In My Vicarage Garden 



noteworthy. The manufacture of otto of roses, 

 which was brought to Europe from Persia, was 

 confined till very recent years to certain valleys 

 in Bulgaria, where it was carried on in a very rude 

 but picturesque fashion ; it is now carried on more 

 scientifically and with large profits in the south of 

 France and in some parts of Germany. And it is 

 the scent alone that gives a commercial value to 

 some other plants. The orchid family is, with the 

 exception of the compositae and gramineae, the 

 largest botanical family, as it is one of the most 

 beautiful. Perhaps, too, more money has been 

 spent on orchids than on any other tribe of plants, 

 yet its strictly commercial products are confined 

 to the sweet-scented seed-pods of the vanilla, for 

 the small production of starch and salep from a 

 few other species is scarcely worth mentioning. 

 In the same way in the " poor man's orchid," or 

 Iris, the only commercial product is derived from 

 the violet-scented orris root, which is made from 

 Iris Florentina. 



Flower scents, like everything else, are amen- 

 able to education ; but they have this peculiarity, 

 that I know of no instance in which education, if 

 we may so call the high cultivation of some plants, 

 has increased or improved the scent ; but there 

 are many cases in which it has been quite de- 

 stroyed. We now have scentless roses, which 

 seems almost a contradiction in terms, and scent- 

 less carnations ; but I believe that if these were 

 to be so neglected as to degenerate, they would 



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