1885.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



213 



this, it is said, " you will never suffer from flatu- 

 lence, never be made nervous or old-maidish, 

 never have cholera, summer complaint, or loss of 

 appetite. Besides, the flavor is simply delicious ; 

 no one who has once had his Pekoe with it, will 

 ever again drink it without a sprig of Lemon 

 Verbena." 



Again the distinctive odor of the Vanilla Bean 

 suggests itself in the Heliotrope, Gum Benzoin 

 and Tonquin Bean ; the latter, of very inferior 

 quality, is largely used to adulterate and cheapen 

 the extracts of Vanilla, so largely used in the 

 household, and by cake-bakers and confectioners. 

 The flavoring principle of the Vanilla Bean is 

 called vanilline ; in the best quality it is often 

 seen in minute frost-like crystals on the surface of 

 the bean, giving rise, in French, to the name 

 " Vanille givrt'e," or Frosted Vanilla, and such 

 beans command the highest price. 



The Tonka Bean contains another odorate 

 principle called Coumarin, which is also the domi- 

 nant odor in our Sweet Clover and Vernal Grass, 

 and plays a leading part in the composition of the 

 perfume called New Mown Hay. 



I have said that the laws which govern the re- 

 lations and combinations of odors are as yet 

 undeveloped ; yet, in the practice of the art of per- 

 fumery, some truly delightful harmonies have 

 been produced, the result of a naturally keen and 

 delicate sense of smell, refined by long culture 

 and intelligent devotion to the art. 



As the musical composer with only seven simple 

 tones and their five semi-tones for his materials 

 brings forth the grandest combinations of choral 

 harmony, and as the painter, with a few simple, 

 primary pigments, embodies his highest concep- 

 tions of beauty on the painted canvas, so does the 

 perfumer, with a few simple, elementary odors, ar- 

 ranged and combined in accordance with a law of 

 beauty unwritten, yet deeply felt, produce an end- 

 less and ever varying round of fragrant harmonies. 

 To him the simple, sweet-rcented flower is only a 

 vehicle for the communication of odors to the 

 nostril and the brain. By means of the olfactory 

 nerve he analyzes it, as the composer with voice 

 and ear, analyzes a musical score, or the chemist a 

 mineral compound. Like them, too, he composes 

 and combines ; and from out his copper still, and 

 the alembic of his brain, there come forth com- 

 pounds of beauty that seem due to an almost 

 creative power, so wonderfully fragrant, so strik- 

 ingly resembling the flower they counterfeit 



To him the apparently simple odor of the Helio- 

 trope resolves itself into the elementary odors of 



the Rose, Jessamine, Orange Flower, Vanilla Bean, 

 Orris-root, Balsam of Peru, Clove, Cinnamon and 

 Bitter Almond; by a skilful combination of these 

 odors in their due proportion, the fragrance of the 

 flower is imitated to perfection. 



In like manner the sweet and delicate scent of 

 the Mignonette (a French name for My Little 

 Darling) suggests the perfumes of the Sicily 

 Orange peel, Acacia, Tuberose, Jessamine, Violet, 

 Vanilla, Gum Storax and Orris Root. 



In this way the perfumer with his pallet (if I 

 may use the phrase) of simple, elementary odors, 

 reproduces all the fragrant combinations of the 

 world of flowers, and adds to them other harmonies, 

 purely ideal, which " like a thing of beauty are a 

 joy forever." 



Much interest was excited, some thirty years 

 ago, by the lectures given before the Royal Horti- 

 cultural Society of London, by Mr. Eugene 

 Rimmel and Dr. Septimus Piesse, on the materials 

 and processes of the perfumer's art, illustrated by 

 the plants producing them, the apparatus employed 

 and the method adopted for obtaining and refining 

 their essential principles or elementary odors. 



The animal world, too, was represented in the 

 curious, powerfully-scented tumor of the Musk 

 Deer, the resinous exudation of the Civet Cat, 

 and the granular hemorrhoid of the Sperm Whale, 

 known as Ambergris. 



But the chief interest of these lectures was in 

 their descriptions of the flower farms of Southern 

 France, which are the principal sources of supply 

 of the finer odors used in the perfumer's art 

 throughout the world. 



I visited the prominent seats of these manufac- 

 tures and made careful examination of the leading 

 establishments, and will now give you the chief 

 results of my inquiries and observations in 1853. 

 At that time I was an entire novice in horticulture 

 and was interested only in a commercial way in 



THE FLOWER FARMS OF FRANCE. 



The growing of plants and flowers for use in 

 perfumery, medicine and culinary art, is a most 

 important branch of horticultural industry in that 

 part of France bordering upon the Gulf of Lyons 

 and the Mediteranean Sea, and especially in the 

 southern portions of the Departments of Var and 

 Nice. There are extensive establishments in 

 Nismes, Montpelier, Morbihan, Nice and some 

 then just founded across the sea in Algeria. 



But the great centre of this branch of industry is 

 the town of Grasse, about 75 miles E. N. E. of 

 Marseilles, a few miles inland, its seaport Cannes, 



