CONSTRUCTING BOUQUETS. AY 
THE ART OF CONSTRUCTING BOUQUETS; ARRANG- 
ING FLOWERS IN VASES, Ete. 
FOREIGN FLOWER FASHIONS. 
I have been requested by a number of the readers of 
my first “Book of Flowers,” should I publish another 
work or a new edition of the old one, to give some direc- 
tions in constructing bouquets, showing how to arrange 
the colors, etc. Now this is about as difficult a task, as it 
would be to direct bow a beautiful painting could be 
executed; such an art cannot be communicated by writ- 
ing. It requires taste, skill, and practice to become a good 
artist, and to know how the colors should be blended to 
form a perfect picture. It is somewhat so in arranging 
flowers in a bouquet. There is very bad taste exhibited 
in many of the bouquets that are offered for sale in the 
flower shops, which to the eye of an amateur is about as 
annoying as discords are to the ear of an educated musi- 
cian. I must, however, confess that I cannot communicate 
the art of arranging the color of flowers in a bouquet that 
would be satisfactory to myself, and must give as a sub- 
stitute, some hints which I find in alate London paper from 
a report of a gentleman who gives an account of what he 
saw on a visit to Paris, in an article entitled, “ Flowers 
and Foreign Flower Fashions.” The article is a long one 
and I give only the following extracts : 
“Much green with a little color is arule that has a 
wide reign; and also it is remarkable how rarely one sees 
one color; but crimson and buff roses, violet and pink, 
