FLOWERS, ARTIFICIAL. Copies of natural flowers made of a great variety of materials, and used for both and decorative purposes. To the former class belong the collection of flowers in the possession of Harvard University, which are made wholly of glass, and illustrate the flora of the United States. Flowers and leaves of painted linen, and of horn shavings stained in various eolors, were made by the ancient Erryp t ians, and it. is said that Crassus of Boole made such artificial flowers of gold. The Chinese form beautiful flowers out of rice paper made from the pith of a kind of bamboo, while the natives of the Bahama islands and other savages arrange small and daintily tinted shells into sprays of flowers. Feathers hove long been made into beautiful flowers by the South American Indians. In Italy the cocoons of silkworms are dyed and used ex tensivelv for this purpose. Fine imitations of flowers are made from paper, especially crepe paper, ribbon, velvet, and the thin lamime of whalebone. Wax-flower making is a distinct branch of the art and is considered under a sep arate article. At one time the making of wreaths of flowers out of locks of hair, the gifts of friends, cleverly woven with wire, was a favorite form of fancy work among ladies. The Italians were the first to bring the art of making arti ficial flowers to a high state of perfection. At present the chief centres for the manufacture of flowers for the decoration of ladies' bonnets and dresses, for head-wreaths and for table and house decoration, are in France and America. French immigrants probably introduced the in dustry into America. As early as 1840 there were ten establishments for making artificial flowers in New York City.
The materials of which the artificial flowers commonly in use are made are silks, cambric, jaconet, and fine calico, besides muslin, craps, and gauze for particular flowers, and satin and velvet for thick petals. The tinting of petals of the best flowers requires some amount of delicacy and skill. In nature the tint of each petal of a flower is rarely uniform: and the best artificial flowers represent the natural variations with great accuracy. The petals of a rose, for ex
ample, are dyed by holding each separately by pincers, and then dipping it in a bath of carmine, and afterwards into pure water, to give delicacy of tint ; but as the color is usually deepest in the centre, a little more dye is added there while the petal is still moist, and this diffuses itself out ward in diminishing intensity. The whiteness at the insertion of the petal is produced by touch ing that part with pure water after the rest is dyed. The artificial flowers of trade, however, are colored by no such delicate means. The material of which they are made is simply dyed in uniform color, in sheets, and any variation in tint is effected by a few daubs of the paint brush after the petals are cut out. The aniline dyeing solutions are heated by steam in great copper kettles, into which the material is dipped. The material is then passed through a wringer, and stretched upon frames to dry. The next step is to size the material by applying a solution of dextrin and starch evenly to the sur face, while the cloth is still stretched upon the drying-frames. The material is now ready to be cut into the leaves or petals of flowers. This is eff'ec'ted by sharp steel cutters, made of the de sirable size and shape. A large stock of these irons is necessary, as special forms and sizes are required for each flower. Ten or twelve sheets of the material of the same color are carefully and smoothly laid in a pile on a leaden block, and the cutter, with a wooden mallet, drives the sharp steel stamp through the pile and repeats the process till the sheets are riddled with holes. The leaves and petals are now passed on to an ether workman, who presses the veins into them by means of a pair of dies. (See. DIES AND D IE SI NE I NO. ) A petal is placed in the lower die and the upper die fitted over it. The dies are placed finder a press and a turn of the wheel presses the vein-lines into the stiff material.