THE ELOEAL WORLD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 35 



and can be trained in any form you wish. A very simple contri- 

 vance is a copper wire twisted to form a ring at one end large 

 enough to bold tbe pot just below the rim, with a loop at the other 

 end for hanging it on a nail. 



Vases, trumpet glasses, and stands, in terra-cotta, china, and 

 glass, cf numerous designs, are extensively used for the decoration 

 of dinner-tables, rooms, halls, stair-landings, and passages. When 

 used in the decoration of halls or vestibules, cut-flower vases should 

 be larger in size and different in shape from those used in the 

 decoration of rooms or dinner-tables ; many flowers that would 

 have too clumsy an appearance in a drawing-room vase will suit a 

 vestibule vase to perfection, for a bolder arrangement of details 

 must be aimed at with them to have a good effect. 



Of the many varieties of stands for cut flowers in use, there are 

 four that do not intercept the view, are easy to fit up, and not ex- 

 pensive to purchase. They are as follows :— The true Marchian ; 

 the Marchian, with trumpet and top tazza ; a high, slender trumpet, 

 with three curved trumpets branching from it ; and a large tazza, 

 with single trumpet rising out of the centre. These shapes, when 

 fitted up lightly, look very effective. When going to arrange a 

 stand, see that the glass is well polished, for half the effect depends 

 on the brightness and glitter of the crystal, which sets off flowers 

 to greater advantage than any other material. To keep glass clean 

 it should be washed with nothing but cold water. 



It is not necessary that the cut flowers used for decoration 

 should be rare or costly ; lovely arrangements can be got up with 

 the hardy garden or common wild flowers, associated with wild 

 ferns, grasses, and many other simple objects of the garden, wood, 

 or field, when the rarer stove and greenhouse flowers are unattain- 

 able. As an example of this, we give a description of the drawing- 

 room stands to which the first, second, and third prizes were 

 awarded at a provincial show of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 held at Birmingham. The flowers used in the first prize arrange- 

 ment were white water-lilies, white sweet peas, blue corn-flowers, 

 white rodanthe, ferns, and wild grasses. That of the second prize 

 consisted of pink cactus flowers, white water-lilies, pink and white 

 rodanthe, ferns, and grasses. The third prize consisted of white 

 water-lilies, white rodanthe, and oats. Many of the vases to which 

 no prizes were awarded contained orchids and other choice and 

 costly flowers. 



I may also notice another vase composed wholly of wild flowers, 

 to which was awarded the first prize, in the class for wild flowers 

 arranged for effect, at the Exhibition of the Tunbridge Wells 

 Horticultural Society. The vase itself resembled a Marchian one 

 in form, and each tazza and trumpet was filled with Dog-roses, blue 

 Forget-me-nots, brown-tinted sprays of Oak leaves, and British terns ; 

 in each tie the flowers and foliage were most charmingly intermixed. 

 In addition to those just named in the trumpet was placed a long 

 trailing spray of white Convolvulus, which drooped down and was 

 twined in a most graceful manner. This would make a good centre- 

 piece for the dinner-table, as well as a drawing-room vase. 



Ffibruary. 



