CONSTRUCTING BOUQUETS. 47 



THE ART OF CONSTRUCTING BOUQUETS ; ARRANG- 

 ING FLOWERS IN VASES, Etc. 



FOREIGN FLOWER FASHIONS. 



I have been requested by a number of the readers of 

 my first "Book of Flowers," should I publish another 

 work or a new edition of the old one, to give some direc- 

 tions in constructing bouquets, showing how to arrange 

 the colors, etc. Now this is about as difficult a task, as it 

 would be to direct how a beautiful painting could be 

 executed ; such an art cannot be communicated by writ- 

 ing. It requires taste, skill, and practice to become a good 

 artist, and to know how the colors should be blended to 

 form a perfect picture. It is somewhat so in arranging 

 flowers in a bouquet. There is very bad taste exhibited 

 in many of the bouquets that are offered for sale in the 

 flower shops, which to the eye of an amateur is about as 

 annoying as discords are to the ear of an educated musi- 

 cian. I must, however, confess that I cannot communicate 

 the art of arranging the color of flowers in a bouquet that 

 would be satisfactory to myself, and must give as a sub- 

 stitute, some hints which I find in a late London paper from 

 a report of a gentleman who gives an account of what he 

 saw on a visit to Paris, in an article entitled, " Flowers 

 and Foreign Flower Fashions" The article is a long one 

 and I give only the following extracts : 



" Much green with a little color is a rule that has a' 

 wide reign ; and also it is remarkable how rarely one sees 

 one color ; but crimson and buff roses, violet and pink, 



