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NEW YORK, AUGUST, 1877. 
BOUQUETS. 
Any one can make a bouquet; but by our own ob¬ 
servation we know that not every one can make pretty 
ones, and to a lover of flowers, what is more annoying 
than to see flowers, which are in themselves beautiful, 
so grouped together that all harmony of color is lost, 
and their beauty, form, and symmetry destroyed. 
A few general bints before taking up particular 
kinds of bouquets : 
I find that many fail in making bouquets from a 
lack of green and white, the two essentials of a hand¬ 
some bouquet. How often have I seen friends gather 
their flowers—beautiful ones, too—and then say, “ Oh, 
dear! I must get a little green,” pick half-a-dozen 
Geranium leaves, or a few sprigs of some other green, 
make their bouquet and fuss over it half an hour, and 
then wonder why their bouquet was not prettier. 
Plenty of green must be your first requisite, and I 
would recommend a variety. Geraniums, that is, 
sw T eet-scented of all kinds, of course; then nothing is 
prettier than the young Rose shoots, common Aspara¬ 
gus is not to be despised; pretty grass is also a great 
ornament; parsley is exquisite, the bright green con¬ 
trasting so well with the darker green of Rose leaves; 
then always try to have sprays of some kind of vine. 
Among what we call weeds, wild buckwheat is ex¬ 
tremely pretty for bouquets for brackets or where it 
can be trained up in picture cords. Now 1 will pro¬ 
ceed to particular kinds of bouquets. 
First, taking those for large vases, or anything re¬ 
quiring more than two or three flowers. How your 
bouquet shall be made must depend on the number 
and kind of your flowers. If you have but very few, 
I would recommend placing sprays of green in your 
vase and then disposing of your flowers to suit your 
own taste. If you have a moderate number of flowers 
a loose bouquet is prettiest, placing your flowers and 
green so that they will not have an inclination to lop 
this way and that, but will stay in place. Any flowers 
of moderate size look well made in this kind of a bou¬ 
quet, and it is much easier made than elaborate ones. 
Nothing is handsomer than a large vase filled with 
handsome sprays of green of different shades, and one 
Lily, whether the common white, the Auratum or 
any of the more rare Lilies. It makes “a thing of 
beauty.” If something more is wanted, say with a 
common white Lily place a row of scarlet Geraniums 
around, and the effect cannot fail to please. 
Now for the style of bouquet known as pyramidal 
To make these satisfactorily, you need a slim stick 
the same length.as from the bottom of your vase to 
the top of your bouquet. Good taste, an abundance 
of flowers, and plenty of string, and some time are 
needed. The first consideration is, what to begin 
with, few flowers being appropriate, many giving a 
flattened appearance to the top. Spirea is one of the 
prettiest, as that nearly always comes to a pretty point; 
Snap-Dragon and Sweet Peas, also among common 
flowers, do very well. The next step is to surround 
the top with some delicate feathery green, and then 
work downward, mixing in flowers and green as they 
look best, winding them firmly around the stick, but 
being careful not to wind the stems too tightly, as that 
makes them droop very soon. 
Care should be taken that none of the flowers are 
crowded, as that entirely spoils the effect; the last 
thing, a row of Geranium leaves should be placed 
around. Many prefer to make their whole bouquet 
of alternate rows of flowers and green ; I have seen 
a few handsome bouquets made so; for instance, one 
began with a scarlet Salvia with a row of delicate 
green, then white Candytuft, next green, then scarlet 
Geranium, etc. 
But of all varieties of bouquets, my favorite is that 
made in some flat dish or in some out-of-the-way 
thing that one would not mistrust you could put to 
such a use. I take a common coffee cup and saucer, 
fill the saucer with moss or sand, place flowers and 
green loosely in the cup and a few flowers in the moss, 
or if you have sand, it must be entirely covered with 
them and green; then you have a lovely little mound. 
A glass sauce dish placed on a large deep plate furn¬ 
ishes another splendid receptacle for flowers, while no 
lovelier place can be found for our floral treasures than 
a wire basket lined with moss with a bowl set in and 
filled in around with moss until firm, then bowl and 
moss filled with vines and flowers. 
Some flowers are suitable for nothing but flat bou¬ 
quets ; Balsams may be so arranged beautifully, and 
in no other way do Pansies show their lovely faces to 
such advantage. Button-hole bouquets are prettiest 
when most simple ; my favorite is one dark rich Pansy 
encircled with the light purple Heliotrope, the whole 
framed in with rich green; or if that is too sober, 
break off two or three separate flowers from a truss of 
double pink or scarlet Geranium; wind each one 
separately on a piece of broom-straw and then arrange 
in a bouquet. 
Well, I fear our kind Editor will weary of my com¬ 
monplace remarks, which will probably all be old 
stories, so I will stop •with one last general bit of ad¬ 
vice : Have flowers somewhere or somehow ; if you j 
can’t have them in Sevres china, cut-glass, majolica, or 
silver, nor yet in our common vases, put them in a 
teacup, or a bottle, but have them somewhere and you 
will be the happier and better for it. 
Mrs. W. C. Holmes. 
oft-praised Violet, for the Violet presents its bright 
face fearlessly to the gaze of men, while the modest, 
shrinking Arbutus hides its charms in chaste obscurity 
under a covering of forest leaves. 
But it does not remain long “ unseen by man’s dis¬ 
turbing eye,” for its admirers “ watch and wait ” for 
April to come so they can gather these fragrant and 
beautiful blossoms, and transfer them to their homes 
to charm the eye of loved ones. It is only the blos¬ 
soms that can be coaxed into our homes, the plant 
refusing to live with our garden favorites. No in¬ 
stance is known, I believe, of the Arbutus being cul¬ 
tivated successfully. It has been tried repeatedly, but 
without success. 
An old farmer in Chester Valley, who loved flowers 
with a species of idolatry, and had a garden stored 
with plants rich, rare, and beautiful, an humble, con¬ 
scientious follower of George Fox, but who, like our 
charming Quaker poet, Whittier, is full and fond of 
the beautiful in Nature, informed me that he had tried 
for years to coax the Arbutus from its woodland home; 
had taken it up in late autumn, with an abundance of 
its own soil, and planted it with a covering of leaves, 
but when spring came no flowers appeared ; tried it in 
spring-time, placing it in a great variety of situations, 
but failure attended every attempt, and, to use his 
quaint words, as he once apostrophized a basket of 
blossoms, “Thou art a winsome, but wilful beauty, 
scorning all my proffers of love and kindness! ” If 
any of the readers of the Floral Cabinet have had 
a different experience, I should like to know of it, and 
the method they adopted. 
The season of the flowering of the Trailing Arbu¬ 
tus is almost a festival in our family, and many an ex¬ 
cursion is gotten up to gather these sweet flowerets to 
gladden the aesthetic tastes of friends. Does not God 
teach us a lesson in these blossoms—a lesson of love 
and tenderness to earth’s humble ones ? How often 
have we moralized over this, as, in brushing aside the 
crisp, dried, faded leaves, the starry-eyed, “ incense 
breathing ” flower was disclosed in all its loveliness. 
How many beautiful souls surround our pathway in 
life, so covered with earthly mould, and the faded, tat¬ 
tered garments of poverty and want, that we fail to 
recognize their value. Nevertheless, it is there, and 
if we could remove the outside covering we would find 
souls so pure and true, spirits so humble and loving, 
looking heavenward for a crown that never fades, de¬ 
spite the unfriendliness and neglect of earth. How 
often the beautiful flowers might teach us lessons of 
love and wisdom if we obeyed Christ’s injunction to 
“ Consider the lilies of the field.” C. M. T. 
THE TRAILING ARBUTUS. 
Among the numberless flowers of the wildwood, the { 
Epigsea, or Trailing Arbutus, is acknowledged by all j 
to bear off the palm for beauty and fragrance. So 
modest and unpretending, infinitely more so than the 1 
Tradescantia. —Perhaps some of the readers of 
the Cabinet will be interested to know that the com¬ 
mon green Tradescantia—commonly known about 
here by the names of Inch Plant, Joint Plant, Wan¬ 
dering Jew, Jacob’s Ladder, etc.—bears a pretty 
white flower, in shape and size similar to that of the 
striped variety, T. Zebrina. After cultivating the 
plant for years, I was surprised last winter to find it 
in bloom. M. P. G. 
One of Nature’s Handiworks. —In the doorway 
of an up-town pharmacy, on the evening of the 22d 
of July, a plant reared its single flower which had just 
bloomed and was of singular beauty and at least six 
Inches in diameter. The sepals were of a delicate 
pink which in the petals faded into the purest white. 
Within, the pistil and stamens almost cast a halo with 
their rich golden color. The plant is a variety of the 
Cereus triangularis, but its real name is not known. 
