108 



A TALK WITH FLORA AND POMONA. 



and hinted something about the same labor 

 being performed under the direction of the 

 more tasteful eye of ladies, who should in- 

 vent and arrange, while the fingers of ho- 

 nest toil wrought the ruder outline only. 



Floka then hinted to us, how much more 

 beautiful flowers were when arranged in the 

 simplest forms, and said when combined or 

 moulded into shapes or devices, nothing 

 more elaborate or artificial than a vase-form 

 is really pleasing. Baskets, moss-covered, 

 and flower-woven, she said, were thought 

 elegant enough for Paradise itself. There 

 are not only baskets, continued she, that are 

 beautiful lying down, and showing inside a 

 rich mosaic of flowers — each basket, large or 

 small, devoted perhaps, to some one choice 

 flower in its many varieties ; but baskets 

 qn the tops of mossy pedestals, bearing 

 tasteful emblems hiterwoA'en on their sides ; 

 and baskets hanging from ceilings, or high 

 festooned arches — in which case they dis- 

 play in the most graceful and becoming 

 manner, all manner of drooping and twin- 

 ing plants, the latter stealing out of the 

 nest or body of the basket, and waving to 

 and fro in the air they perfume. " Then 

 there is the garlmid,^^ continued our fair 

 guest ; " it is quite amazing, that since the 

 days of those clever and harmonious people, 

 the Greeks, no one seems to know anything 

 of the beauty of the garland. Now in fact 

 nothing is more beautiful or becoming 

 than flowers woven into tasteful garlands 

 or chaplets. The form a circle — that em- 



blem of eternity, so full of dread and mys- 

 tery to you mortals — and the size is one that 

 may be carried in the hand or hung up, and 

 it always looks lovely. Believe me, nothing 

 is prettier in my eyes, Avhich, young as they 

 look, have had many thousands of your 

 years of experience, than a fresh green 

 garland woven with bright roses." 



As she said this, she seized a somewhat 

 common basket that lay near us, and passing 

 her delicate fingers over it, as she plucked 

 a few flowers from the surrounding plants, 

 she held it, a picture of magical verdure 

 and blossoms, aloft in the air over our heads, 

 while on her arm she hung a garland as 

 exquisitely formed and proportioned as if 

 cut in marble, with, at the same time, all 

 the airiness which only flowers can have. 

 The effect was ravishing ! simplicity, deli- 

 cacy, gracefulness and perfume. The god- 

 dess rnoved around us with an air and in an 

 attitude compared with which the glories 

 of Titian and Eaphael seem tame and cold, 

 and as the basket was again passing over 

 our head, we were just reaching out our 

 hand to detain the lovely vision, when, un- 

 luckily, the parti-colored dog that guards 

 our demesne, broke into a loud bark ; Po- 

 mona hastily seized her golden apple ; 

 Flora dropped our basket, (which fell to 

 the ground in its wonted garb of plain wil- 

 low,) — and both vanished into the dusky 

 gloom of the night shadows; at that mo- 

 ment, suddenly rising up in our hammock, 

 we found we had been— dreaming. 



The CtTRCULio. — We recommended, in the 

 last volume of the Horticulturist, that the 

 ground be thrown up in trenches and ridges 

 late in autumn, around plum trees, that the 

 curculios might be thus frozen. J. J. Tho- 

 mas, "Wayne county, tried this last autumn, 

 but has this year found it unsuccessful. 

 He states, that David Thomas of Cayuga 



county, has saved fine crops of apricots ami 

 plums the past and present season, by fol- 

 lowing up the practice which he originated, 

 of jarring them down on Avhite sheets, and 

 then destroying them, and also allowing the 

 pigs free access under the trees, so that 

 they may devour all the punctured fruit, 

 which they do pretty effectually. 



