XIII.
GARDENS AND FLOWER-STANDS.
The making of gardens is decidedly and judiciously conceded to be a Home Amusement, and it is a pity that the new fashion of bedding-out plants, which is so beautiful in our public parks and in the pleasure grounds of the rich, should have seemed to so utterly do away with a taste for the old-fashioned gardens of early English poetry—of Miss Mitford, of every sweet New England dame of the early days, who had her garden, with its “pretty posies,” and its bed of sweet marjoram, lavender, and sage. It is, however, a hopeful sign to see in remote country towns some effort to keep up the old-fashioned idea of a pretty flower-plot, and there are always women who have the gift of making flowers “blow” and grow in a quiet way.
Yet science can help to bring the old-fashioned garden to perfection, as well as to make those artificial beds of many-leaved coleus, and steadier groups. Every garden design, every project of garden furnishing, and every item of garden work, should be governed by this consideration, that it is hard work to fight against Nature, and there is seldom thus a conquest worth obtaining. Aim modestly to gain a victory over the easily-cultivated native flowers at first, and you will secure enjoyment.
Fortunately, if gardening is pursued with earnestness, every soil and every climate will be found to produce some flowers in rare beauty and in unexpected luxuriance. Geometric plans, if well carried out, are very pretty, and the amateur gardener should learn to mass her geraniums, petunias, and pansies, her gladioli, roses, marigolds, and poppies, so as to give a good and really splendid result of color. Nature takes care to send us delicate, pale yellows and lilacs in Spring in her sweet daffy-down-dilly, and the elegant fleurs-de-lis; and the peonies come on mildly with pink and white before they dash into red. Then come the Turkish carpets of the portulaca, and so on until midsummer blazes with poppies, gladioli, and all the gorgeous zinnias. These may all be found in the commonest garden, without mentioning the larkspur, the mignonette, the petunia and the sweet-pea, and a thousand other charming common flowers. The delightful flowers which sow themselves, and those hardy bulbs, the crocus, tulip, lily of the valley, snowdrop, and hyacinth, should not be neglected. A quantity of white-lily bulbs stowed away in the garden reward one year after year with their elegant flowers and fragrance at no cost whatever. Pansies, daisies, and polyanthus keep from season to season, and carnation pinks need to be two years old before they will blossom, while the chrysanthemums make the garden gay in October.
Now for borders to the garden beds. Common grass is the best and easiest, as the gardener’s boy can cut it with a sickle each week and keep it from spreading. Or the little, cheap mosses make a pretty border, as does the periwinkle, which looks so like myrtle. To attempt a border of the gorgeous coleus requires a hothouse and an accomplished gardener. In the common large country garden rows of hollyhocks, as against a stone wall, or marking out the long walks, are most ornamental. Dahlias also are very good in groups. Phlox, that much-abused plant, is also pretty in masses. Asters too, of many varieties, delight the eye, and are easy of culture. In trying to raise shrubs, why not take the American wild pink, or azalea, the laurel and the rhododendron, and, by studying up their habits, capture them?
The best soil for the rhododendron is a peat containing much sand and much vegetable fiber. Any clean, pulverized product of vegetable decay will like them. It is their native food. The laurel is capricious, and resents the act of transplantation; but they will flourish if planted thick enough. They love company, and thrive in it. The best way to treat them is to study their quality, and to give them the same conditions which made them grow so luxuriantly on the hill-side.
But if even these plants resist you, every lady loves a rosarium, and it will go hard with her but she has a rose garden somewhere. The gardeners now sell one hundred rose roots for a dollar, at Rochester, and if planted out and attended to they give a million of dollars in pleasure back again.
Some ladies understand budding, and this is a very interesting process. In this way an army of sweetbriers can be covered with yellow Marshal Neills and royal Jacqueminots. To propagate by layers is, however, the easiest way, if, indeed, one does not prefer to buy them all started. For garden roses we need vigorous growers that are sure to flower freely, and will contribute to the gayety of the garden. One of the best—the old-fashioned damask—if set out well, will blossom for thirty years. A very effective garden of roses is produced by roses pegged down. A deep, rather rich, loamy soil is to be prepared, the position selected being rather open. When the plants are about a foot high peg down the strongest growths. The rose prefers a firm soil. Those who desire to have firm blooms the second season must cut off a few inches of the flowering wood as soon as the first bloom is over, and give the beds a thorough soaking of manure or sewage-water every third or fourth day. But in this, as in every sort of cultivation of an especial flower, one should buy an especial treatise on the subject.
Every lady gardener is troubled by insect pests—the horrid green canker-worm, the little green louse, the potato-bug; these are everywhere. One fights them with all sorts of powders and all sorts of syringes. One very simple cure is not generally known. It is to plant a lettuce beside your rose; the vermin prefers the lettuce. It is the same principle which induced the rich owner of a wine-cellar to put a barrel of whisky beside his best Madeira; the whisky went, but the Madeira stayed. Dirty flower-pots, filled with dry moss, put in the neighborhood, will catch large numbers of these gentry, for vermin are fond of dirt. Dusting with powdered lime, or sulphurized tobacco-dust, will kill the insects which destroy the asters. Lettuces also save the asters, and a bed of green lettuce is not an ugly “bedding-out” plant.
No manure is so good as that common rotted vegetation of the forest. Bring a pailful home from every drive, and it will make your flowers grow. Nothing, also, so good as this for that lovely flower, the pansy, which thus recalls its early start in the forest, The pansy does not require much water, but in very hot, dry weather the beds should be sprinkled at night with a watering-pot.
But these few directions may seem impertinent, as every lady has now the most ample means of reading up about her garden. The cultivation of a few flowers in the house—window gardening—is by far the more essentially a Home Amusement. And, as almost everybody has once bought a lot of greenhouse plants but to see them fade before her eyes, we recommend to all to either raise a slip from the root or to start very young plants in a dark room. Thus accustomed to the atmosphere of the house they are to live in, they do sometimes live.
The hardier roses, the calla-lily, all the geraniums (useful dear creatures), the violets and the pinks, grow well in the house. Hanging pots of calceolarias and healthy primroses are also possible. Some ladies can raise azaleas at home, but they are difficult. Then there is the kangaroo-vine, and the Jerusalem, and all the other very hardy vines. If a large ivy-vine can he induced to grow over a picture-frame, it is a beautiful friend in midwinter.
Then come the delightful hanging baskets, the Wardian fern-cases, the ornamental stands of pot-plants, and the indoor box of earth for planting rice and grass seed, the wild flowers, which now have become exotics, and all the pretty fancies of throwing seed over a wet sponge. Anything green in winter looks lovely. Nothing more charming than the branches of nasturtion growing in water can be imagined. They grow and flower all winter, and the blue convolvulus flourishes well in a hanging basket; so do the common morning-glory and the scarlet bean, both delightful, airy visitors at Christmas.
A wire-work ox-muzzle, filled with moss, makes an admirable basket. It should be painted dark green, and hang over a box of growing flowers, so that it can drip when watered and hurt nothing. Put in the ivy-leaved geranium to drop over its edges; fuchsia, variegated geranium, bright blue lobelia, and the healthful dracænas, begonias, and sedums also make a very pretty combination. The gardeners give you wooden baskets filled with flowers, and ivy, and ferns, but it is Home Amusement to make these baskets yourself.
Fern-cases are delightful as winter friends. Wardian cases can be made very cheaply, and their perpetual condensation and shower is a very pretty study in physics. A large case, in which large-sized ferns can be accommodated, is best. As regards cultivation, the first thing that demands attention is the drainage of the case; for, if that is defective, neither ferns nor any other plants can be cultivated successfully. In order to secure good drainage the case should be fitted with a false bottom, into which the water may drain through perforated zinc or iron, on which the rock-work and little bank for the ferns should be placed. The false bottom, being a little kind of tank or drainer, should be perfectly water-tight, so as to protect the carpet, and should have a tap fixed in one corner of it, by means of which the surplus water should be drained off.
To be able to give free ventilation to the plants every morning is another essential point, as a stagnant atmosphere is as injurious to plants as it is to young children. Over the perforated tray of the case a good layer of broken pottery should be laid, and this should be covered with cocoanut fiber, on which the rock-work should be laid. The space in which it is intended that the ferns are to grow should then be filled in; and nothing is better than peat, rotten turf, and sharp grit sand as a soil for ferns. In the parts of the case intended for the planting of rather strong-growing ferns a larger proportion of rotten turf should be mixed with the peat than in those intended for less robust varieties. The adiantum pedatum (maidenhair), capillus veneris, pteris tessulata, eretica, albo lineata, polypodium vulgare, acrophorus chairophyllus, hispidus anemia adiantifolia, asplenium striatum, bulbiferum, with trichomanes and lelazinellas, are all useful, pretty ferns for these cases. If the fern-case be large, it might be advisable to have an arch reaching from end to end.
But any intelligent gardener will tell more in an hour than we could do in a week on the subject of ferns. Many ladies delight in selecting these lovely aristocrats of the forest themselves. They find no difficulty in arranging a little family of native ferns in an improvised Ward’s case; and this pursuit, as a reason for a woodland ramble and a subsequent fit of industry on the back piazza, is one which has no end as a Home Amusement.
Plant-stands for halls are very favorite decorations nowadays; but, of course, the plants must be hardy, as they will be subject to sudden changes of temperature. One lady made a fine effect by cultivating young pine-trees, spruces, and firs in the large stone jars of her hall. Cocoanut palms or India-rubber plants are the favorite exotics. Hardy ferns group in well for these hall plant-stands. In the bottom of each jar should be placed some broken pottery, for drainage, placed so that the moisture will drain down through the fragments without the soil choking the jar. Over the potsherds a little cocoanut moss should be placed, and then a mixture of leaf-mold, rotten turf and peat, and glass-maker’s sand, to keep the whole porous. On the surface of the pots and between them should be put wood moss, as in the case of stands for sitting-rooms. A common seed-pan, filled with selaginalla denticulata dropped into a small vase, has a fine effect; long sprays grow out over the sides of the vase and drop down eight to ten inches.
In an ordinary apartment, where the window-sills are not wide enough to hold flower-pots, the plan of wire stands is an admirable one for the window gardener. A piece of oil-cloth under the stand catches all the drippings, and a servant-girl with a wiping-towel can clean up all the débris. Soft-wooded plants and those with soft leaves should be arranged as near the window as possible; and if rearranged and turned against the light often, so much the better. Hard-leaved plants, like ivy and the India-rubber plant, may be put anywhere away from the light. But most plants need light before anything. The yucca quadricolor, so much used in the decorative house-jars or vases, becomes beautifully tinted with crimson if it has enough light. Now, if a lady has not room for many rustic jardinières and ornamental flower-stands in her room, she can have zinc-pans and pots, neatly enameled and painted, set on the floor, in which her larger plants may be put out, This is a very good idea for grouping; for she thus produces in her tout ensemble some of the wild confusion and grace of Nature.
A climbing rose should go scattering itself over an imperceptible wire trellis. A geranium should steadily blossom beneath. A group of yucca, agave, dracæna, Jerusalem cherry, should form a distinct and effective grouping below. And then beautiful trailing plants should drop from hanging baskets, and from every “coigne of vantage.” Ivy grows well in the shade, and may be employed for trailing around sofas, couches, tête-à-tête chairs, and picture-frames. Ladies sometimes tie a bottle of water behind a picture-frame, and allow the long shoots of nasturtion to grow out as if from the wall. The effect is startling. Mirrors are often cunningly placed behind a flowering plant which is growing in a hanging basket against the wall, thus doubling the effect.
As the days grow shorter, and the winter threatens to come upon us apace, we are always tempted to bring in from the garden the flowers that we think will last. Just before the fatal frosts, roots of mignonette should be planted in pots and put in a dark closet for a few days, where the plant takes root and accommodates itself to its change of base. It will make a room sweet all winter.
A lady can make all sorts of ornamental flower-pot coverings, and herself arrange pretty leather and paper standard covers for the ugly but useful flower-pot of commerce; or she can buy at most country potteries some very artistic flower-pots—also useful. And to put red, green, and blue glass tubes for hyacinths among these gives her window a very pretty effect. The very study of color in these minor matters adds much to her window garden. It is lucky for all lovers of beauty that beauty is now cheap. Art is putting her slender foot down everywhere; and it is almost possible, in a remote country village, to get the delicate classic shapes in cheap pottery which the cultivated Greeks imagined three thousand years ago.
For internal decoration by means of cut flowers, it seems almost absurd to attempt to delineate the proper thing to do; for, if a lady has taste, she will know without being told. But some few hints may not appear impertinent.
For the breakfast-table and dinner-table fresh flowers are almost indispensable. The pretty, cheap, and useful combinations of glass and silver, of china and pottery, which are made to hold flowers, are innumerable. Select a high vase, and fill it every day with fresh grasses, a few daisies, or some graceful ferns combined with white lilies, and you have always a superb center-piece.
For the summer, a large lump of ice covered with flowers, in a silver or glass dish, is delightfully refreshing. It also keeps away the flies. In grand party decorations ice is now freely used, and if some way can be devised to get the refuse water out of the way, it will be always a good thing for a country party or at a grand fête at Newport. For great blocks of ice covered with vines and flowers, lighted from behind, have a splendid effect. They cool the air and keep all the flowers fresh. Flowers, when cut, demand coolness; and the effect of the white crystal column is always beautiful.
Some ladies have a large tub put in the corner of the room, and the pyramid of ice placed in that. Then the tub can be masked by moss, branches of trees, evergreen, or any floral device, and the ice is draped with garlands. At a fête at Newport, in 1879, this ice decoration was much admired. At a ball given by the Prince of Wales to the Czarina of Russia in the large conservatory of the Royal Horticultural Society of South Kensington, ten tons of ice were used to build an ornamental rockery. This was draped with drooping ferns and graceful vines, and was surrounded with crimson baize and lighted from behind.
Nothing is so pretty for the breakfast- or dinner-table as a tall, slender vase which carries the floral decoration high up above the articles of food. Nor is a garden necessary for this species of decoration. Wild flowers, ferns, grasses, and all the beautiful furniture of forest and field, make these vases doubly elegant.
In the rose season—in the sweet days of June—most country gardens overflow with the always regal flower; and this is a table ornament of the highest. The great, broad, low baskets are best for these full, rich queens of color and fragrance. Mass your roses for the middle of the table, and have specimen glasses for some of the more rare varieties. The rose is a cleanly flower, and can be put anywhere near food. But if an unlucky visitor has the rose-cold, then it must be put far away; for the subtile, pungent odor of a rose makes the sufferer sneeze fearfully. There are some families in which roses are thus tabooed.
A basket of roses is the prettiest thing in the world; and the lady going into the country for the summer had better supply herself with a number of these, with handles, from the florist or the basket-maker. If she gets a tin pan also fitted in cunningly, she has the loveliest table ornamentation all ready. Her buffets, her parlor-table, her piano, her brackets can all hold these pleasant things, for which no money need be paid, but which have a value far above money. Never give these baskets a heavy, packed look, but allow plenty of the rich green leaves of the rose to set them off. It seems to us that ladies might create an endless succession of Home Amusements by studying how to vary the effect of their vases and baskets of flowers.
A simple bunch of yellow buttercups in the early spring will make a purple room perfectly beautiful; and dandelions can be massed with great effect. Yellow flowers are rare, but necessary to produce fine contrasts of color. We all tend too much to the red and white easily-obtained effects. They are poor compared with what we can do.
If Fashion has rather run its worship of the daisy into the ground, Fashion might have done a worse thing. We can scarcely blame Fashion for going back to this impressive flower, which in its simplicity has moved all philosophers, poets, and fortune-tellers to admire and study it.
It seems to us that something more cheerful than our usual Christmas decorations could be invented. We make them too somber. Try mixing in the beautiful bitter-sweet berries, which are so very easily obtained, and which keep all winter. The holly is not so common with us as in England; still, many a New England swamp produces a host of hips and haws and red berries.
The business of preserving autumn-leaves shows ten failures to one success. Yet, when autumn leaves are well preserved, they are very charming means of winter decoration. They are luminous at evening, and, mixed with ferns and grasses, are perpetual bouquets. But do not varnish them: that gives them a waxy effect, which is detestable. Press them carefully, and iron them under a piece of brown paper. That seems to preserve the color.
Grasses, on the contrary, and a thousand pods and seed-vessels, grains and cat-tails, and certain weeds, dry into beautiful colors and make most wonderful groups for the parlor mantel. The young ladies of our vast continent can not do a better thing than to each year add to these beautiful and most graceful bouquets, which retain, like the fabled Dryads, all the fascination of Nature, even when they have passed into sticks and dry leaves.
XIV.
CAGED BIRDS AND AVIARIES.
From flowers to birds is a natural transition, and we enter upon that part of Home Amusement which centers around a cage of singing-birds. It is a dreadful thing to snare and to imprison an innocent bird; therefore we begin with that bird which seems to take most kindly to captivity—the canary.
Travelers tell us that this yellow darling has gray plumage at home; but as we know them they are generally yellow, white, green, or brown. Climate, food, and intermixture of breeds has, no doubt, to do with this. The canary, which in France is nearly white, at Teneriffe is as brown as a berry. We can not tell why they are always yellow in cages.
The exact date of the introduction of the canary is not known to us. In 1610 the bird was considered a great rarity. According to some authors, the island of Elba was the first European ground on which the canary found a resting-place for its tiny foot. A ship bound for Leghorn, they say, having on board a number of sweet songsters, foundered near this island, on which the birds, set at liberty by the accident, found a refuge; and the climate was so congenial to their nature that they remained and bred, and would probably have remained there had not their unlucky, fatal gifts of beauty and song betrayed them to the bird-catchers, who hunted them so assiduously that not a single specimen was left on the island. From Italy these birds soon found their way into France and Germany, from the latter of which countries and the Tyrol we now receive our best supplies. Canary breeding and teaching is conducted in the Tyrol on a large scale, and these trainers have the power always to obtain large prices for their birds. Canary societies exist in England, and small traders, like Poll Sneedlepipes, compete for prizes.
Canary critics recognize two varieties—two grand divisions—in fancy canaries: “gay birds,” or “gay spangles,” and fancy, or “mealy,” birds—the first being plain, like the original stock, and the last variegated. This also includes the Jonques, or Jonquils, as the yellow birds are technically called. The varieties of these two grand divisions are almost innumerable, nearly every year producing a new one, which, like a prize flower, is in high favor until superseded by a greater beauty. Every year has its fashionable bird, its professional beauty, its Mrs. Langtry, until some Mrs. Cornwallis West or Lady Lonsdale carries off the palm. Like all hobbies, this is a hobby desperately ridden. It is a “Dutch taste for tulips,” and immense prices are given for prize canaries, even by men who can not afford to speculate in such very uncertain stock.
There are certain standard properties which are always considered essential toward gaining a prize. The first property considered in the show bird is the “cap,” which must be of a good gold color. The next is purity of color through the whole bird. Then the wings and tail, which must be black quite home to the quill. The fourth relates to the spangle, which must be distinct. Fifth, size and shape. Besides these properties there are what are called “additional beauties,” not essential to the winning of a prize, but adding to a bird’s chances. These are five in number: pinions, for size and regularity; swallow and throat, for size; fair breast, for regularity; legs and flight, for blackness. In explanation of this it may be noted that from the beak to the back of the neck is called the “cap,” and this should be of a clear orange-color, full and rich in the ground, and with black edges to the feathers. The feathers on the loins, or the saddle as it is sometimes called, as well as those of the breast, must be free from black, while the wings must have no admixture of any other color. No bird can fairly compete for a prize which has not black on the stock or neb of the back, flight, or tail feathers, or that has less than eighteen flying feathers in each wing or less than twelve in the tail. Such, lady bird-fanciers, is a prize canary in England!
Holborn is the great canary mart. In St. Andrew’s Street every third or fourth house is occupied by a dealer, and those who desire to possess a first-rate singer should visit that street. It is best to go by gaslight, when all the birds are on the twitter.
Now, in America we have the plain yellow bird, with no admixture of black; and yet the same conditions seem to be observed as to his treatment. Sacrifice the beauty of your bird to his song, which is his chief accomplishment. He should have a comfortable mahogany cage, and be allowed to step into it of his own accord. It should be well furnished with seed and water. Place a light in front of the cage, and he will begin to sing. A single hemp-seed or a morsel of chickweed will induce the little prisoner to sing almost immediately. They are very amiable and happy in captivity.
The blackcap, called the “mock-nightingale,” is a very charming household pet, if he will live. His power of song is almost equal to that of the nightingale. He is sometimes called “the English mocking-bird,” and he imitates any songster whom he may hear—blackbird, thrush, or meadow-lark. They are by no means plentiful birds, and they bring a good price in the market. They are about the same size as the linnet, and the prevailing colors of the plumage are ashen-gray and olive-green. The old birds feed their young on caterpillars, moths, and other insects. They can be reared, however, on bread and milk. If brought up with a canary or a nightingale, they will acquire a beautiful song composed of their own natural notes and those of these brilliant performers. This bird has been known to live twelve or sixteen years in confinement. It demands some sort of fruit, like cherries, currants, or raspberries in summer; a bit of apple, pine, or orange in winter. To keep it in perfect health, it must have an iron nail in its cup of water.
But chacun à son goût. Every lady has her preferences as to her feathered favorites. Suffice it to say a few words as to the care of these poor little creatures.
Birds are naturally tender things. They are not born to live in cages; therefore they should be especially cared for. Domestic pets are apt to come to untimely ends, particularly if left to the care of servants, who regard them as a burden and a nuisance, and too often cruelly neglect them. Birds in captivity are very liable to diseases which do not attack them in their wild state; and in the various casualties which endanger their prison life, their owners should seek to protect them and to cure them. Let it be one of the Home Amusements for the lady to feed her pet canary—to clean its cage, or see that it is done. We have seen a little boy of seven take such care of his pet canary that he shamed all the older people in the house; and a happier bird never lived.
If you keep but one bird in a cage in very hot weather, his cage should be cleansed once a day. If you minister personally to the comfort of your bird, he will grow very much attached to you. If the perches are not kept clean, the birds become afflicted with the gout and other maladies, resulting in the loss of toes.
Wooden cages, especially of mahogany, are the best, as they are less likely to harbor insects. If of fir or soft wood, the cage should be painted green. The wires of a cage should never be painted, as the wire being non-absorbent, the bird pecks off and eats the paint, which poisons it. Japanned zinc cages are very well. A cage should not be too open. There should always be a snug corner or sheltered place, where the bird can retire and shun observation. It is great cruelty to hang a cage in the sun unprotected. Remember that in their free state birds seek the shady tree. In a shower always bring your birds indoors, for they are apt to take cold if wet in an imprisoned state.
It is a pity that more of our country residents have not the idea of an aviary. It is so very pretty—an abiding-place of beauty, love, song, and happiness. Surely it does not cost so much as a greenhouse.
The model aviary is built of brick or stone, iron and glass, with a stove and pipes fitted to keep it of an even temperature all winter. The floor should be an earthen one, beaten hard, like the floors of some barns. Bricks are too cold. Planks harbor insects, retain bad smells, and form coverts for rats and mice. The roof of the aviary should be semicircular or shelving, with vines and flowing creepers trailing over it, so that there shall be a rustle of green leaves steeped in sunshine, and air laden with sweet perfume to delight the birds within. There should be also creepers and shrubs growing inside for the birds to nest in. Perches and wicker baskets with horse-hair and wool should be left around, and there should be a small marble basin and fountain in the middle, of which the water should be always fresh and changing for the birds to drink. This is, of course, a very magnificent aviary, costing money. But what an addition to Home Amusements to care for the happy family within! The birds can be of all sorts. At the period of migration—about the last of August—all birds kept in confinement show a great desire to get out, and often beat themselves to death against the walls of their cages. In this time of ardent enterprise the top of the aviary or the cages should be covered with dark cloth, and the poor things shut out from the light.
A much cheaper aviary is built in the form of a large cage on the top of a tree, with open exit and entrances, fitted up with every convenience of bird-furnishing, and visited twice a day by the boys of the family. Here many birds come to lodge and get tamed, as the Indian does by having a house and garden, and often one pair of birds comes back several times. This is a charming sort of aviary, and very much to be commended. What romantic tales of a wayside inn do the robin redbreasts and orioles tell the peeping boy as he goes up the ladder to feed his familiar friends! It is the prettiest sort of correspondence with l’inconnu!
It is a curious thing that the lungs of birds in captivity always suffer from impurity of air, especially when the temperature is at all varied; this must be one of the points very carefully attended to.
For food—we now are getting to a very creepy stage of our narrative—meal-worms, ugh! are the pièce de résistance; but canaries, goldfinches, bullfinches, linnets—all, God bless them!—prefer seed; while chaffinches, buntings, and the whole tit family and larks must have seeds, insects, and fat meat—namely, worms. The nightingales, thrushes, redbreasts, blackcaps, must have worms, crickets, cockroaches, and ant-eggs. The maggots of the blow-fly and all such tidbits, meal-worms, and flesh-maggots must be kept in reserve; and this kind of housekeeping is apt to shock the delicate sense. Let the boys of the family attend to this part of the birds’ diet. Boiled cabbage, green peas, all sorts of pudding, dry bread, and a little finely minced cooked meat, bread-crumbs mashed up and scalded in milk, milk itself, hemp-seed, a little chickweed, lettuce, and cresses, can be given to birds with advantage.
The bathing of birds must be done with great skill and wisdom. After the operation of a warm bath, with soap, which should be given to nestlings who are troubled with vermin, great care must be taken that they are not chilled, as death will be the result. Wrap them up, like little babies, in flannel.
In teaching them to sing, the voice, the piano, and flute are all good teachers. The patient and music-loving Germans teach all birds to sing. It should be begun in the morning early, when the bird is hungry; and his lesson should not last more than an hour.
Early and regular attendance, gentleness and kindness, are the rationale of bird-tending, as of nearly everything else!
Those half-captives, the pigeons, should be around every country house. How beautiful they are in Venice! the pigeons of St. Mark, which have swooped about that storied piazza for so many years, because regularly fed there. All boys should learn to cultivate them; to have the lovely shifting luster of their necks lighting up the ground and making gay the twilight. How proud and pompous are the pouters! how gentle the ringdoves! and how pretty the whole family! Peacocks are very stately visitors, and, except for their horrid shrieks, are especially to be commended. The old ruffled turkey-gobbler has his charms; and the pages of Hawthorne teach us how very amusing a group of hens and chickens may become. We advise every family to have as many birds as they can possibly feed; for every bird is a study, from the blink-eyed owl which hides in the fir-tree, to the poor old goose that quacks and hobbles toward the pond. Indeed, the æsthetics are all pretending that the goose is the most beautiful of them all!—a perfect love, a type, is a goose, since Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway came in. But we still prefer the stately swan, of which splendid specimens are now beginning to add their attractions to our inland lakes. The goose is all very well in her way, but the swan is better.
XV.
PICNICS.
Perhaps it is not well to class among Home Amusements a series of entertainments which imply, at first sight, the getting away from home. But, as the basket of luncheon has to be packed at home, and the best part of a picnic is the getting home again, we must be permitted a divergence.
It is curious to see how emphatically fond of picnics the Americans are. A universal national hunger seems to seize the tired cit as the first warm day of May beams upon us. They “babble of green fields.” Best of all charities those which send the poor children off, on boats and trains, for a whiff of pure air! It is the blessed privilege of the rich to thin out the crowded tenement, and to send the overplus of an irrepressible civilization back to Nature for a moment.
But, for a Home Amusement in the country, what can compare with the joy of getting ready for a picnic? The baskets for the provisions (and be sure, Mary, not to forget the salt or the sugar), the coffee-pot that will stand being poked down into the wood-coals, the fine old swinging iron kettle, the bread, the knives, and the pail of ice. Ah!
Then, as to carriages. Not the luxurious cushioned barouche, but the shabbiest old rattletraps about the place are the proper ones. A good old hay-wagon is the very best—if it have hay in it. It may do very well at Newport for the luxurious to drive out to one of Mr. Bennett’s picnics in a four-in-hand or a drag, or a Victoria or a barouche; but in the country take the buckboard, the old Rockaway wagon, which holds nine—the more the merrier—the farm-wagon, and the market-cart. Filled with youth, beauty, and jollity, these become the chariots of Apollo.
It is not always easy to get mamma to a picnic; but it is good for her, and for all the others, if she will go. She is apt to be anxious about rain, and is afraid of farmer Bell’s bull; and she should be allowed to go in an easy carriage. She also fears to take cold, and is mightily frightened at those crazy boats on the lake. But it is better for all parties if these fears are assuaged and she really goes. The change does her good, and she acts as a temporary restraint on the too volatile spirits of the party.
Another power hard to coerce is Statira, who is the head of the commissary department. Statira, cook and factotum, was brought up on the wrong side of a mullein-patch herself, and she is not in love with the country. She remembers the woods as a place where she went to look, in her youth, for recalcitrant cows; and in winter, how cold and bleak the woods were! Her present warm and cultivated kitchen, with stationary wash-tubs, is to her a far more agreeable spot. She hesitates, as the young people ask for her delicate apple-pies and her delicious cakes, “to cram into baskets,” to “eat out in the pasture,” as she sniffingly avers.
However, although Statira is a greater tyrant than Nero, the young people prevail, and the picnic gets started somehow. What a jolly hour is passed in driving through the still valley to the brow of yonder hill, which commands a view of the whole country! Then Susan, the thoughtful one, dreads lest the coffee-pot has been forgotten. Hurried search! The coffee-pot is found under a back seat. Happiness restored, the songs go on, and the murmuring pines and the hemlocks take up the wondrous tale.
Then the party arrive at the lake. The girls take off their hats. The winds play with the “tangles in Nerea’s hair.” The picnic is a nice opportunity for a pretty foot, a fine figure, and a splendid head of hair—so it is said. Then come rambles into the forest.
That is a pretty story of a nymph who appeared on the edge of a forest, but who disappeared as she was followed, until, at last, as her lover pursued her farther into the forest, he threw his arms about a white hawthorn-tree. It is the world’s earliest romance that the first courtship took place at a picnic. Roses and briers twine around lovers for ever, and the lotus and the buttercup tell the same story.
Picnics are healthy; but should be appropriately dressed. Balmoral boots, broad hats, and flannel dresses, warm, plain, and serviceable. A white Marseilles which will wash—percales and cambrics and ginghams will do; but no finery should be allowed. At Newport one may try the Watteau combination of brocade and satin, with fine old house, grounds, and trellised arcades. But at a country picnic Watteau dresses are out of place. Our climate is too fitful for safe picnicking, as we dread rain. In England they do not care, but lunch at Ascot, with the rain pouring into the champagne. But here we need to go prepared with aquiscutums and umbrellas, and a neighboring barn is well in the near distance.
It is a common want, this need of the confessional of Nature. We leave our morbid fancies, our discontents, in the bosom of our dear common mother, and we come back as cheerful as is the dappled deer. We like to go back to that idyllic spot where the race started.
In the spring certain natures get frisky, like the colts. One pasture will not hold them. We get tired of white man’s work. It was a true reading of the human heart which made the Greeks place Apollo with the shepherds of Admetus, and Jove stooping to the people of the hill-sides. “The populous all-loving solitude” of Nature draws us with a potent hand. Our houses are a false shell. Titania’s subjects will rebel. That rural solitude, which has no conventionality; that desert rock, against which the noisy wave of human folly breaks itself; the dense forest, where is sung the mighty hymn of the pines; the brow of the hill which the sun kisses last; the lone seashore; the distant heath; that cloud-shadow on the mountain—these are all necessary to us once a year. We must go once to “La roche qui pleure.” We must go where the forest-growths expand in all their strength and splendor. We must find the shyest wild flower, the most untamable vine. It is in the fable of Daphne that we read the deep significance, the poetry, the true meaning of our love of the picnic.
Who of us—comfortable and well housed—but has in some moment of nomadic instinct envied the tramp and the gypsy their life of chapleted ease, as they lie on the greensward, hugging dear mother Nature to their very bosoms? Who has not some wild, untamed blood in his veins—some fellowship for the Indian—some desire for the flitting caress of the passing breeze, or the somber greeting of the mountain shadow?
But no more poetry, if you please. We are getting hungry. Where are those baskets? Ah! the cold roast beef, the wing of a chicken, and the salt, not forgotten!
Those hard-boiled eggs—how good they are! So glad that chicken-raising has been one of our Home Amusements! Just a high picket-fence, a few good hens, some boxes, and a little attention, and what eggs these are! Mamma will not, however, eat them; she says they are unwholesome. But she takes a piece of the breast of a noble pullet, and a cup of coffee in a tin mug, made by Sam, best of cooks, amateur—college-bred cook—who has boiled it under the trees! and laid the grounds with a dash of cold water. Sam puts his own clearness and strength into the coffee.
And now for an hour’s reverie by the side of the lake; and then a rough-and-tumble drive home! How tired, ragged, jagged, disheveled, and happy we are as we get home!
Statira has built a splendid wood-fire for us, and has a supper of broiled chicken, cold ham, preserves and cream, baked potatoes, and toast, and hot biscuits which might tempt the virtue of an anchorite. We have no such proud resistance. We have brought an appetite from the place where they make them; and we can eat hot biscuits and still wrap the drapery of our couch about us and lie down to pleasant dreams.
A picnic is, therefore, a Home Amusement. It has home at both ends; else it would not be a picnic.
XVI.
PLAYING WITH FIRE. CERAMICS.
Now let us ascend from these trivialities to the consideration of the great subject which has been more talked of and dabbled in for the last seven years than any accomplishment ever was, before or since. The splendid display of Ceramic Art at our great Exposition of 1876 no doubt had its share in creating that intense interest in the subject which has been felt everywhere.
How it came into the category of Home Amusements we hardly know, unless the art schools stimulated the pursuit. But now we do know that nearly every lady paints a plate, from grandma down to the smallest child. Especially has it become the pastime of middle-aged ladies, who have got through with the work of life, and have much leisure on their hands. It is one of the many accomplishments which has taken the place of the German wool worsted abomination, the canvas roses, and counted out violets.
“Home would be happier were it not for the smell of turpentine,” said a lively girl as she found her grandmother, mother, and sister all hard at the plaques. It is true, this pungent liquid is necessary, and the china after being painted has to be baked—two very unpleasant accompaniments. But let us see how it is done.
One needs, first, a porcelain palette; a glass slab about eight inches square; several small and medium-sized camel’s-hair brushes; several blenders, large and small; a quart-bottle of spirits of turpentine; a quart-bottle of alcohol; a small bottle of oil of turpentine; one of oil of lavender; one of copaiba; a steel palette-knife, also one of horn or ivory; a rest for the hand while painting, made of a strip of wood about an inch and a half wide and twelve inches long, supported at each end by a foot an inch and a half in height. A flat ruler or thin strip of wood may be used for plates, or any flat piece having a raised edge, and may be found more convenient than the cumbrous rests. A fine needle, set in a handle, for removing particles of dust which may settle in the painting, and a small glass muller, are required.
The china used for decoration must be of the finest quality, and free from spots. The hard porcelain of French manufacture is the best for this purpose. The mineral paints bought in tubes (those of Lacroix, of Paris, being the best) are the colors which stand fire. Brushes, as for water-color painting, are used. Small camel’s-hair brushes with square ends may be had, which will do for blending when necessary in fine work.
In tinted surfaces and borders large blenders are necessary. The brushes used by gilders, and called “trade-gilders’ brushes,” make good blenders; No. 9 is a very useful size. In placing the color on these surfaces, a broad, flat camel’s-hair brush, rather more than an inch in width, should be used. In narrow bands and lines, brushes of suitable size with very long hair and square ends are employed.
The colors most in use are: dark carmine, flesh-red, capucine-red, dark red, brown, iron-violet. In purples—deep purple, dark golden violet. Blues—sky-blue, dark ultramarine, deep blue. Greens—grass-green, brown green, apple-green. Yellows—mixing yellow, ivory-yellow, jonquil-yellow, orange-yellow. Browns—dark brown, yellow brown. Black—ivory-black. Permanent white; pearl-gray; black gray.
Now, in commencing to paint a design on china, the first thing to be done is to sketch the outline. The best way to do this is to prepare the china by rubbing the surface with spirits of turpentine, and, after having left it a few minutes to dry, draw the design upon it very lightly with a hard lead-pencil. Alcohol may be used for the same purpose, and has the advantage that it is not so liable to catch the dust. The surface, however, does not receive the marks of the lead-pencil so well as when it is prepared with turpentine.
Lithographic crayon may be used, and without any preparation; but the outline is not so delicate as that drawn with the lead-pencil.
If the subject is a difficult one, as, for instance, a design containing several figures, time may be saved, and liability to error avoided, by tracing the design, which insures the correct relative position of the figures, and tends to produce the object desired—a correct copy of the original. It is better, however, to sketch simpler subjects direct on the china. It is commonly supposed that a tracing is of great assistance to any one unskilled in drawing; but if one is unable to draw a correct outline, it is hardly possible that the painting will be good. It is so very easy to lose the outline in working that, after all, a tracing is but a slight indication, which has for its principal use the placing of the design in exactly the right position on the plate or other object to be decorated.
There are various ways of tracing, the simplest and best of which is the following: Lay a piece of transparent paper over the design to be copied, and trace the outlines very carefully with a hard lead-pencil. Then turn the tracing-paper over on any white surface, and go over all the lines on the reverse side with a soft pencil. You can now lay the tracing right side up on the china, which has been previously prepared for the lead-pencil with turpentine, and having placed it in exactly the right position, secure it by means of bits of modeling-wax or gummed paper at the corners, and pass over the lines with a hard point, or rub the entire surface with a rounded instrument; the handle of the palette-knife may be used for this purpose. This will transfer the pencil drawing to the surface of the china.
The more delicate the outline the better, provided it is more plainly visible, as a heavy, dark, or colored outline sullies the colors used upon it, and causes much annoyance in working. Although it may disappear in the firing, it is better to avoid it. Faulty lines in the tracing may be rectified by the use of a sharpened stick of soft wood moistened with turpentine.
If tube-colors are used, and found difficult to lay, a drop of oil of turpentine may be added to the turpentine. Care should be taken, however, to avoid too much oil, as it renders the colors liable to blister in the fire. The use of clove-oil as a medium is advised by some. The color can, perhaps, be more easily laid with it than with spirits of turpentine. It does not dry so quickly, however, and, unless recourse is had to the process of drying the work with the aid of an alcohol lamp, its use involves tedious waiting. It is better to use turpentine and finish the work at one sitting. The drying of colors is affected by the state of the atmosphere. If, during the progress of the painting, it is found to be difficult to work over the colors first laid—which are indeed very liable to come up—the piece of china may be placed in a moderately warm oven to dry before proceeding. On being taken out of the oven, the colors will be found to have lost their gloss, if perfectly dry, and, perhaps, will have changed their hue. No alarm need be felt at this, as they will return to their former brilliancy when fired. But here we come to a great trouble.
The chance of a piece “firing” well is one of the great trials of the china painter, and is beyond her control; but this is always counted in. It is best to send the piece to a pottery to be burned. A cup containing turpentine should stand near the working table to wash the brushes; and after using a color containing iron, the brush should be carefully washed before it is charged with one which does not contain iron, or if white is to be used. The brushes ought not to be too small, and the colors should, as far as possible, be laid in broad washes, and decided touches placed lightly and quickly, and not overworked. The use of the blender may be resorted to if necessary, especially in laying the first washes; although it is better to avoid using it afterward, if possible.
The same rules may be applied to china painting as to water-colors, to which it bears a strong resemblance. The greatest art consists in placing each touch where it should go, and leaving it; not spoiling it by uncertainty, or degrading the tint by overwork. In fine work, lining and stippling are necessary in finishing, but should not be carried to excess or made too apparent. These latter processes are, perhaps, more indispensable in preparing work for a single firing, as it is very difficult to lay repeated washes over one another; the under-tint comes up so readily, especially when it is not thoroughly dry. The same place must never be passed over by the brush twice in immediate succession, as the under-tint will certainly come up, and the blot caused in the painting will be difficult to rectify. It is of no use to attempt it while it is wet. Work on some other part, and then go over it, or first dry it in the oven.
Some of the tube-colors may require to be rubbed down after being taken from the tubes. This will be especially necessary in the case of the carmines and the whites. A horn or ivory palette-knife should be used with these colors, as well as with the blues, and all colors containing no iron. Mixtures of colors on the palette may be rubbed down occasionally, or mixed with the brush before using, to prevent them from separating themselves into their component parts.
Too much turpentine should not be taken into the brush when it is to be charged with color. Dip it into the turpentine, and remove the surplus moisture by drawing the brush over the edge of the vessel containing it before taking up the color from the palette. The tint may be tried first on the edge of the plate. Surplus color or moisture may be removed by touching the brush upon a muslin rag, which should always be at hand for the purpose of wiping the brushes.
After using, the brushes should be washed in alcohol. The bottle containing it should be kept tightly corked, as it evaporates very quickly when exposed to the air. Care must be taken that no drops of the alcohol drop upon the painting, as it will immediately remove the colors from the surface. When the large brushes are cleaned after being washed in the alcohol, the hairs should be spread apart, and the fingers passed lightly over them until they are dry; otherwise the hairs may stick together in drying, and the brush be rendered unfit for use. Washing in alcohol will prevent the turpentine used in painting from injuring the brushes, as it would if allowed to remain in them. The tube-colors should be preserved from heat as far as possible.
We have taken these rules, partly from personal experience, partly from the best manuals, and the china painter can begin on them. But a few lessons from a master are very valuable, and the best of all teachers—patience—will help the young and inexperienced better than any written directions.
We would like to say a few words more on the all-important subject of firing. “The Amateur’s Miniature Kiln,” now sold by the Decorative Art Society, and by the patentee, Miss N. M. Ford, Port Richmond, New York, enables the amateur to fire small articles of decorated china with perfect success. If near a large city, it is better to send the plaques to a large establishment where they are in the habit of baking them.
The amateur has to make up her mind to a great many failures at first, but after the accomplishment is somewhat conquered, it is an inexpensive and delightful addition to Home Amusements.
No one should, however, attempt to paint upon china who does not know first how to draw. The hand should be skillful on paper before it touches the flat brush; for the outlines, while seemingly coarse, must be very expressive, and very certain.
XVII.
ARCHERY.
Fashion has again brought round as one of the Home Amusements this pretty and romantic pastime, which has filled the early ballads with many a picturesque figure. Now on many a lawn may be seen the target and the group in Lincoln green. Indeed, it looks as if Archery were to prove a very formidable rival to Lawn Tennis.
The requirements of Archery are these: First, a bow; secondly, arrows; thirdly, a quiver, pouch, and belt; fourthly, a grease-pot, an arm-guard or brace, a shooting glove, a target, and a scoring card.
The bow is the most important article in archery, and also the most expensive. It is usually from five to six feet in length, made of a single piece of yew, or of lance-wood and hickory glued together back to back. The former is best for gentlemen, the latter for ladies, as it is better adapted for the short, sharp pull of the feminine arm. The wood is gradually tapered, and at each end is a tip of horn, the one from the upper end being longer than the other or lower one. The strength of bows is marked in pounds, varying from twenty-five to thirty pounds. Ladies’ bows are from twenty-five to forty pounds in strength, and those of gentlemen from fifty to eighty pounds. One side of the bow is flat, called its “back”; the other is rounded, called the “belly.” Nearly in the middle, where the hand should take hold, it is lapped round with velvet, and that part is called the “handle.” In each of the tips of horns is a notch for the string, called the “nock.”
Bow-strings are made of hemp or flax—the former being the better material; for though at first they stretch more, yet they wear longer and stand a harder pull, as well as being more elastic in the shooting. In applying a fresh string to a bow, be careful in opening it not to break the composition that is on it. Cut the tie, take hold of the eye, which will be found ready worked at one end, let the other part hang down, and pass the eye over the upper end of the bow. If for a lady, it may be held from two to two and a half inches below the nock; if for a gentleman, half an inch lower, varying it according to the length and strength of the bow. Then run your hand along the side of the bow and string to the bottom nock. Turn it round that, and fix it by the noose, called the “timber noose,” taking care not to untwist the string in making it. This noose is simply a turn-back and twist without a knot. When strung, a lady’s bow will have the string about five inches from the belly, and a gentleman’s about half an inch more. The part opposite the handle is bound round with waxed silk, in order to prevent its being frayed by the arrow. As soon as a string becomes too soft and the fibers too straight, rub it with beeswax, and give it a few turns in the proper direction, so as to shorten it, and twist its strands a little tighter. A spare string should always be provided by the shooter.
The arrows are differently shaped by various makers, some being of uniform thickness throughout, while others are protuberant in the middle; some, again, are larger at the point than at the feather-end. They are generally made of white deal, with points of iron or brass riveted on; but generally having a piece of heavy wood spliced on to the deal between it and the point, by which their flight is improved. At the other end a piece of horn is inserted in which is a notch for the string. They are armed with three feathers, glued on, one of which is of a different color from the others, and is intended to mark the proper position of the arrow when placed on the string, this one always pointing from the bow. These feathers properly applied give a rotary motion to the arrow which causes its flight to be straight. They are generally from the wing of the turkey or the goose. The length and weight of the arrows vary, the latter (in England) being marked in sterling silver coin, and stamped on the arrow in plain figures. It is usual to paint a crest or a monogram or distinguishing rings on the arrow just below the feathers, by which they may be known in shooting at the target.
The quiver is merely a tin case painted green, intended for the security of the arrows when not in use. The pouch and belt are worn round the waist, the latter containing those arrows which are actually being shot. A pot to hold grease for touching the glove and string, and a tassel to wipe the arrows, are hung at the belt. The grease is composed of beef-suet and wax melted together. The arm is protected from the blow of the string by the brace, a broad guard of strong leather buckled on by two straps. A shooting glove, also of thin tubes of leather, is attached to the wrist by three flat pieces ending in a circular strap buckled round it. This glove prevents that soreness of the fingers which soon comes on after using the bow without it.
The target consists of a circular mat of straw, covered with canvas painted in a series of circles. It is usually from three feet six inches to four feet in diameter. The middle is about six or eight inches in diameter, gilt, and called the “gold”; the next is called the “red,” after which comes the “inner white,” then the “black,” and finally the “outer white.” These targets are mounted on triangular stands at distances apart of from fifty to a hundred yards—sixty being the usual shooting distance.
A scoring card is provided with columns for each color, which are marked with a pin. The usual score for a gold hit or the bull’s-eye is 9; the red, 7; inner white, 6; black, 3; and outer white, 1.
To bend the bow properly the bow should be taken by the handle in the right hand. Place one end on the ground, resting in the hollow of the right foot, keeping the flat side of the bow, called the back, toward your person. The left foot should be advanced a little, and the right placed so that the bow can not slip sideways. Place the heel of the left hand upon the upper limb of the bow, below the eye of the string. Now, while the fingers and thumb of the left hand slide this eye toward the notch in the horn, and the heel pushes the limb away from the body, the right hand pulls the handle toward the person, and thus resists the action of the left, by which the bow is bent; and at the same time the string is slipped into the nock, as the notch is termed. Take care to keep the three outer fingers free from the string, for if the bow should slip from the hand, and the string catch them, they will be severely pinched. If shooting in frosty weather, warm the bow before the fire, or by friction with a woolen cloth. If the bow has been lying by for a long time, it should be well rubbed with boiled linseed-oil before using it.
To unstring the bow, hold it as in stringing, then press down the upper limb exactly as before, and as if you wished to place the eye of the string in a higher notch. This will loosen the string and liberate the eye, when it must be lifted out of the nock by the forefinger, and suffered to slip down the limb.
Before using the bow, hold it in a perpendicular direction with the string toward you, and see if the line of the string cuts the middle of the bow. If not, shift the eye and noose of the string to either side, so as to make the two lines coincide. This precaution prevents a very common cause of defective shooting, which is the result of an uneven string throwing the arrow on one side. After using it, unstring it; and at a large shooting party, unloose your bow after every round. Some bows get bent into very unmanageable shapes.
The general management of the bow should be on the principle that damp injures it, and that any loose floating ends interfere with its shooting. It should, therefore, be kept well varnished, and in a waterproof case, and it should be carefully dried after shooting in damp weather. If there are any ends hanging from the string, cut them off close, and see that the whipping in the middle of the string is close and well fitting. The case should be hung up against a dry internal wall, not too near the fire. In selecting your bow, be careful that it is not too strong for your power, and that you can draw the arrow to its head without any trembling of the hand. If this can not be done after a little practice, the bow should be changed for a weaker one. For no arrow will go true if it is discharged by a trembling hand.
If an arrow has been shot into the target or the ground, be particularly careful to withdraw it by laying hold close to its head, and by twisting it round as it is withdrawn in the direction of its axis. Without this precaution it may be easily bent or broken.
In shooting at the target, the first thing is to nock the arrow; that is, to place it properly on the string. In order to effect this; take the bow in the left hand, with the string toward you, the upper limb being toward the right. Hold it horizontally while you take the arrow by the middle, pass it on the under side of the string and the upper side of the bow, till the head reaches two or three inches past the left hand. Hold it there with the forefinger or thumb while you remove the right hand down to the nock. Turn the arrow till the cock-feather comes uppermost, then pass it down the bow, and fix it on the nocking part of the string. In doing this, all contact with the feathers should be avoided, unless they are rubbed out of place, when they may be smoothed down by passing them through the hand.
The body should be at right angles with the target, but the face must be turned over the left shoulder, so as to be opposed to it. The feet are to be flat on the ground, with the heels a little apart, the left foot turned toward the mark. The head and chest inclined a little forward, so as to present a full bust, but not bent at all below the waist.
Draw the arrow to the full length of the arm till the hand touches the shoulder, then take aim. The loosing should be quick, and the string must leave the fingers smartly and steadily. The bow-hand must be as firm as a vice—no trembling allowed.
The rules of an Archery Club are usually these:
That a “Lady Paramount” be annually elected.
That there be a President, Secretary, and Treasurer.
That all members intending to shoot shall appear in the uniform of the club. That a fine shall be imposed for non-attendance.
That the Secretary shall send out cards at least a month before each day of meeting, acquainting the members with place and hour of meeting.
That there shall be four prizes for each meeting—two for each sex; the first for numbers, the second for hits; and that no person shall be allowed to have both on the same day. A certain sum of money is voted to the Lady Paramount for prizes for each meeting.
That in case of a tie for hits, numbers shall decide; and in case of a tie for numbers, hits shall decide.
That the decision of the Lady Paramount shall be final.
That there shall be a challenge prize of the value of —— dollars, and that a commemorative ornament be presented to winners of the challenge prize.
That the distance for shooting be sixty or one hundred yards, and that five-feet targets be used.
The dress of the club to be decided by the Lady Paramount.
The expenses of archery are not great—about the same as lawn tennis—although a great many arrows are lost in the course of the season. Bows and other paraphernalia last a long time. Sides are chosen as at lawn tennis, and the game grows on one. The lady archers are apt to feel a little lame after the first two or three essays, but they should practice a short time every morning, and always in a loose waist or jacket. It will be found a very healthy and strengthening pastime.
We must not judge of the merits of ancient bowmen from the practice of archery in the present day. There are no such distances now assigned for the marks as we find mentioned in old histories or poetic legends, nor such precision, even at short lengths, in the direction of the arrow.