FLOWER SHOWS AND CONCERT ENTERTAINMENTS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 1, 5 January 1910, Page 40

FLOWER SHOWS AND CONCERT ENTERTAINMENTS.

An interesting correspondence Iras l.een published in the "Scottish Gardener” on the above subject, and, as we think the subject will be of interest to the gardening readers of the “Graphic,” we reprint some of these letters, and probably our readers may have something to say on the subject. We shall be pleased to have their opinions. VERONICA. FLOWER SHOWS: WHAT ARE THEY COMING TO? (To the Editor.) I recently visited a historic town in the West of Scotland, and among the other attractions the flower show was announced for that day. The bill about the flower show interested me, and, being at leisure, I took time to study it. What attracted my attention was the proportions of the announcements on the bill, and I had the curiosity to measure the type of the various items. These are as follow’:—“Grand Display of Flowers,” 1J inches; "Orchestra,” 3 inches; “Variety Concert.” 5 inches; "Coon Songs,” 3 inches “Solo Dancing,” 1J inches. The show itself was a very creditable one, particularly in greenhouse plants and fruit, and the committee have good reason to be satisfied with their efforts from a horticultural point. The public who visited the show arranged themselves very much in the same proportion as the printer arranged the type of the items on the bill. It was the few who inspected the flowers, the many—the great many—who crowded round the orchestra and the variety entertainment. The committee are not to blame for having music at the show and intimating it on their bills in the prominent way they did. They have large expenses to face for prize money, hall rent, and other things, and money must be raised. I presume the committee themselves have no love for coon songs and variety entertainments. They would be content as horticulturists to do with out music and discuss the floral subjects they are interested in. The public, however. have to be drawn to the show, and nowadays they will not be drawn unless there are outside attractions. Flower shows are evidently of less educational value to the public than they formerly were. The bulk of the public at this show’ either never looked at the exhibits or looked at them in the most careless way. and got no lessons or inspiration from them. The public, it would seem, do not want flower shows. Is It desirable, therefore, to continue them? The managers of flower shows have a serious problem to solve. Public interest, is waning in many places about flower shows and that interest has to be tacked on with variety concerts. Is it right that flower show

managers, whose object is horticulture, should turn themselves into stag* managers to please the public? In all conscience, the public—particularly in our large centres—have sufficient means of amusement in football matches, skating rinks, hippodromes, and music halls. Is it in keeping with the dignity of horticulture to allow this craze for amusement. Ito capture our flower shows? In fairness to the flower show committees, they are not to blame. They are forced by the circumstances in which they are placed to run these side shows to make their own show pay. Flower shows are almost exclusively managed—and well managed —-by working men, who render unpaid •ervice entirely in the public interest. A great financial responsibility is created in taking a hall and issuing a prize list. The managers have no personal interest to serve in conducting a show, and it is very few competitors who make any money in their competition. If it was felt that the public were being educated and horticulture thereby promoted, the managers of the shows would have a reward for their efforts. But when the public will not attend a flower show unless it is three parts amusement and one part horticulture, it is time flower show managers were calling a halt and taking a survey of their position. The remarks I make do not apply to the whole of the country. This is very much a local question. Horticulture in some districts derives an impulse from flower shows, and the public taste is still in a healthy state. These districts are mostly in our rural parts. In many of our towns it is a hard task to maintain a flower show •when the public will not look at it. as a horticultural exhibition unless it is surrounded with music ball attractions. —I am, etc. HORTICULTURE, Sir, —In reply to ‘’Horticulture,” I would say that if the public are induced to take an interest in flowers by being musically attracted to the show, the end appears to me to justify the means. I sympathise with the singers, however, as the attention is indifferent and inconsistent with the vociferous applause and encore demands. From that point of view I would not have songs. I can see no objection to an orchestra af you can get players to perform amid a constant murmur of voices. The sentiments raised by the study or enjoyment of music and flowers are surely not antagonistic. We in Dunoon are glad to see each year an increasing attendance at the show. —I am, etc., T. F. MORE, Secretary, Dunoon and Oowal Horticultural Association.

ARE COON SONGS REQUIRED? (To the Editor.) Sir, —In the issue for 4th September appears a letter headed “Flower Shows: What are they coming to?” which reads to me as one of the “working men committee” of a show in the West of Scotland, and not in a rural part either, but a healthy summer resort, very much given to variety concerts, etc., pretty wide of the mark. To take “Horticulture's” notes as they are published, the bills he measured must have been a minstrel entertainment with a flower display as one of the turns. The bills we publish throughout a very wide district only mention a concert will be held in connection with the show. The public who frequented our show, I am glad to say, were not only composed of native horticultural enthusiasts, but a goodly company of summer visitors. All, with very few exceptions, made their survey of the plants, flowers, etc., and, what was more, discussed points of the various exhibits, which showed that knowledge of flowers and plants was not confined entirely to the few who show. It would be very little credit to the committee were the side shows, as he terms them, the first consideration. I should be very sory for the secretary or treasurer who was compelled to pay prize money, rent of ball, printing, and other expenses off his takings at the door of a variety entertainment such as he pictures. Are the better-class public to be asked to give their subscriptions to such an affair as seemed to be billed where he visited? I am safe in saying they would have, none of it, and here lies the crux of The whole affair. No one can deny the great assistance all flower shows derive from them. They generally have more titan a passing interest i-n horticulture in all its branches, and never

grudge a donation towards the funds of a flower show. Do they, I may add, require coou songs, etc., to help them to admire flowers? So my advice to committees is, make more of the show and leas variety entertainment. At the show of winch I had a practical experience in the working of this year we bad a few first-class singers, and they told me they could scarcely hear themselves for the buzz in the hall. Did that show that everybody was there to hear the concert? I agree with “Horticulture” that this is a local question, but I may add—and this more where committees are finding it hard to make and keep the sliow going—make the flower show a flower show, with a bit of nice, preferably local, music, two or four violins and a piano. Get the best people, and let the crowd go where it is catered for. When a - small burgh at a coast place, with minstrels and all other attractions at the shore free and for nothing, can get on a fine summer evening, a crowded hall to see the flower show, the committee do not require to ask, what are they coming to? —I am, etc.,

GARDEN.

Sir, —Candidly, I regret I cannot lay claim, even in the very humblest degree, to being a critic of such a delicate subject, and, without official authority from my own directorate to take part in such a discussion, if I am personally, in any small way. competent to form and express an opinion on the question of the regretful apathy evinced by the great majority of the public in horticulture generally. As a consequence of the experience I have gained, and the opinion I have thereby formed as arising out of such experience, I very much regret to say that, this opinion coincides identically with the remarks so aptly expressed by your correspondent, namely, that to the great majority of the public the other attractions, now universally provided for them in the way of music and amusement, seem to provide them with a larger measure of evident enjoyment than does the display of plants and flowers, “the flower show” pure and simple.—l am, etc. W. A. AN INDISPENSABLE FACTOR, Sir, —I was greatly interested in an article in your issue of the 4th September by “Horticulture,” entitled “Flower Shows: what are they coming to?” and, while I agree with his remarks to a certain extent, still I am surprised that he should think it at aU necessary for the managers of flower shows to survey their position. I have had a large amount of experience in connection with these floral displays in a rural district, and I am strongly of the opinion that a musical or vocal entertainment at a flower show is an indispensable factor. The floral display in itself is certainly, or ought to be, the outstanding attraction, but, as shows, more especially in rural districts, are of ordinary proportions, it is hardly natural to suppose tliat the exhibits would command the attention of the audience from five to six hours. It is therefore absolutely necessary that some other attraction, such as a musical or vocal entertainment, should be included in the programme. I am afraid that “Horticulture” is labouring under an almost inexcusable misapprehension when he says that “flower shows are evidently of less educational value to the public than they formerly were.” He seems to forget that this is a progressive age, and it is therefore necessary that we should keep abreast with the times. There is nothing tliat blends more beautifully or charmingly together than music and flowers—the one with its magnificent profusion of blooms and the other with its sweet and soul-inspiring melodies, producing a combination that would be hard to surpass. It is seven years since the society to which I belong was formed, and during that period our annual exhibitions have been of immense educational value, and have been the means of introducing a number of new members yearly. These exhibitions have always been greatly appreciated by the general public, and, from what I have Been from similar displays in large towns, I am of the opinion that public interest in the cultivation of flowers and vegetables is being well maintained. In conclusion, I would advise “Horticulture” to take heart; the beautiful and wonderful products of Mother Nature’s store, -which are displayed at flower shows, still continue to interest and educate, but it is only fit and proper that these should be accompanied by the sweet and charming melodies of music.—l am, etc., A. T.

A SECRETARY’S EXPERIENCE. Sir,—As a flower show secretary, I was an interested, reader of the very much-to-t&e-point article of your correspondent “Horticulture.” page 649. It is long since I had to admit, with much reluctance, that a Hower show by itself was a spent force; os far as the generality of the public is concerned, the taste for flowers at the same time steadily increases in every locality. Why, then, should .exhibitions decline in public favour? Many reasons may be given. Amongst others, we have the pot-hunters, the pilferer, the faker, etc., etc.; each has given the flower show a bad smell. Members have dwindled, donors get sca-neer each year, the public get tired of being a mere handful of competitors scooping in the spoils, and, above all, the majority of provincial dwellers grow and admire, choice flowers and vegetables in their own plots, and do not now require to visit flower shows to slake their thirst; but, given the best of bewitching music along with the beauties of Nature, no finer place than a flower show can be found to spend an hour or two. The much-worried secretary and committee are usually men of large hearts and open minds. They leave the realm of horticulture only when all else fails, and cast about for a “draw.” Then the trouble •begins; they have to choose .Between a successful variety entertainment or a vanishing treasury. Who can blame them if they eater for public taste? In fact, it is their duty to do so; but whether their effort should be called a flower show or not is another matter. My personal experience is that, since we coupled a promenade concert with our show, our drawings have trebled: this is the experience of most societies, and so that is what flower shows have come to. —I am, etc., SECRETARY. CHLOROPHYLL. Chlorophyll is the name given to the green colouring matter which is evident in almost all vegetable life. It is inseparably connected with the protoplasm itself. All plants are built up by the process of cell formaddon, and each individual cell of the plant in its earlier growth is filled with protoplasm, and, under microscopic examination, is found 'to a.-sume various shapes, according to the species of plant under consideration, but within the protoplasm there are found bodies which differ but little in composition from the protoplasm of which it is a pant, and which also assumes various forms under microscopic observation. These chlorophyll corpuscles are produced in great numbers and are to be found in all parts of the plant body, where the transformation of inorganic food materials into organic nutrients is taking place, namely, the leaves and other green parts of the plant. But for the green pigment of these corpuscles, which declares their presence, they would be indiscernible from the general body of protoplasm -within the cell. The chemical composition of chlorophyll corpuscles, which is therefore the same os protoplasm, consists of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulphur. In order that the green pigment may be developed, traces of iron are necessary, not that iron is a chemical constituent of protoplasm or Che chlorophyll corpuscle, but the giving plant must taka it from the earth with other food salts, otherwise the corpuscles could not develop their green colour. Various experiments have proved beyond doubt that plants grown in cultures without iron are devoid of green chlorophyll corpuscles and soon die. so we see that the development of chlorophyll is an absolute necessity to the life of the pliant. As already stated, chlorophyll is to be found in the leaves, stems, and other green parts of plants; it is to be found in greatest quantity in the leaf. Take almost any leaf and examine it carefuHy; you will find that thp upper part, or surface of the leaf, is usually a darker green than the under, or back of the leaf. The difference of shade is due in the first place to the arrangement of tihe ceHls, which are plac—l close together without any intercellular spaces, while those which form the under or lower side are separated by intercellular spaces; thus the tissue of tfiie leaf under the microscope has the appearance of two layers; it is in the upper layer of tissue that the chlorophyll corpuscles

are to be found iu greatest number. The leaves, than, are the principal organs of assimilation and u-anapirauon. That being »o, they require to be fullyilluminated by sunlight, and it is just there that it is necessary for chlorophyll to be developed in greatest quantity. Chlorophyll can only be developed within the protoplasm in sunlight; in the absence of sunlight no chlorophyll can be formed. Ike Manching of Leeks, Seakale, Celery, etc., is brought about by taking various means to exclude the light and arrest the development of chlorophyll. Besides being concerned in the decomposition of carbonic acid (carbon dioxide) and the formation of chemical compounds in a form suitable for assimilation, chlorophyll is concerned in protecting the plant from injurious influences from without, viz., that of turning light rays into heat (in eases where reduction of temperature wouhl be injurious to the plant) resulting in the formation of another pigment, called anthocyanin, of a red or purplish colour. Chlorophyll is also said to absorb those rays of the spectrum which are not necessary (at least for the time being) for the formation or decomposition of carbohydrates as demanded by the plant body in the process of growth and in the rapidity with which new cells are formed, and, in conjunction with atmospheric conditions, absorbing only those rays which are not required in the process of assimilation.