PRACTICAL ///NTS ON FLORAL WORK. 119 
Having- pressed the water out of your sphagnum with a package of 
tinfoil, and with a spool of unbleached thread lying before you, you can 
commence mossing. 
Having a wire form, for instance, a wreath, before you, take a sheet 
of tinfoil; lap over half an inch running around the wreath, press the 
tinfoil smoothly into the inside of the wreath ; trim off all surplus over 
half an inch ; fold over inside edge, and it is finished. 
Some designs are tiufoiled on the outside, and others on the inside — 
the way the forms are made must determine this point. Now put in 
your moist sphagnum, filling from bottom to top as you go along. Remem- 
ber, good work cannot be made on a poor, shaky foundation. Firm park- 
ing, evenly distributed, thoroughly tied in with strong linen thread (string is 
slovenly), is the very ground-work of success. 
Be careful about packing corners in stars, crosses, and in all sharp 
angles ; have all of these well filled out. Standing designs, if not well 
packed, will fall to pieces when they are moved, and your best efforts be 
ruined. ' ' Tying-in ' ' is the next thing on the programme. This should 
be done by holding the design and drawing the thread as tightly as it will 
allow without breaking, pressing down with the thumbs the sphagnum 
into place as you proceed ; finish by making a loop knot and drawing it 
snug. Now take the shears and trim off any ragged moss not tied in 
smoothly, and the piece is ready for " ground- work." 
FILLING THE DESIGN. 
In starting this work, still using the wreath for illustration (see cut, 
page 19), select } r our ferns and place them in water; cut your smilax in 
short lengths and stem on three-quarter length tooth-picks ; stem some 
leaves of the Mountain of Snow geranium, setting the pick up under the 
leaves ; stem also 100 to 125 white carnations, three-quarter length stems, 
for solid w 7 ork. Have also prepared quite a handful of begonia metalliea 
leaves. With your mossed wreath in hand, fill in first your stemmed 
bunches of smilax, inserting the tooth-picks through the tinfoil on the 
side. This edging of green should be well done, so that when the design 
is laid clown flat, nothing can be seen of the tinfoil at a horizontal line. 
For the want of this precaution, the work of otherwise skillful florists has 
often lost its effect. When a casket is being carried into or out of a church 
or house, a ragged circle of moss, or even tinfoil with a cresting of flowers, 
is not an inspiring spectacle ; ditto the under side of pillows. Over and 
next to the smilax place a line of Mountain of Snow T geranium leaves, 
with the picks stuck into the sphagnum, resting on the outer and inner 
rim of the wreath. 
Commence with your wdiite carnations. Run an edge around about one- 
half to two-thirds of the circle ; fill in, setting the flow r ers closely together, 
and forming an oval or round effect. Fill in the half of the remaining 
space with begonia metalliea leaves, placing them in irregular positions 
