CONSTRUCTION OF BOUQUETS, ETC. 231 



flowers, when filled with rarer Orchid flowers, to pay the 

 grower would need to sell for one hundred dollars. P. H.] 

 Bouquets for refreshment and dinner tables range from five 

 to fifty dollars each ; we have ourselves made one at one 

 hundred. The prices of wreaths, crosses, etc., vary from 

 five to twenty or thirty dollars ; from five to fifteen is a 

 common range. On one occasion a New York florist is 

 said to have supplied three thousand dollars' worth of 

 flowers for a private entertainment, but two or three 

 hundred is more common, and esteemed a very good 

 order. 



A business which in New York alone amounts to 

 hundreds of thousands of dollars annually [It now 

 reaches millions. P. H.] will soon assert its own posi- 

 tion, and it is for those engaged in it to make or mar it, 

 as they conduct it more or less respectably. As Ameri- 

 cans assuredly pay better prices for their bouquets than 

 any other people, let the florist see to it that they get the 

 finest and best arranged flowers. 



We must apologize to the general reader for the minute 

 description and the technical terms used in detailing the 

 modus operandi of construction, but it is necessary to 

 be thus particular to be properly understood by such as 

 are interested in the subject. So many flowers have 

 short or unmanageable stems, or grow so close to buds 

 which the grower cannot afford to cut, that artificial 

 stems must be largely used. Even where stems are 

 available, the bouquet maker, in all good work, prefers 

 having another added to hold the flower in position, 

 the strength of the stem being proportioned to the weight 

 of the flower it bears. Thick stems must be avoided, 

 else the bouquet handle becomes clumsy, a very objec- 

 tionable feature, as amateurs speedily discover, particu- 

 larly when using flowers on their own stems. The stems 

 commonly used are of broom-corn or straw matting, cut 

 in lengths as desired, from four to eight inches. With 



