Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1896 — Bits of Bloom. [ARTICLE]

Bits of Bloom.

No good housekeeper ever serves “warmed over” coffee. If you don’t like to waste It, pour it around your plants in pots. It fertilizes the soil and stimulates growth. For rooms which are in constant family use, quieter darker colors may be desired. A preconceived plan should be followed and will yield equally good results. Let nothing mar the room in the way of discordant colors, foreign to the original intention. Several safe principles are given which may be regarded with confidence; the walls should be lighter than the floor and darker than the ceiling; in other words, the floor covering must be darker than the walls, and an effect of gradual lightening be seen from floor to ceiling; the fringe or border at the top of the walls, however, which represents strong timbers, upon which rests the celling or upper floor, must be in tones deeper than the side walls, to enable it to take on an appearance of strength. Mrs. Pender-Cudlip, the English novelist, says she always grows small salads on the dining-table. “Any dishes or plates answer the purpose, but for preference I grow them in old, quaintshaped delft and china dishes, and this makes them exceptionally ornamental. The mode of growing them Is simplicity itself. Lay a piece of white flannel or flannelette cut to the shape at the bottom of the dish or plate; wet it well, and sow on it rather thickly, water cress, mustard, or curled cress seed. The water cress takes rather longer to spring, but mustard agd cress is fit to cut in a week. Besides being pretty and convenient, this is a very clean way of growing these small salads. It entirely disposes of-the gritty difficulty we labor under when they are grown in earth. The supply even of water cress can be kept up with a little management all the year round. Always water freely.”—Womankind.