FLOnrrrLTTIRE. 405 



diffused: the next day you ■will liavc the plt-asnre of seeing the bnds open 

 and expand themselves, and the flowers diaplay their mrast loyely colors and 

 breathe their agreeable odors. 



Parlor Ornament^-We saw, in the parlor of a friend, a very beantifhl 

 conceit. It is, of course, the fancy of a laay, and consists of the burr of a 

 pine tree placed in a wine glass half full or water, and from between the 

 different layers of the burr are shooting forth green blades — bright, beauti- 

 ful, refreshing. For a little thing, we have seen nothing that so pleased us 

 by its beauty and novelty. And the secret is tins: The burr was found dried 

 and open; the different circles were sprinkled with grass-seed, and it was 

 placed in a wine glass \s-ith water in as above. In a few days the moisture 

 and nouri.«hment gave the burr life and health, the different circles closed 

 and buried within themselves the grass-seed, and a few days more gave to 

 the seed also life, sprout and growth, and now a pyramid of living green, 

 beautifully relieved by the somber Lue of the burr, is the result — as pretty 

 and novel a parlor ornament &a we have for a long while seen. We do not 

 know whether the idea was original ^vith the lady, but we do know that its 

 success is beautiful. 



Arranging BonqneU. — The art of arranging bouquets is very simple. 

 Having collected the flowers to be used on a tray, all the superfluous leavea 

 should be stripped from the stems, and by placing the flowers side by side, 

 you can easily see the order m which they can be most advantageously dis- 

 played. A very pretty hand bouquet can be made by taking a small, straight 

 stick, not over a quarter of an inch in diameter, tie a string to the top of it, 

 and begin by fastening on a few delicate flowers, cr one large, handsome 

 one, for the center-piece, winding the string alMut each stem as you add the 

 flowers and leaves to the bouquet Alwa3rs place the fl-jwers with the 

 shortest stems at the top, preserving all those with long stems for the base, 

 and finish off the bouquet with a fringe of finely cut foliage. Then cut all 

 the stems evenly, wrap damp cotton around them, and cover the stams with 

 a paper cut in pretty lace designs. In making bouquets from garden flowers, 

 such aa are most easy to procure, the flowers can bo arranged flatly, and & 

 background made from sprays of evergreen. 



A Cheap Plant Standi We made a very effective plant stand for our 

 front yard last summer in the following manner: X cedar stake, two or three 

 inches in diameter, was driven into the ground so as to stand tirmly, and of 

 the required height, a small piece of board nailed across the top, and another 

 piece, a Uttle larger, nailed over this, so aa to make a sulistantial base, and 

 a cheese box nailed to this. Then we filled the box half full by putting in a 

 couple of inches of sand and sphagnum over it The whole was then covered 

 with pendent lichen, and the box filled with plants in pots, tall ones in the 

 center and smaller one around them, with trailing plants to hang over the 

 sides. It was shaded by trees daring the hotter portions of the day, and 

 such plants as glecchoma, alyssum, ivy, etc., succeeded finely by merely 

 presaing a handful of sphagnum around the base of cuttings andprehsing 

 them into the spaces between the pots. 



A Pern Paradise at Home — It is not only the poor who have to live 

 in gardenless dwellings and look out from sunless windows. The mansions 

 of the rich, and thousands of houses of the well-to-do and of the middle 

 classes are necessarily in great cities placed where the sun cannot exert hia 



