24 AUGUST 1934, Page 15

COUNTRY LIFE Vegetable Perfection At a recent floral festival, the

exhibit which won the prize for the best in the show was a collection of vegetables, numbering in all 355 sorts or varieties. They were, of course, quite impossibly perfect, in form, in colour and in bulk. They were grown not directly for use but for exhibi- tion. Our cooks perhaps would find a yard of carrot or two feet of leek or celery or an onion weighing a pound or a tomato as small as a currant rather embarrassing than welcome. In vegetables, as in apples, great size may be a disqualification in the market which ultimately depends on the cook. Vegetables teased into an absurd perfection are as little needed as dogs bred for show-points and thereby— witness the foxterrier and the bulldog—ruined.