Page:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu/1890

1696 hostess's dress or the hangings of the room, though these are sometimes varied to suit the flowers. Again, all white flowers are very often employed, relieved by plenty of foliage. Smilax is a very popular table decoration, and long strips of it are often laid on the table between each person and left hanging down the side of the cloth.

Vases and Wires.—If there are vases of all kinds to select from, then almost any kind of flower can be used, but few people have many sets for dinner-table decorations. Some prefer low decorations, others high ones, but there is one rule that should always be in force, and that is, that the flowers and their receptacles should never interfere with the line of vision, but be above or below it. The great objection to the epergnes of olden days was that they hid the guests from one another. If the vases be coloured ones, of glass or china, let the flowers, if they cannot be had of a corresponding tone, be white only, mixed with foliage. If the vases be of white china, use coloured flowers. Roses look always best in low stands or bowls, or in specimen tubes where only a single flower is placed. Wire that can be easily bent is obtainable from any florist, and is particularly useful in arranging high arches, etc., indeed there is no limit to the ingenuity that can be displayed in obtaining pretty and novel effects with it. Our coloured illustrations of dinner tables show several very effective styles of floral decoration.

Small Flower Stands and Specimen Tubes.—These are preferred by many people to large ones, as it is so easy to arrange a few blooms, the vase itself lending beauty, while some care and much more taste is needed to make the larger ones look pretty. The small specimen tubes are particularly useful for breakfast or tea tables, and for small households.

Arrangement of Flowers.—We have said that effect is marred in the arrangement of beautiful flowers by too many colours being introduced. It is equally so by too many flowers being used. Each flower should have room to stand out, although it may be partially veiled by delicate wavy grasses or fern fronds, and each flower should be put in in the way it grows. If hanging ones be used, let them hang; if they naturally stand upright, let them be so placed to look natural. The only flowers that look less pretty growing than when cut are, perhaps, orchids, but these must be most carefully handled and put into the vases or wired up and placed as they would be if upon the plant. They are costly, it is true, but no flowers are better for dinner-table decorations, as they are generally scentless and they live for a long while when cut.

Inexpensive Decorations. Times were when people, living in town, could not afford flowers, and the dwellers in country places, if they did not grow them, could not obtain them, but now things have changed. The demand has brought the supply; we must have plenty of flowers, and at the London markets they can be bought very cheaply, while out of town florists and nurserymen flourish everywhere.