t6o4 The Cornell Reading Courses 



in verse and song as early as the seventh centur}'. But, thoiigh Chaucer 

 and vShakespeare were close observers of nature, it was not until the time 

 of Wordsworth and Ruskin that there was among western nations the 

 human response to nature's appeal that is known to-day. Now there 

 is no important function in the social world, 



A wedding or a funeral, 

 A mourning or a festival, 



in which so-called floral decorations do not play a part. There is much yet 

 to learn from the canons of good taste as to the appropriateness of a mere 

 lavish display, especially of exotics and forced hothouse flowers. The 

 Japanese would be as ready to wear stmimer clothes in winter as to use 

 flowers that are out of season for decorative purposes. 



The term flowers, as used in the title of this lesson, refers not only to 

 blossoms but to leaves, berries, seed packs, and any other form of plant 

 life that has decorative possibilities. 



An arrangement of flowers may be a work of art in which ever}^ essential 

 of design in form and color may be exemplified. In such creative work 

 there are four steps: 



1. Gathering the plant materials 



2. Selection of the receptacle that is to contain them 



3. Effective placing of the arrangement 



4. Manner of arranging the flowers in the receptacle 



GATHERING THE PLANT MATERIALS 



The three general sources from which to obtain plant materials are 

 the greenhouse, the garden, and the fields and woods. 



The greenhouse. — The greenhouse is the most specialized and expensive 

 source for plant material. While on certain occasions and at certain 

 times of the year it is necessary to use hothouse plants, the greenhouse 

 cannot be considered a general source of supply for ever\'day use. Hot- 

 house flowers bear about the same relation to garden and wild plant 

 materials as fresh tomatoes in winter bear to the bulk of the family diet. 

 For this reason the hothouse prodvict will not be further considered in this 

 lesson. 



The garden. — By the garden is meant any place where plants are in\4ted 

 to grow, in fence comers, beside walks, against buildings, around door^ 

 ways, in beds or borders. 



It is not necessary^ to have a large plot cultivated as a garden, but from 

 frost to frost let no one who has even a bit of land connected with his home 

 be without a succession of bloom, which may be gathered to grace the 



