196 PARSONS ON THE ROSE. 



ing, annually, little bags filled with them. These, being 

 placed in a drawer or wardrobe, impart an agreeable per- 

 fume to the linen or clothing with which they may come 

 in contact. The petals can be obtained from almost any 

 garden in sufficient quantity for this purpose, and can be 

 dried by the process mentioned hereafter. The confec- 

 tioners, distillers, and perfumers of France draw from the 

 Rose a part of their perfumes, particularly from R. Da- 

 mascena.) and R. centifolia^ in fixing their sweet odors in 

 sugar-plums, creams, ices, oils, pomatum, essences, and 

 fragrant powders. 



The petals of the Rose, after being freshly picked and 

 bruised in a marble mortar, until they are reduced to a 

 sort of paste, are employed in the preparation of difierent 

 kinds of confectionery. Of this paste the French also 

 make little perfume balls of the size of a pea. They are 

 made round in the same manner as pills, and before be- 

 coming hard, they are pierced with a needle and strung 

 on a piece of silk. In a little while they become hard 

 like wood, assume a brownish color, and emit a delightful 

 perfume. This rose scent continues very long, and one 

 writer remarks that he has known a necklace made in this 

 style, possess, at the end of twenty-five years, as strong a 

 perfume as when first made. 



In Great Britain, in the vicinity of the large cities, and 

 in many private gardens, the flowers are gathered for 

 making rose-water or for drying as perfumes. In Hol- 

 land, the Dutch hundred-leaved and common cabbage rose 

 are grown extensively at Noordwich, between Leyden 

 and Haarlem, and the dried leaves are sent to Amsterdam 

 and Constantinople. In France, the Provence Rose is ex- 

 tensively cultivated near the town of Provence, about sixty 

 miles south-east of Paris, and also at Fontenay aux Roses, 

 near Paris, for the manufacture of rose-water, or for ex- 

 portation in a dried state. The petals of the Provence 

 Rose {Rosa Gallica) are the only ones that are said to 



