THE FLOWER GARDEN IN THE HOUSE. 



319 



And when we have seen the ugliness of much of this work, what is 

 to be done in the way of remedy as the shops are so much against 

 us ? The first need is a great variety of pots, basins, and jars or 

 vases ; so that no flower that garden, wood, or hedgerow can give us, 

 need be without a fitting vessel the moment it is brought into the 

 house. What are known as the Munstead glasses are a great help, 

 because their shapes are carefully made to suit various flowers, and 

 they are very useful and good in form made, too, of plain glass. 

 But, however good this series is, it is well to use a variety of other 

 things in any simple ware that comes in our way, very often things on 

 the way to the rubbish heap, such as Devonshire cream jars in brown 

 ware. Nassau seltzer bottles, in the brown ware too, may well take a 

 single flower or branch, while old ginger pots, quite simple shallow 

 basins in yellow ware, 

 and other articles 

 made for use in trade, 

 come in very well. 



There is no need 

 to exclude finer or 

 more costly things 

 than these if good in 

 shape and not out- 

 rageous in colour, but 

 various reasons lead 

 us to prefer the simpler 

 wares, in which the 

 flowers look often 

 quite as well as in 

 any others, though a 

 mass of Edith Gifford 

 Rose looks very well 



in a good old silver bowl, and good china, silver, or bronze vases 

 or basins may be used for choice positions or occasions, though 

 it will generally be best not to submit fine or fragile vessels of 

 this kind to the risks of constant use. Among the finest things ever 

 made in the shape of vases for cut flowers is the old Japanese work, 

 which is often as lovely in form and as beautiful with true ornament 

 as anything made by the old Greeks ; but the Japanese, like others, 

 have taken to " potboiling " in bronze, and many of the things now 

 seen at sales in London are coarse in workmanship. It might be 

 worth while to have good and avowed reproductions of some of the 

 more useful old forms the slender, uprising ones are so good for 

 many tall flowers ; Italian bronze bowls are often useful too ; and the 



Paeonies in Munstead glas 



