426 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



vritli plenty of vines and featliering green, made to look very pretty. Delicate 

 ilowers, such as lilies of the valley and sweet peas, should be placed by theni- 

 Belves in slender tapering glasses ; violets should nestle their fragrant purple in 

 some tiny cup and pansies be set in groups, with no gayer flowers to contradict 

 their soft velvet hues; and — this is a hint for suinnier — few things are prettier 

 than balsam blossoms, or double variegated hollyhocks, massed on a ilat plate, 

 ■svith a fringe of green to hide the edge. No leaves should be interspersed with 

 these ; the plate should look like a solid mosaic of splendid color. 



3. Stiffness and crowding are the two things to be specially avoided in ar- 

 ranging flowers. What can be uglier than the great tasteless bunches into 

 which the ordinary llorist ties his wares, or what more extravagant? A skillful 

 person will untie one of these and, adding green leaves, make the same flowers 

 into half a dozen bouquets, each more effective than the original. Flowers 

 should be grouj)cd as they grow, with a cloud of light foliage in and about them 

 to set off their forms and colors. Don't forget this. 



4. It is better, as a general rule, not to put more than one or two sorts of 

 flowers into the same vase. A great bush with roses, and camellias, and carna- 

 tions, and fever-few, and geraniums growing on it all at once would be a fright- 

 ful thing to behold ; just so a monstrous bouquet made up of all these flowers 

 is meaningless and ugly. Certain flowers, such as heliotrope, mignonette, and 

 myrtle, mix well with everything; but usually it is better to group flowers with 

 their kind, — roses in one glass, geraniums in another, — and not try to make them 

 agree in companies. 



5. Wlien you do mix flowers, be careful not to put colors which clash side by 

 side. Scarlets and pinks spoil each other ; so do blues and purples, and yel- 

 lows and mauves. If your vase or dish is a very large one, to hold a great 

 number of flowers, it is a good plan to divide it into thirds or quarters, making 

 each division perfectly harmonious within itself, and then blend the whole with 

 lines of green and white, and soft neutral tint. Every group of mixed flowers 

 requires one little touch of yellow to make it vivid ; but this must be skillfully 

 applied. It is good practice to experiment with this effect. For instance, 

 arrange a group of maroon, scarlet, and white geraniums with green leaves, 

 and add a single blossom of gold-colored calceolaria, you will see at once that 

 the whole bouquet seems to flash out and become more brilliant. 



Lastly. Love your flowers. By some subtle sense the dear things always 

 detect their friends, and for them they will live longer and bloom more freely 

 than they ever will for a stranger. And I can tell you, girls, the sympathy of 

 a flower is worth winning, as you will hnd out when you grow older, and realize 

 that there are such things as dull days which need cheering. 



THE GARDEN SYKIXGE. 



A garden syringe gives its possessor continual advantage against dust, daub, 

 and such vermin and fungi as are assailable by water or watery solutions, as a 

 great many of them are. One cannot enumerate all its uses. But let us sup- 

 pose that we have at hand a good, firm, unbruiscd brass syringe, with nozzles 

 for throwing cither a concentrated column of water, or a rain-like shower, or a 

 gentle spray. In the winter this last is chiclly used because it rinses and be- 

 dews the leaves, while it does not drench the roots. The other nozzles come 

 into use now and then for rinsing windows, pots, etc., and as spring advances 

 they are in daily use. Red spiders, thri|»s, and voracious little bugs that can't 

 bear wet lurk under caves and roofs and sally forth like grasshoppers from dry 



