CONSTRUCTrN-G BOUQUETS. 47 



THE ART OF CONSTRUCTING BOUaUETS ; 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 anotlier 

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

 tions in constructing bouquets, show^ing how to arrange 

 the colors, etc. Now this is about as difticiilt 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 ^^ractice to become a good 

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

 form a perfect jDicture. It is somewhat so in arranging 

 flow^ers 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 i^aper 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 FashionsP 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, 



