H ouse and Garden 
NASTURTIUM BOWL 
became it so well as the leaving; of it. And with its 
extinction came a demand for low r howls or vessels to 
hold cut flowers, hut as far as we know no definite 
attempt has been made to meet this demand, so ar¬ 
ticles of utility intended and designed for entirely 
different purposes, have been pressed into service 
with more or less satisfactory results. But it is not 
specially with the decoration of the dining-tahle that 
we are concerned, for in this each one must he a law 
to himself, hut rather with the boudoir, the morning 
room; a nook in the hall, or a corner of the den, such 
places m fact where the most time is spent and where 
a few flowers by their cheery presence, will he an 
inspiration to higher thoughts and deeds; glorify 
perchance our daily task, or bring back with fond 
insistence some golden day, or some loved face, out 
of a half forgotten past. 
The daily task in this case being to produce vases 
in pottery, an effort has been made to adapt them to 
some specific use, possibly with no very great amount 
of success, hut the effort may be at least suggestive 
and later lead to more 
definite results. 
The cool depths of mat 
glazes are unquestionably 
the best adapted for 
flower vases and have 
an unohtrusiveness and 
color values impossible 
to obtain in brig;ht 
glazes. Of these the 
preferable colors are the 
greens, especially in 
shade combinations, the 
varying depths being full 
of subtle suggestion and 
decidedly more attractive 
than the rather sombre 
self colored 'p i e c e s . 
These mat glazes are 
slowly hut surely mak¬ 
ing headway and we may 
be quite sure that what 
the artist and the art 
lover of to-day is search- 
ing; for will he the fashion 
to-morrow. But as to¬ 
morrow has not yet ar¬ 
rived we have had to 
meet to-day’s demands 
and g;ive decoration and 
are thankful meanwhile 
that to-day is demanding 
much less in this way 
than did yesterday. So 
decorations are shown in 
the accompanying illus¬ 
trations, for no idea of 
the quality of mat glazes can he given in black and 
white or he secured by photography. It is a quality 
recognisable at sight and should give you a desire to 
touch it. 
The. first breath of spring brings with it one of the 
most decorative natural objects we possess, the pussy 
willow. Lovely as it is it hardly forms a suitable table 
decoration, hut almost anywhere else it will he a 
thing of beauty for many weeks. Its long stems and 
weight seems to call for a tall vase, not too wide at the 
top, hut with a very firm base, so that the danger of 
overbalancing might he reduced to a minimum. 
Later this vase could he utilized for paeonies, gold- 
enrod, dahlias or almost any flower with long stems 
and heavy blooms. For daffodils it is of course too 
high and though these charming flowers also demand 
a firm base, a less pretentious vase is more desirable. 
I bis we have enriched with a quotation from “ 1 he 
Winter’s Tale. ” “Daffodils that come before the 
swallow dares” and par parenthesis no one but 
Shakespeare could have written that. Almost as 
ROSE BOWL 
224 
