Very beautiful baskets for flowers and ferns can be made of the
longer and more feathery kinds of mosses. These look very beautiful,
especially the wild flowers, when clustered in this delicate and soft
green nest, which can be made to preserve its freshness and brilliancy
for many months. A light frame of any shape liked, should be made
of wire, and the moss, which should first be well picked over and
cleansed from any bits of dirt or dead leaves which may be hanging
about it, gathered into little tufts and sewed with a coarse needle and
thread to the covering, so as to clothe it thickly with a close and com-
pact coating, taking care that points of the moss are all outward. A long
handle made in the same manner should be attached to the basket and
a tin or other vessel, filled with either wet sand or water, placed within
to hold the flowers. By dipping the whole structure into water once
in three or four days, its verdure and elasticity will be fully preserved,
and a block of wood about an inch thick✪ Flower and Fern Basket and stained black or green,
if placed under the basket, will prevent all risk of damage to the table
from moisture.
Another satisfactory arrangement is to obtain a common shallow box
and ornament it with sticks or bark and fill it with sandy earth, mixed
with moss finely broken up. After planting the ferns the whole can be
covered with moss, such as is found on logs in damp woods. The
ferns will find their way through the moss.
GATHERING AND PRESSING FERNS.
The dried fronds of ferns are frequently employed in forming screens
under blinds, etc., and, as they are easily obtainable, collections of ferns
being generally grown, some hints as to the preservation of them can-
not fail to be acceptable. Get any carpenter to plane two deal boards
about half an inch thick, a foot wide and a foot and a half long ;
between these place one or two quires of common blotting paper.
Round the boards put two narrow but strong leather straps✪ Gathering and Pressing Ferns ; these
must be drawn as tightly as possible, and will secure a great amount ot
pressure on the fronds inside ; and the whole may be strapped on the
top of a box in traveling, so as not to take up much room. In gather-
ing the ferns, cut them as low down in the stem as possible, and in
small specimens get up the root if you can. In putting them to dry-
in the blotting paper, have respect to the natural position of the fern,
and also to the size of the sheet of paper on which they are to be finally
placed. When the fronds are long and the specimens large, they may
be bent so as to lie in a smaller space than they otherwise could, and
PARLOR SCREENS OF FERNS. 89
Page 78 · 2 recipe records on this page
Presented as published in 1886. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
Very beautiful baskets for flowers and ferns can be made of the longer and more feathery kinds of mosses. These look very beautiful, especially the wild flowers, when clustered in this delicate and soft green nest, which can be made to preserve its freshness and brilliancy for many months. A light frame of any shape liked, should be made of wire, and the moss, which should first be well picked over and cleansed from any bits of dirt or dead leaves which may be hanging about it, gathered into little tufts and sewed with a coarse needle and thread to the covering, so as to clothe it thickly with a close and compact coating, taking care that points of the moss are all outward. A long handle made in the same manner should be attached to the basket and a tin or other vessel, filled with either wet sand or water, placed within to hold the flowers. By dipping the whole structure into water once in three or four days, its verdure and elasticity will be fully preserved, and a block of wood about an inch thick and stained black or green, if placed under the basket, will prevent all risk of damage to the table from moisture.
Another satisfactory arrangement is to obtain a common shallow box and ornament it with sticks or bark and fill it with sandy earth, mixed with moss finely broken up. After planting the ferns the whole can be covered with moss, such as is found on logs in damp woods. The ferns will find their way through the moss.
GATHERING AND PRESSING FERNS.
The dried fronds of ferns are frequently employed in forming screens under blinds, etc., and, as they are easily obtainable, collections of ferns being generally grown, some hints as to the preservation of them cannot fail to be acceptable. Get any carpenter to plane two deal boards about half an inch thick, a foot wide and a foot and a half long ; between these place one or two quires of common blotting paper. Round the boards put two narrow but strong leather straps ; these must be drawn as tightly as possible, and will secure a great amount of pressure on the fronds inside ; and the whole may be strapped on the top of a box in traveling, so as not to take up much room. In gathering the ferns, cut them as low down in the stem as possible, and in small specimens get up the root if you can. In putting them to dryin the blotting paper, have respect to the natural position of the fern, and also to the size of the sheet of paper on which they are to be finally placed. When the fronds are long and the specimens large, they may be bent so as to lie in a smaller space than they otherwise could, and
PARLOR SCREENS OF FERNS. 89
Records on this page
Flower and Fern BasketGathering and Pressing Ferns