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' V 



Mat 4. 1900. 



*The Weekly Florists' Review. 



t437 



i 



THE RETAIL S 



FLORIST 



t 

 I I 



TWO BASKET STUDIES. 



Expressions of Thought. 



Tn teaching cMdren to read an in- 

 structor often follows a plan something 

 like this: She holds up an object, a 

 book, for example, and asks, "What is 

 this!" Some child is allowed to an- 

 swer, "a book." "Yes," says the 

 taechex, "Willie says this is a book. 

 Now ^t«i« are ot)ier things that can talk, 

 besides Iittl» l)oys. But they do not al- 

 ways talk in yuet, the same way. To 

 hear Willie talk you must listen. To 

 hear this piece of cray^a talk you must 

 look at the blackboard. Tbia cr»7W is 

 going to talk, and it will say just wl^iA 

 Willie was saying. Watch, it is paying 

 'Book.' " And therewith she writes or 

 prints the word "book" on the black- 

 board. After frequent drill the pupils 

 are first able to recognize the printed or 

 written word and later to make their 

 ^wn pencils say "book." 



Precisely as the child begins to find 

 out different ways of expressing thought 

 is the student in designing to learn what 

 is said by certain positions of stems and 

 stalks and combinations of the same- 

 Circular lines mean something; they 

 give you a certain sensation, whether you 

 notice it or not; straight lines suggest 

 different ideas to the mind and abrupt 

 and angular arrangements are not as 

 often admired as your eyes fall upon 

 them. 



There is a season why a wild patch of 

 oak woods is more attractive and rest- 

 ful to the eye than a grove of Lombardy 

 poplars planted in straight rows, so many 

 rods long by so many yards wide. Com- 

 pare the two in winter, when the bare 

 trunks and limbs are far enough in the 

 distance to appear as lines. The long 

 curves of the oak branches seem to be 

 reaching out to grasp at some unseen 

 object, and to afford shelter in the 

 shorter decided lines. The straight, 

 abrupt limbs of the poplar frown 

 severely, and when multiplied by tens in 

 regular rows the aggregation fairty dis- 

 turbs your sense of restfulness and se- 

 curity. This is what these different 

 lines and sets of lines are saying as the 

 child or the crayon said "booki" In 

 other words, there is an expression of 

 thought in each. 



Now to be very practical, you have an 

 order to fill a cream-colored braid basket 

 with Bridesmaid roses. There are at 

 least two ways in which you may Execute 

 the work. You may fill and line the bas- 

 ket with moss and tin foil, fasten the 

 same in with your green tying thread, 

 lay on a background of ferns or green 

 moss over the sphagnum, and be ready 

 to put the roses in. You may, if you 

 please, lay out the roses and cut them 

 all about the average length of eight 

 inches, stem them on whole picks and 

 insert them into the sphagnum upward, 

 downward, outward, with the result that 



you have a production with about as 

 much expression as a well inhabited pin 

 cushion. Or, if you are so inclined, you 

 may stem your roses at about the length 

 you find them, set in the larger and 

 stronger ones in a well defined cluster 

 about one side of the handle, wire them 

 closely to the handle to hold them in 

 place, fill in the body of the basket 

 closely enough so that some will appear 

 to be crowding others so that they fall 

 far out over the edge, and finish the de- 

 sign with a cluster on the opposite side 

 of the handle, which" falls in toward the 

 upright cluster first inserted; and ninety- 

 nine cases to one your patron is pleased 

 with the latter effort, which, we flatter 



one point it repeats the effect at regulaur 

 intervals all the way around. 



Nobody cares for a lopsided rose, .re- 

 gardless of beautiful coloring or per- 

 fume. A second element in a properly 

 arranged floral design is its symmetry. 

 To illustrate this principle see the clus- 

 ters of roses at opposite sides of the 

 basket in the second illustration. The 

 body of the basket is filled low and 

 loosely, almost too low for good effect 

 in the picture. Tall clusters of roses 

 start at either side of the basket and 

 follow the handle more than half-way 

 up, being secured in place as was just 

 described for the first basket. The col- 

 oring is a somewhat unusual one. The 

 basket is a terra cotta red, better de- 

 scribed as brick red. The roses are 

 Kaiserins, with a mere touch of yellow 

 stock and Asparagus plumosus. 



While the general appearance of these 

 clusters of roses is symmetrical they 

 are not exactly the same size and height. 

 It is not necessary to hold exactly to 

 these proportions. Make the general ap- 

 pearance symmetrical. 



Either of these baskets may be filled 

 with a dish holding water in which the 



A Well-Filled Presentation Basket of Roses. 



ourselves, has some expression, the dis- 

 covery of which we leave to the discrim- 

 inating reader. See the illustration on 

 this page. 



When dwelling upon the beauty of a 

 perfectly formed elm tree, or a well 

 grown Araucaria excelsa, one element 

 which appeals to the eye is the appar- 

 ently symmetrical form. A projection 

 on one side is balanced by a like pro- 

 jection on the opposite side. Where a 



flowers are put, or filled with moss as de- 

 scribed above, as occasion requires. A 

 third method is rather more satisfactory 

 for a hasty order. It; is this: Set the 

 side clusters against the handle in the 

 ^mpty basket. Fasten to the handles to 

 secure in place. Fill in moss around the 

 stems like soil around the roots of » 

 plant. Set in the flower stems in the 

 body of the basket and proceed in the 

 same way to fill the basket with moM 



graceful whirl of pine needles droops at | and flowers at the same time. Q. B. 



