so 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



Makch 10, 1910. 



The Sptetator's Point of View, 



Another little problem that bobs up 

 serenely every little while is, how to im- 

 prove the looks of the sides of a funeral 

 design or spray. Too often all the flow- 

 ers are made to look upward and not 

 sideways. This point is more important 

 in a design than many people seem to 

 think, judging by the looks of the work 

 they turn out. There is another point of 

 view, besides that of the person who 

 stands over the work bench and looks 

 down upon his piece. Suppose you are 

 at a funeral and you see a number of 

 sprays on top of the casket. The carna- 

 tions and roses in the sprays are often all 

 turned upward and not one is allowed to 

 fall to the side or over the stems, and as 

 you view it from the side you see nothing 

 but profile views of the flowers. The 

 same is true of designs. Train some of 

 the flowers downward as far as the bot- 

 tom of the frame. 



Opinions are quite conflicting as to 

 whether the stems of violets and other 

 small flower bunches should be covered 

 or not. In many places the bunch is con- 

 sidered unfinished if the stems are not 

 swathed in tinfoil. In other places the 

 trade has been educated to the point of 

 appreciation of the beauty of the stems 

 themselves, and it seems to be the wiser 

 course to leave the stems uncovered unless 

 customers express a preference for the 

 other arrangement. 



Copying: Nature. 



You have often seen a graceful branch 

 or tip of a plant or tree, and have won- 

 dered if the same pattern could not be 

 used somewhere in your design work. It 

 surely could be, and to good advantage. 

 Why not make a casket spray after its 

 pattern, or throw a festoon across the 



thusiasm into something which you think 

 is foolish and it is sure to be unsatisfac- 

 tory to the customer as well as yourself. 

 Follow along the line of a customer's 

 thought and develop something a little 

 different from what he expects, and you 

 will thus introduce a little element of 

 pleasant surprise, by working out a better 

 scheme than he had in mind himself. 



Geetbude Blair. 



SHARKEY'S STORE. 



The accompanying illustration is from 

 a photograph made in the store recently 

 opened at 36 East Twenty-eighth street, 

 New York, by Thomas F. Sharkey. Mr. 

 Sharkey has had seventeen years' expe- 

 rience in the wholesale and retail flower 

 business, with Thomas Young, Jr. 



A WORD FOR CLEAR OUTLINES. 



Charles P. Mueller, of Wichita, Kan., 

 thinks a set piece should be made with 

 sharp enough outline to show unmistak- 

 ably what it is intended to represent. * * I 

 often have seen the Masonic square and 

 compass made up so that if it were not 

 for the letter 'G' in the center you could 

 not tell the design from a loosely made 

 wreath," said he. "This I think is all 

 wrong, but I should be glad to hear from 

 others who have ideas on the subject. 

 Let them set them forth in this depart- 

 ment of the Review." The Editor will, 

 with pleasure. 



"To illustrate my meaning," said 

 Mr. Mueller, "take the order we re- 

 cently had for a floral mail car. It was 

 one of those orders that come through 

 the taking up of a collection among the 

 fellow employees of the deceased — a good 

 bit of money is raised and nothing will 

 do but some eccentric piece, usually 



Store of John F. Sharkey, New York. 



corner of a mirror, or transplant this 

 same graceful spray to decorate a solid 

 piece, or throw it over a basket handle? 

 One might as well ask where not to use 

 it as where to use it. 



How far to indulge the whims of a cus- 

 tomer is often a problem. If the custom- 

 er's fancy appeals to you as reasonable, 

 work it out, even at some inconvenience 

 to yourself. If it does not appeal to you, 

 don't do it, for you cannot put any en- 



something representing the dead man's 

 business; nothing like a fine wreath or 

 spray will fill the bill. * That was the case 

 with the mail car. 



' ' Not having a regular wire frame for 

 such a piece, and no time to get one 

 made, we had to make it on a panel. It 

 seemed to us that the success of the 

 piece would depend on having clear, 

 sharp outlines, so that the design would 

 be recognized at a glance. The car it- 



self .was to be four feet long, so we first 

 made our panel, about a foot longer. 

 The background for the car proper was 

 of galax leaves, with boxwood for the 

 lower background, or base. The car 

 stood on rails of chenille, the ballast in 

 the track being represented by yellow 

 immortelles. The body of the car was 

 made of white carnations, with Enchant- 

 ress for the doors and windows. All the 

 outlines, as well as wheels, doors, pouch 

 catcher, windows, etc., were brought out 

 with chenille. There also was an en- 

 velope made on a small panel, of white 

 carnations, bearing full address, stamp, 

 cancellation and postmark, and the piece 

 made a great hit with the railway mail 

 clerks. 



* ' The outer edges of the panel were, in 

 this case, left plain, but if anything 

 further seemed necessary I should rather 

 have added it in the shape of an edging 

 of smilax and flowers outside the panel 

 than to have obscured the character of 

 the design itself by any use of flowers 

 that would take away from the recog- 

 nizability of the idea." 



What do some of the impressionists 

 have to sayt 



PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. 



The Landscape Beautiful, by Frank A. Wangh; 

 the Orange Judd Co., New York; price, |2 net. 



Frank A. Waugh, professor of horti- 

 culture and landscape gardening at the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College, Am- 

 herst, Mass., has written a number of 

 essays on the different phases of land- 

 scape that have just been published as a 

 handsomely printed volume of more than 

 300 pages. This is not for "those 

 amiable and practical people who always 

 prefer a concrete statement, ' ' but, rather, 

 is designed to hold the interest of the 

 amateur student of landscape, whose pur- 

 pose is "to enlarge his own capacities of 

 enjoyment." In other words, this is not 

 one of the "How to" gardening books 

 of which so many have made their ap- 

 pearance in the last few years; its pur- 

 pose is to develop the reader's apprecia- 

 tion of the work of nature, and of man, 

 rather than to teach "the art that does 

 mend nature. ' * 



"An intelligent appreciation of land- 

 scape seems to have been too rare among 

 all sorts of art students," says Prof. 

 Waugh, but no one who has the slightest 

 interest in the subject can lay this volume 

 down without having had that apprecia- 

 tion stimulated. In addition to the 

 purely discursive essays there is an ex- 

 cellent one "On American Landscape 

 Gardeners," and another "On American 

 Masterpieces of Landscape Architecture ' ' 

 that will be enjoyed by all who have 

 found pleasure in these men and their 

 characteristic works. The volume con- 

 cludes with a chapter "Suggesting Some 

 Practical Applications," descriptive of a 

 plan of landscape study which has been 

 tried in the schools of Amherst, Mass., 

 and which might with profit be applied 

 to the study of other things than the 

 landscape, for it is nothing more than a 

 scheme for teaching pupils to see that 

 which lies before their eyes — not the gen- 

 eral effect, but the details. 



The volume is freely illustrated with 

 halftone reproductions of photographs. 



SiSTERViLLE, W. Va. — Thomas H. Hus- 

 ton will enlarge his business this spring 

 by erecting greenhouses at Hanford City. 

 The buildings will be concrete and steel 

 and will require 22,000 feet of glass. A 

 fifty horse-power boiler will b6 used for 

 heating. 



