CUT FLOWERS 



137 



grandly-polished mahogany dinner-tables by our great- 

 graudi'athers : first standing inside the glass a smaller 

 one, rather taller, to raise the middle blooms a little 

 higher. 



In using bowls or anything that is broad, or in 

 any way shallow in comparison with its width, it is 

 well to make use of some of the many devices for 

 helping to support the flowers. In a wide bowl one 

 can arrange a smaller bowl inside, or any of the many 

 articles of the jug tribe, gallipot or stoneware salt jar. 

 Salt jars are capital, because they are heavy and rather 

 tall. The folded strip of sheet-lead at the bottom, 

 whose use is now generally understood, and of which a 

 number should be kept handy, will make it all the 

 heavier ; the better to counteract the inclination of a 

 tallish spray to topple, and also to serve its intended 

 purpose of catching and holding the end of the stalk. 

 I have sometimes done a large china bowl of Roses by 

 putting common flower-pots one inside the other, raising 

 the inner and smaller ones by means of clean crocks 

 of broken pots ; but the best way of all for a porcelain 

 bowl that is in frequent use, is to have a slight wire 

 frame made to fit loosely inside, with two floors of 

 galvanised wire netting, the lower one half an inch from 

 the bottom of the bowl, and the upper half an inch 

 below the top. This one should bo shaped highest in 

 the centre like an inverted saucer. Any ironmonger 

 or tinsmith, or country blacksmith, would make such 

 a " liner," and also prepare the sheet lead strips 1 1 or 



