The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-03-26
TO BETTER FLORA'S TINTS
BOW THE ARTIFICIAL FLOWER
SYNDICATE PAINTS THE LILY.

When a woman sets out to purchase the
trimmings for a bonnet she probably labors
under the delusion that in its selection she is
free agent. She fondly imagine that she
is going to choose the colors and combine
them to suit herself. She has heard of
such thiags as monopolies for the control Of
sugar or wheat and things of that sort, but
she never dreams that gigantic conspiracy
controls the color market. 1t is true.
nevertheless.
Most of tie flower aud feather-making
firms are united in a syndicate, which has
its headquarters in Paris. Twice a year
each firm in the union receives chart with
all the colOrs of the rainbow and their
variations arrayed in the order that the
syndicate has decreed shall be popular.
The flower aud feather magnRtes study this
chart and proceed to order bottles of green
or purple dye, as the diagram may indicate.
And then the woman who has decided TO
have hat simply trimmed in yellow but
tercups finds herself surrounded on all sides
by buttercups in Nile green and violet and
is assured by suave saleswomen that the
yellow buttercups is very old-fasbioned and
has been RELOCATED to the region where red
roses and purple pansies and other crudely
natural thugs belong.
The syndicate has a benefcent reason for
this Improvement upon natures Uints. 1t
Is that the artistically minded may have
hat trimmings to harmonic with dress
goods. and that those results known as
color symphonies" may be achieved by
the woman with genius for Rowniug her
self
4. Loppin, who is in chargeNo the
flower making department OF one of the
large Wholesale millinery establishments on
Broadway, revealed the fact of the ex-
istence of this color ring" to a World re-
porter the other morning Mr.. Loppin
also made plain many other mysteries in
the line Of artificial Horticulture.
What ia all that muslin forF' inquired
the investigator, pointing to pile of vic
toria lawn which seemed more connected
with the manufacture of caps and aprons
than with violets and mignonette.
That, said Mar. Loppin, sis the rose in
embryo-the ross seed as it were But
come and l will show you how the flower
grows"
They went around through rooms where
Towers in various stages of development
made brilliant spots of color on long tables
toward place whence issued "the sound of
hammers, blow on Blow In this room
we're couple CT brawny men, standing be-
fore little lead tables, and pounding steel
dies with rawhide mallets. On these tables
sixteen layers, so that every blow of the
mallet cut out sixteen petals. To be sure,
they bore not the slightest resemblance to
rose petals in that stage % their progress,
but looked rather like the artistic produce
tions of kindergarten class.
These petals are next carried to little
room where there are a long table with
some white china bowls set upon it, some
shelves with mysterious looking bottles,
curious wooden framework and deft-fin-
gered young woman. The bowls contain
liquid dyes The young woman dips a pile
of rose petals into bowl Of pale green per-
haps, or gray, or sometimes even pink
Then she rapidly squeezees them out and
distributes them in neat rows on q paper
covered board.
When the board IL covered she dips a
brush into a deeper-tinted dye and makes
splash OF deeper color on these petals, 80.
that the heart OF the completed rose will
haved life-like intensity of hue. When
the whole board full has been treated in
this way the paper is slid off upon sort of
flannel shelf which is placed in the myster-
ious wooden frame. The heat from the
radiator rises, the air eiroulates among
these shelves and the petals dry.
Meantime the young woman Is dyeinR a
thousand or more with rapidly that
would put June itself to the blush, and in
tints that not even the green-carnation
florists can ever hope to equal. 1t was in
this dyeing room that Mr.. Loppin showed
the Partisan chart of colors and explained
its use.
After the petals are dried they are borne
out of the room where the edicts of the
syndicate are obeyed and are taken into
one OF the rooms, where there are tables
full of of gorgeously tinted blossoms. First
they have to be ironed. A young woman
sits near lutte portable stove, WITH pill
low about the size of q generous pincushion
in front OF her and numerous little instru-
ments of iron scattered around. They all
have wooden handles
One is simply a round knob of iron
another is shaped something like a small
shepherds crook, another has parallel
groves cut into it. The young woman heats
the instrument she intends using, dampens
her petal by pressing it on a damp paper,
places it on the cushion and irons it. The
round iron knob gives the petal that DELI
ciously natural curve, the grooved one gives
the crinkled effect to the edges, the bent
ones gives little twist which any Impair
tial observer will say is more than merely
| natural
Then the petals are piled up before the
| girls at one of the long tables In hat looks
like lavish prodigality. In reality the
| petals, like the hair on cur heads are num-
bered. There are wires, tiny bulbs at the
end, to be covered with petals. These are
pasted on, closely at first, then with
spreading leaves, until finally the rose is
| there before you, blooming in all its gray
or green glory. Then the calyx ia slipped
| up over the wire and pasted to the rose
| The wire is then inclosed In duii-green rub
Der tubing, tiny thorns of reddish rubber
| are pasted on, aud rose leaves already pre-
pared are artistically added. Then the
| flowers are carefully packed in boxes to be
! sent to retail dealers, or are sent up to the
millinery department to wave upon a
summer hat.
That is the way the rose is made. Other
| flowers are manufactured on the same prin-
ciple. Mr.. Loppin's department is making
more roses than anything else this spring.
| Niolets, at any rate the cheap varieties, he
said, with some feeling on the subject
making itself apparent, are largely the
work of imported laborers who work for
| un-American wages.
Besides the flowers of victoria lawn and
nainsook, which are the common blossoms
| the field flowers, as it were--of the artifi-
clal vegetable kingdom, there are rarer and
more expensive specimens in velvet and
French chiffon, fine silk and the like. Some
are Il combination OF the two kinds OF
material, But this year the trail of the SER
| pent 10 over them ALA hgurative way OF
saying that the colors Of the syndicate pre-
| vail over those Of nature, and that roses of
I eminence, purple and Nile green, are consid-
cred the most beautiful blossoms with
| which queen rose of tue rosebud garden
| of pirlsn can adOrn hareelf and her hat