STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 49 



THE AKRANGEMENT OF FLOWERS. 

 By Mrs. Corelli W. Simpson. 



Before Eve walked in the garden, flowers bloomed in Eden. "Was 

 she, to whom no flowers were forbidden, ever known to frown upon 

 any of the beautiful blossoms that had been her favorites and to 

 call them weeds, merely because of their abundance? 



Any particular rules, as to the arrangement of flowers, would, in 

 a few weeks' time, be utterly worthless. Fickle fashion changes so 

 continually that the roses of last month all had to be replaced in the 

 florist's window by lilies of the valley. But a week since the graceful 

 lilies were banished to make room for the yellow chr3santhemum. 

 Yesterday it was the fragant white lilac and to-day it is the modest 

 violet which occupies the chief place in the ball or drawing-room, 

 and the florist, like the milliner and dress-maker, is expected to keep 

 pace with the various moods of the exacting dame. 



Fashions may rage in flowers, but the beautiful and fragrant flowers, 

 like lovely faces and exquisite poems, can never be out of fashion. 

 A lady friend — a true colorist — and of whom it can be said that the 

 soul of the artist is portra3'ed in every touch of her brush, in conver- 

 sation with- me to-day, remarked that ''a sunflower will alwa3s be 

 beautiful in spite of Oscar Wilde !" A popular freak may make the 

 dark hair and rich complexion of the Spaniard supersede in public 

 favor the rage which the hair of Eugenie caused ; nevertheless, the 

 Titian "red" hair accompanied with its fair complexion and its cor- 

 responding delicac}' of mind and perception will be none the less 

 beautiful. 



Commerce, by the daily communication of specimens, has made 

 the once rare exotics now almost common flowers, and we see iu 

 greenhouses, clover, violets, buttercups and daises advertised as 

 "very scarce and high in price." In the matter of floral decorations, 

 to be successful, one must understand the art of producing the 

 necessary' harmony of colors, the fundamental rules of which are 

 taught in the kindergarten. Every child is there made to understand 

 that there are only three primary colors — red, blue and 3ellow. From 

 these arise the secondar3' colors — orange, composed of yellow and 

 red ; green, composed of yellow and blue ; and purple, composed of 

 blue and red. These form contrasting colors to the three primary 



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