cut in the lower and upper sides of the stem, and one will be squeezed together while the other will have a wedge of bamboo stuck into it to curve it out properly. In sprays of Pine I have had to put in half a dozen of these blocks to get the thing into shape, and even then my critical teacher was not satisfied. Sometimes, when our material was very disobliging, we had to tie the recalcitrant limbs into the proper pose, using perhaps fine, invisible wire, or, in inconspicuous places, wood fibre, for the purpose. In learning to do this I got some insight also into the way in which trees are helped to grow in nursery gardens—the method by which the young plant is taught how to shoot in Japan. In flower arrangement we never went so far as to fasten the branches to a bamboo where a straight line was wanted (it never was wanted, however!), but I often longed to tie my poor cut bough to something, as an invisible curve was such an intangible thing to work by! One scheme my ugly, nice little teacher taught me was to make a series of indentations—they were hardly real cuts—all along the inner surface of a stem that was to be bent. I never got at all adept with Irises, and my arrangement of them was always stiff and conventional compared with hers, but I managed very fairly well with Cherry and Maple boughs. Chrysanthemums simply managed themselves, but Pine was ever unruly, and, like a curly-headed child who
