CONSTRUCTION OF BOUQUETS, ETC. 155 



a bordering of white, blue, or pink, may be generally used 

 with good effect. Handsome leaves of the geranium or 

 camellia (the latter is preferable for its brightness and 

 durability) alternating with fine sprays of green, delicate 

 flower scapes, or spikelets of heaths, form a fitting edging 

 for a hand bouquet. A fine hand bouquet may be made 

 with smooth outline and relieved by a few delicate points 

 of green or fine leaves. In filling out a hand bouquet, half- 

 dried moss is preferable to bouquet green, as it can be used 

 more readily to keep the flowers apart without so much 

 increase of weight and stem ; a light backing of green, 

 concave underneath, finishes the bouquet. White lute- 

 string ribbon wound around the handle and tied in a bow 

 is preferable to tinfoil. 



Judging the merits of bouquets, etc., has always been a 

 very difficult point amongst gardeners and florists, nor 

 is this to be wondered at when exhibitors and judges 

 have each their own notions of excellence, various as the 

 men themselves. It is only by comparison that the 

 merits of any article can be well judged, and the best con- 

 noisseurs of arranged flowers are not to be found amongst 

 gardeners, who have few opportunities of comparing such 

 things, but amongst the lovers of flowers, the men and wom- 

 en of cultivated tastes who, having leisure and means, find 

 pleasure in studying their merits, and thus set up for them- 

 selves a higher standard of excellence. An unskilled 

 person set to judge a collection of pansy flowers proba- 

 bly would not arrive at the same conclusions, as one who 

 judged the same flowers by the standard rules which 

 hold the circle, the thick and smooth petal, the sharply 

 defined eye, and distinct division of colors, as the only 

 true marks of perfection. A hand bouquet may have its 

 colors inlaid like mosaic with very good effect, and if the 

 coloring be well toned and contrasted, such a bouquet 

 made with skill, like prize pansies, would compel any one 

 who saw it to admir?, although many would object to it 



