some almost to snapping-point, and by
dragging forward others to the verge of dislocation. I have never seen
anything so ugly in the way of potted plants as a certain kind of
Chrysanthemum that has incurved flowers of a heavy sort of dull
leaden-looking red-purple colour trained in this manner. Such a sight
gives me a feeling of shame, not unmixed with wrathful indignation. I
ask myself, What is it for? and I get no answer. I ask a practical
gardener what it is for, and he says, "Oh, it is one of the ways they
are trained for shows." I ask him, Does he think it pretty, or is it any
use? and he says, "Well, they think it makes a nice variety;" and when I
press him further, and say I consider it a very nasty variety, and does
he think nasty varieties are better than none, the question is beyond
him, and he smiles vaguely and edges away, evidently thinking my
conversation perplexing, and my company undesirable. I look again at the
unhappy plant, and see its poor leaves fat with an unwholesome obesity,
and seeming to say, We were really a good bit mildewed, but have been
doctored up for the show by being crammed and stuffed with artificial
aliment!
My second example is that of _Azalea indica_. What is prettier in a room
than one of these in its little tree form, a true tree, with tiny trunk
and wide-spreading branches, and its absurdly large and lovely flowers?
Surely it is the most perfect room ornament that we can have in tree
shape in a moderate-sized pot; and where else can one see a tree loaded
with lovely bloom whose individual flowers have a diameter equal to five
times that of the trunk?
But the show decrees that all this is wrong, and that the tiny, brittle
branches must be trained stiffly round till the shape of the plant shows
as a sort of cylinder. Again I ask myself, What is this for? What does
it teach? Can it be really to teach with deliberate intention that
instead of displaying its natural and graceful tree form it should aim
at a more desirable kind of beauty, such as that of the chimney-pot or
drain-pipe, and that this is so important that it is right and laudable
to devote to it much time and delicate workmanship?
I cannot but think, as well as hope, that the strong influences for good
that are now being brought to bear on all departments of gardening may
reach this class of show, for there are already more hopeful signs in
the admission of classes for groups arranged for decoration.
The prize-show system no doubt creates its own evils, because the
judges, and those who frame the schedules, have been in most cases men
who have a knowledge of flowers, but who are not people of cultivated
taste, and in deciding what points are to constitute the merits of a
flower they have to take such qualities as are within the clearest
understanding of people of average intelligence and average
education--such, for instance, as size that can be measured, symmetry
that can be easily estimated, thickness of petal that can be felt, and
such qualities of colour as appeal most strongly to the uneducated eye;
so that a flower may possess features or qualities that endow it with
the highest beauty, but that exclude it, because the hard and narrow
limits of the show-laws provide no means of dealing with it. It is,
therefore, thrown out, not because they have any fault to find with it,
but because it does not concern them; and the ordinary gardener, to
whose practice it might be of the highest value, accepting the verdict
of the show-judge as an infallible guide, also treats it with contempt
and neglect.
Now, all this would not so much matter if it did not delude those whose
taste is not sufficiently educated to enable them to form an opinion of
their own in accordance with the best and truest standards of beauty;
for I venture to repeat that what we have to look for for the benefit of
our gardens, and for our own bettering and increase of happiness in
those gardens, are things that are beautiful, rather than things that
are round, or straight, or thick, still less than for those that are
new, or curious, or astonishing. For all these false gods are among us,
and many are they who are willing to worship.