THE FLOEAFj world AND GARDEN GUIDE. 311 



NOTES ON DINNER-TABLE DECORATIONS. 



ET J. E. SADNDERS. ESQ. 



]X the occasion of the recent exhibition of fruit at the Alex- 

 andra Palace, liberal prizes were oflered for bouquets, 

 stands for the dinner-table and for the drawing-room, 

 and also for tables fully equipped for dining twelve 

 persons. The bouquets and the draw;ing-room vases were 

 not good, the dinner-tables were not particularly remarkable ; but 

 the stands for the latter were characterized by great taste, and a 

 brief description of them will probably interest, and be of service 

 to the readers of the Eloral Would. 



The dinner-tables differed materially, both in the style of dress- 

 ing and in point of merit ; and there was also some difference of 

 opinion as to the proper position of the second and third prize tables 

 on the list of awards. There was no question as to the table exhi- 

 bited by Mr. Soder, of Brentwood, who was awarded the first prize. 

 This table had three stands of the usual Marchian type down the 

 middle : a series of small glasses, one in front of each guest, con- 

 taining a spray of flowers and the frond of a fern ; and six or eight 

 glass baskets containing fruit. This table was undoubtedly the 

 best, but it was a long way from being perfect. The little upright 

 glasses for holding sprays cf flowers look pretty upon the table in an 

 exhibition, but they ought to be banished, for they are more or less 

 in the way ; there is a risk of their being knocked over by the servants, 

 and. to a certain extent they interfere with the comfort of the guests. 

 Judges who have opportunities for dining at tables elaborately 

 dressed, steadily set their faces against a superabundance of flowers, 

 for they well know some of the discomforts of having two-thirds of 

 the table devoted to them, and, as a rule, award the prizes to those 

 tables having no more than three stands. Unfortunately, the 

 adjudication of awards for decorated dinner- tables is very often 

 entrusted to those who have not once dined at a decorated dinner- 

 table, and all that they take into account is the abundance of the 

 flowers, and the taste with which they are placed in the receptacles 

 provided for them. I have on more than one occasion seen tables 

 covered with flowers to within a few inches of the edge of the table, 

 and have heard also loud complaints from the exhibitors because of 

 their receiving no prize. In the dressing of the three stands on Mr. 

 Soder's table, the principal flowers employed were Vallota purpurea, 

 white Water Lilies, and Agapanthus umbellatus, relieved by fronds 

 of Adiantum cuneatum. In the top of the centre stand, sprays of 

 Celosia pyramidalis and the inflorescence of grasses were tastefully 

 intermixed ; and the tops of the side stands were dressed with Corn- 

 flower and grasses. The fruit upon the table was hardly satisfac- 

 tory ; there was not enough of it, for it cannot be said that a couple 

 of small bunches of grapes, three or four peaches, and as many figs, 

 plums, and nectarines, was suflifient for twelve persons. The pyra- 

 midal mounds of fruit such as were on the tliird prize table, and 



October. 



