Flowers, Artificial

The beauty and value of these pleasing articles of personal decoration mainly depend upon the taste and ingenuity of the maker. The delicate fingers of woman, and her ready powers of imitation and invention, combined with her natural affection for the chaste and beautiful, have enabled her the more especially to excel in this manufacture. The productions of the female artificial florists of the French capital are justly admired everywhere. The French employ velvet, kid, and fine cambric for the petals, and taffeta for the leaves. Very recently thin plates of bleached whalebone have been used with great succe for some portions of artificial flowers. As colours and stains, the following are employed in Paris:— Blue. Indigo di olved in oil of vitriol, and the acid partly neutralised with salt of tartar or whiting. Green. A solution of distilled verdigris. Lilac. Liquid archil. Red. Carmine di olved in a solution of salt of tartar, or in spirits of hartshorn. Violet. Liquid archil, mixed with a little salt of tartar. Yellow. Tincture of turmeric. The above colours are usually applied to the petals with the fingers.