GARDENING FOR LITTLE GIRLS 
ers, like the iris and the chrysanthemum, have quite 
straight stems, people have to learn how to bend 
them without breaking. Each flower is studied, se- | 
lected for its place in this triangle, and then, oh! 
go very delicately, shaped to the desired line. 
And then as so few flowers would be apt to slip 
around, they skilfully hold them in place by means 
of slender sticks, cut the exact size, split at one end, 
and then sprung into place across the vase or bowl. 
If the stems curve to one side, it is called the 
male style, if to the other, the female style; the 
arrangement must look not like cut flowers, but 
like the living plant, and suggest the growth by 
the use of buds, open flowers and withered leaves. 
Good and evil luck are connected with the placing, 
as well as with the colors and the numbers chosen,— 
even numbers and red being ill-omened. Certain 
arrangements also suggest the seasons, one style, 
for instance, representing spring and another au- 
tumn. While we today are not interested in Japan- 
ese symbolism, we, many of us, are quite interested 
in Japanese methods on account of their artistic 
effects. 
Many books have been written by the Japanese 
on their favorite subject,—some as far back as the 
Thirteenth Century! Of course you never could 
read them even if you could find them here; but a 
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