Domestic floriculture: Window-gardening and floral decorations ; being practical directions for the propagation, culture, and arrangement of plants and flowers as domestic architecture

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874 Excerpt: ...and France which supply the trade with everlasting flowers. Finally, I shall give a very cheap and very good recipe to colour ornamental Grass and Moss a beautiful green. If a dark green is required, take two parts of boiling water, one ounce of alum, and half an ounce of dissolved indigo carmine; plunge the Moss or Grass into the mixture, shake off the liquid, and dry the Grass or Moss in an airy, shady place. In the winter, however, they should be dried by means of fire-heat. If a light green is required, add to the above mixture more or less picric acid, according as a more or less light shade is required. "I have now communicated all I know about the art and secret of preserving flowers, which has become so very important to our flower-trade during the last ten years." FERN-FROND DESIGNS. Nature-printing gives excellent results, and we now propose to treat of a plan by which very pretty designs may be made at little trouble and expense. Many of our lady readers may like to make designs or pictures of Fern fronds and other foliage, and a little application and manual dexterity will suffice to effect this, if the following directions are carefully followed: The materials necessary are Fern fronds and leaves, a few sheets of white drawing-paper, or, better still, Bristol boards, a stick of common Indian ink, an ordinary toothbrush, an ounce of small entomological pins, and a common saucer or palette in which to mix the ink. A few other little extra conveniences will be found necessary by the operator, but these will easily be supplied, as required, by a little forethought and ingenuity. In order to form a design, take a sheet of paper and fasten it securely to a flat drawing-board; if it be damped and glued round its edges, so much the better; bu...