The instance just recorded of horticulture playing a prominent part in
the breaking up of friendships is by no means unique. When one comes
to think of it, one cannot be surprised that as the earliest serious
quarrel recorded in the history of the world was over a purely
horticultural question--namely, whether or not the qualities of
beneficent nutrition attributed to a certain fruit had been accurately
analysed--there should be many differences of opinion among the best of
friends on the same subject.
It was my old gardener--not-the oldest of all, but the second
oldest--who told me how it was that the annual prize given by the Moated
Manor House people for the best floral display of the cottage order was
very nearly withdrawn for ever, owing to the bad blood that was made by
the award, no matter in what direction it was made. It seemed that the
prize-winner invariably found himself compelled to accept the challenge
to fight of all the disappointed aspirants to the prize, and before
nightfall there was a general distribution of black eyes and front
teeth; in some cases both got inextricably mixed up, and this was no
pleasure to anybody, my informant assured me, and the wives of the men
who were keen to compete for the prize discouraged them from it,
with the warning that if they continued to spend their time over the
cultivation of the blooms they might some day actually find themselves
awarded the prize. That warning, founded as it was upon sound sense and
reason, was beginning to produce its effects upon the better class of
flower growers; but there were still a number of young fellows who went
into training at the punch ball at the Church Institute club-room the
day they sowed their flower seeds, and so were at the top of their form
when the award was made in the early autumn, so that if one of them got
the prize he thought if a pity that his training and practice at the
punch ball should be wasted, and thus he was ready to prove to all
disputants that the prize had gone to the best man; while it was only to
be expected that those who had only had the cold consolation of honorary
mention were only too ready to dispute his ability to maintain such an
attitude for any length of time.
The result of this joint cultivation of bulbs and biceps was not just
what the givers of the prize intended to achieve, and twice, when there
had been arrests and summonses to petty sessions, a formal warning was
issued to all whom it might concern that if the connection between
the two cultures were not severed, the prize, which was only meant for
success in the one, would be withdrawn.
Happily, however, it was not found necessary to enforce this ultimatum,
and a _modus vivendi,_ founded upon one which had been understood to
work very satisfactorily in the case of the Chrysanthemum Society of
Mallingham, was adopted, and up to the present this had made for peace.
The annual Battle of Flowers at Thurswell has become a thing of the
past, and “Midge” Purcell, the ex-lightweight champion of the county,
who rents the Lion and Lamb Inn, and to whom the candidates for the
prize applied for advice on the biceps side of the joint contest,
affirms with regret that Englishmen are becoming degenerate.
It was a peace-loving florist at Mallingham, the honorary secretary
to the Chrysanthemum Society, who explained the system upon which his
committee had agreed to make their awards, and urged its adoption by
the Thurswell people. Its operation was not intricate. Its fundamental
principle may best be defined on the analogy of the rotation of crops as
the rotation of awards. Like the award of the Garter, merit had nothing
to do with its scheme. The prizes were awarded strictly in turn to the
professional competitors--the others did not matter. Mr. Johnson got the
chrysanthemum cup one year, Mr. Thompson the medal for the best twelve cut
lilies, Mr. Cardwell the Malmaison salver, and Mr. Prior the vase for
the best display of greenhouse ferns. The next year it was arranged that
the vase should go to Mr. Johnson, the salver to Mr. Thompson, and so
forth. By the adoption of this admirable plan the judges were saved a
large amount of trouble, and there never was any friction between the
competitors, for it was understood that if it was Prior's year for the
lily medal, but he had a liking for any other prize, he could nearly
always negotiate an exchange with the man whose turn had come for the
award that he fancied. This principle of give and take, live and
let live, had made the Mallingham Society one of the most popular
floricultural organisations in the country, and its adoption by the
Thurswell Committee of the Manor House prize brought about, as has been
said, an entire cessation of that ill-feeling which led to the use
of language that was certainly not the language of flowers, and to
many-discreditable scenes even when there were no arrests made. The
cause of peace has triumphed, though some people say that floriculture
languishes through the lack of heal thy rivalry; for when every man is
certain of the prize when his turn comes for it, he does not trouble
about the flowers. There may be something in this suggestion.
Taking one consideration with another, it really does seem a pity that
the rotation system is not more widely accepted by those societies which
have been established for the encouragement of sundry excellent objects,
such as the breeding of bull-dogs (for symbolic purposes), of pugs
(of no use to any one when they are bred), of pigs (of which the
prize-winner is invariably the most uneatable), and of pets (in various
forms). In our neighbourhood such organisations are to be numbered by
the dozen, and after every prize distribution the air is murmurous with
the complaints of disappointed competitors. It was a shrewd farmer who
suggested to me the principle on which the awards are made at our local
dog show. “The reason why there's so much grumbling, sir, is because the
judges look at the wrong end of the leash,” he said, and I understood
what he meant.
[Illustration: 0061]
I know that the impression is very general that the pedigree of the
exhibitor rather than that of the exhibit influences the local judges.
But I must confess that I could not bring myself to sympathise with one
of our new residents who, after living in London all his life, bought
Harley Croft House, a 40 h.p. motor-car and six pairs of gaiters, and
set up as a country gentleman. It must be acknowledged that at times he
looked a colourable imitation of one. He hoped that his starting of
the breeding of cattle and fowl would consolidate his position. But his
researches in the literature of both subjects at the same time resulted
in some confusion. Of course his pointing out some drab-tinted cows
to the steward of the Manor and alluding to them definitely as Buff
Orpingtons was a slip that any one might make; but to hope to win
sympathy for a wrong done to him by the judges at the poultry show by
affirming that his bantam cock was really twice the size of the one to
which the prize had been awarded was, I think, a strategical mistake of
a flagrant character.
Much more in the spirit of the country gentleman was the remark made to
me by a neighbour who hunts five days a week in winter and talks about
hunting seven days a week in the summer, on a purely literary subject.
He had been at the Military Tournament in London the year that _The
Merchant of Venice_ was being played at Her Majesty's Theatre, and he
confided in me that he thought on the whole it was very fine indeed,
though for his part he enjoyed _The Runaway Girl_ at the Gaiety more
fully. He could not quite understand the point of some of the jokes in
_The Merchant of Venice_, he said. For instance, he should like to know
what there was to laugh at in the chap's saying to the Jew that some one
had shown him a turquoise which he had bought from the Jew's daughter
for a monkey. Any one who knew anything about precious stones knew that
to pay a monkey for a single turquoise, even though set in an 18-carat
ring, was to pay a fair price. Of course you couldn't get much of a
diamond ring for twenty-five pounds; but you could get a first-rate
turquoise for half the money. But there were some people, he knew,
who would laugh at any joke if they were only told it was in a play of
Shakespeare's. I agreed with him, and laughed.
That was not the sort of man who would make a fool of himself over
Buff Orpingtons or cherish his bantams in proportion to their size and
weight.