166 



JOURNAL OF HOBTICULTUBE AND COTTAGB GARDENER. 



[ September 1, 1870. 



quires least labour, and is least liable to be out of order, can 

 orjly be determined by comparative trials by a jury of competent, 

 disinterested tryers. — Eds.] 



ARRANGING FLOWERS. 



It is astonishing how very few people know just how to dis- 

 play out flowers to the best advantage. Everybody must have 

 bright blossoms in the parlour vaEes now-a-days, but the com- 

 binations made are enough to vex the soul of a person with the 

 least artistic taste. What business has a blue Larkspur- 

 beautiful though it may be in itself — by the side of a Scarlet 

 Geranium ? or by what law are Marigolds and Roses brought 

 together ? 



In the first place one must have the right kind of a vase, and 

 I will give my ideas of the fitness of things. Vases should not 

 be very high, unless they are wide-topped, in which latter case 

 branches of foliage and tall spikes of bloom should fill them ; 

 lor instance, either a ground glass or a ruby vase a foot high is 

 well furnished by common Lily leaves, or leaves of Mountain 

 Ash, with white Petunias, or any long-stemmed white flowers. 

 Parian vases of the many pretty patterns are beautiful always; 

 so are those of engraved glass. I have a little one of the Fern 

 pattern about G inches high, which occupies a carved bracket 

 over the sewing machine. This year it began very early to 

 hold forest flowers — spring beauties — and Hepaticas ; Violets 

 white and blue; then a handful of Adder's Tongues (Orchis 

 spectabilis). Then came the garden flowers, of which I notice 

 some pretty arrangements, Ribbon Grass, Pear blossoms and 

 Tea Violets, Lily of the Valley, with its leaves and a single 

 purple Pansy; a bit cf white Lilac and Dielytra; Roses during 

 their season ; and now, since the fragrant Lilies of June are 

 gone, I take very kindly to bright Geraniums and Verbenas, 

 feathery sprays of Gypeophila, a little Mignonette, and leaves 

 of the Rose Geranium, which I always grow in great abundance 

 for bouquets, not forgetting a stem of the variegated Balm, 

 which always harmonises with scarlet or crimson flowers. A 

 couple of Fern fronds (Aspidium acrostichoides) and the delicate 

 Hare-bell are pretty together, or Hare-bell and white Spiraea ; 

 St. Peter's Wreath, bent so as to simulate a basket handle, and 

 flowers of any hue filling the basket. A great Datura may be 

 put in a narrow-mouthed vaEe, and this natural vase, with 

 water in it, may hold a cluster of delicate blossoms. 



Some flowers show best in plales ; saucers of Pansies edged 

 with Musk are lovely; so are Balsams wilh plenty of their own 

 leaves. Fill a pickle-shell with Caraway leaves, put a white 

 Jonquil in the centre, from which let five sprays of Lily of the 

 Valley radiate ; or a star mey be made of Daisies and Myrtle; 

 or of blue and white Larkspur. Verbenas as well as Phloxes 

 are prettiest when looked down upon. Many of the Grasses 

 mingle well with flowers, and they are so graceful that a whole 

 bouquet of them is not to be despised. Ferns, too, all by 

 themselves, are very pretty. I saw them in a church lately, so 

 bravely green, so delicate and airy, that I doubt not other eyes 

 than mine found them a rest after looking at the round bunches 

 of Etrong-hued flowers standing near. Sedges and Ferns are 

 especially pretty before a window, where one can get the full 

 effect of their delicate outlines. Nothing is prettier than a 

 small basket of Ferns in a window with plenty of bright Cardinal 

 Flowers. 



Late in the autumn one is often so luckless as to have many 

 unripe Melons. Cut off the bottom of one so that it may stand 

 firmly in a soup plate, Eurround it with stiff foliage, Pjeonia for 

 instance; then stick the Melon full of Dahlias or Asters. This 

 makes a symmetrical bouquet, and is the most satisfactory way 

 of treating Dahlias, which I have found exceedingly difficult to 

 manage otherwise. 



I have only hinted of my subject after all. One needs to 

 study flowers, their manner of growth, their affinities, their 

 prominent traits, and then one would not bunch them together 

 stiffly and destroy their individualities. Give them a place upon 

 the dining table every day ; let them stand before you when 

 you work or read ; wear them in your hair when you go about 

 your work; and some of thtir grace and fragrance will surely 

 sweeten your daily life. — [Sural Xete-Yorier.) 



New Flower Market in Leicester Square. — There is a 

 talk, which we earnestly trust may ripen into action, of makiDg 

 Leicester Square a flower market. A more desirable change 

 could not take place, desirable not only in an architectural and 

 aesthetic sense, but on moral and sanitary grounds. Perhaps 



within a year or two we may see that desolate gamin-hannted 

 area covered with pretty buildings and a bright array of flowers, 

 whose perfume will replace the unsavory odours which now 

 prevade the square, and whose presence will assuredly induce 

 a purer and more respectable moral atmosphere. Covent Gar- 

 den, too, which has long suffered from repletion under a badly 

 arranged system, would find no little benefit from such as 

 establishment as is now proposed. — (Food Journal) 



FRAGMENTS. 



Well, I am away from Redcar, and what may be called 

 Captain Cook's district, for I learned that the father of that 

 circumnavigator was buried at Marske ; the Captain wa3 bonj 

 at Marton ; he was apprenticed at Staithes ; his brothers and 

 sisters are buried at Stokesley, where also his mother rests, 

 and whose shoe is preserved in the Kirkleatham Museum — all 

 villages around Redcar. I am away from the district, have 

 wandered since to the north and south of it, but having rested 

 nowhere remember only some fragments, disjointed and super- 

 ficial, that may be deemed worthy of filling a gap in your 

 columns ; first among which 13 of and about Durham, that 

 city associated from childhood with Mustard. Mills for its 

 grinding I saw there ; but why it should there be a specialty 

 is probably not known to many of your readers — no fields 

 devoted to growing Mustard seed are to be seen ; but it is said 

 that Charlock seed was the oiiginal seed used for Durham 

 Mustard, and I saw too much of that weed in some of the 

 Darham fields. 



Prior to 17'20 no such luxury as Mustard, in its present 

 form, was at our tables ; the seed was only coarsely pounded, 

 as ooarsely separated from tbe integument, and in that rough 

 state prepared for use. In 1720 it occurred to an old woman 

 of the name of Clements, resident at Durham, to grind the 

 seed in a mill, and to sift the meal as in making flour from 

 Wheat. The secret she kept for many years to herself, and 

 supplied the principal parts of the kingdom, and in particular 

 the metropolis, with this article; George I. stamping it with 

 fashion by his approval. Mrs. Clements twice a-year travelled 

 to London, and to tbe principal towns throughout England, for 

 orders, and the old lady contrived to pick up, not only a decent 

 pittance, but what was then thought a tolerable competency. 

 From this woman living at Durham, it acquired the name of 

 Durham Mustard. 



Of all the genera of residences scattered over England, none 

 ever have been so invitiDg to me as those old-fashioned family 

 residences, setting all architectural rules at defiance, that have 

 been compounded from time to time by successive generations 

 without regard to any consideration but tbe present require- 

 ments and comfort of the occupants, until, at last, no observer 

 c*n detect which is the centre, for it see"ms all wings. Just 

 such a residence is Avkley-beads, near the Mustard capital. A 

 residence is known to have been on tbe present site for five 

 hundred years — Alan de Billingbam in 1371 was possessed of 

 land at " Akelybeads " in right of his wife Agnes — and though 

 that, and probably maDy successors have been levelled, yet the 

 existing house bears evidence by its long passages, many divi- 

 sions, panelled rooms, and decorated ceiliDgs that it has had 

 many generations wi;hin. 



Ac, is the Anglo-Saxon for an Oak ; Istih or ley, for a stead or 

 place; and heafd, for a head, and I accept such a derivation, for 

 the house commands an extensive view from the highest of a 

 series of elevations, and in a place of fine Oak and Beech 

 trees. It is not a show plaee, but the grounds are well ar- 

 ranged, well kept up, and' where one can glean useful facts 

 and suggestions. Tbe owner (one of your editors will say 

 " of course "), is a Johnson, and asks questions of Nature. He 

 has been a planter and replanter of evergreens for some thirty 

 and more years, and he Ehowed me Hollies, from 6 to 12 feet 

 high, that had been transtdanted ore, two, and three years, 

 all doing well, and all removed in JuDe, jnstwhen the buds 

 for the year's growth are beginning to burst. He says they 

 never fail theu, care beiDg taken to have a good ball of earth 

 about the roots, and, when placed in the hole prepared for 

 them, covering them with earth, then soaking it with water, 

 and finally filling in the remainder of the eartb. I saw there 

 also a direct proof of the good influence of mu'ehing the 

 roots of old frnit trees. The Boil is light, and some Aprieot 

 trees about thirty years old had latterly Bhed their fruit unripe 

 during dry summers. Tbe surface over their roots bad been 

 mulched this year and well watered. The Eoil beneath the 



