2548 PERFUMERY-GARDENING 



PERFUMERY-GARDENING 



flowers, the charge being renewed daily until the grease 

 is sufficiently impregnated, when it constitutes a 

 "pomade." "Extracts" are made by digesting the 

 pomade in alcohol, which has a still stronger attraction 

 for the perfume than has the grease. The alcohol must 

 first be deodorized, to save perverting the floral per- 

 fume, and is then known as "Cologne spirit." The 

 grease used in this and the next process, moreover, 

 must be freed from ah 1 corruptible matter by a special 

 process. Tallow and lard, commonly mixed, and some- 

 times the fat of the deer and other animals, are 

 employed. 



In maceration, the pomade is produced by immersing 

 repeated charges of the flowers in melted grease or fine 

 olive oil. 



In recent times, various chemical processes for 

 extracting perfumery have been tried, apparently with 

 some practical success; but they have not yet sup- 

 planted the old methods. Carbon bisulfid and petro- 

 leum ether are among the solvents employed. These 

 methods would be less easily practised by beginners 

 and amateurs than the ordinary ones. 



The art of distilling is not only not difficult to learn, 

 but is already in practice in this country in the case of 

 peppermint, sweet birch, sassafras, eucalyptus, and 

 the like. More care and better apparatus would be 

 required for distilling roses and other flowers, but the 

 process is essentially the same. Nor do the grease pro- 

 cesses involve any difficulties which may not be over- 

 come by the application of a little American ingenuity 

 and capital. In fact, the production of the raw mate- 

 rials of perfumery might proceed almost at once, so far 

 as the difficulty of the processes is concerned. But can 

 we grow the requisite plants? 



That many of the standard perfumery plants will 

 grow in this country needs no proof, and there is no 

 reason to doubt that their fragrance in properly chosen 

 localities will equal that of the same plants in the 

 European centers. In general, success in this line must 

 be looked for only southward, even in dealing with 

 hardy plants, though there may be exceptions to this 

 rule. Cool trade-winds and fogs at flowering time are 

 to be shunned. The natural conditions in Florida and 

 large parts of the other Gulf states seem not very dif- 

 ferent from those of the south of France, the great 

 center of perfumery-farming in Europe, ana in fact the 

 feasibility of successful perfumery-farming in Florida 

 has been demonstrated by actual trial. California has 

 also been the scene of experiments, some of them seem- 

 ing to promise success as soon as economic conditions 

 admit. A large territory between these two points is 

 available for some lines of the industry. 



Among the particular plants to be noticed, the citrous 

 fruits deserve a leading place. Nearly or quite all of 

 the trees of this group, including the sweet, the bitter or 

 Seville, and the bergamot oranges, the sweet and sour 

 limes, the lemon, the citron, and the shaddock, con- 

 tain valuable perfumes either in the peel of their fruit, 

 or in then- flowers, or in their leaves, or in more than one 

 of these. Of the fruit-oils, that of lemon is imported 

 into this country in largest quantity, followed by oil of 

 bergamot, oil of orange bitter and sweet, oil of limps 

 and "cedrat" or citron oil, the last two in very small 

 quantities, but the cedrat at a very high price. These 

 oils are extracted by expression, the distilled being 

 inferior, though it is asserted that when the "rag," or 

 inner soft layer, is removed, the distilled oil equals 

 the other. The oil of the bitter orange is superior to 

 that of the sweet; the oil of bergamot is far more val- 

 uable than either, but can rarely be had in an unadul- 

 terated state. The flowers of the orange treated by 

 distillation yield "neroli." The scent of neroli, how- 

 ever, is not that of the flowers, an alteration taking 

 place during the distillation. Orange-flower water, 

 consisting of the condensed vapor of water with a little 

 unchanged oil adhering, affords the true odor of the 



flowers. By maceration, likewise, the true floral fra- 

 grance is obtained. The abortive flowers which fall 

 from the trees are available for perfumery use, but the 

 flowers are also sometimes picked, presumably with a 

 better result. Besides the product of fruit and flowers, 

 the leaves and young twigs pruned from the sweet and 

 bitter oranges yield to distillation the oil of "petit 

 grain," of considerable though minor value. There is 

 no reason to doubt the perfumery capacity of American 

 orange groves. Indeed it has been asserted that the 

 orange flowers of Louisiana excel in sweetness those of 

 foreign parts. In Los Angeles, California, something 

 has been done toward utilizing the peel, and in Florida 

 a beginning has been made with both peel and flowers, 

 but for the most part these resources are at present 

 suffered to go to waste. 



The lemon verbena, Lippia citriodora (Fig. 2868), 

 may be mentioned in passing as furnishing an attrac- 

 tive perfume of the citrous order, and as available at 

 least in Florida and California. 



The perfumery products of the rose and its allies 

 merit next attention. The value of the importation of 

 attar of roses to say nothing of rose perfume in other 

 forms exceeds that of any single citrous perfume, and 

 at the same time the capacity of this country for pro- 

 ducing this and the other rose perfumes can scarcely 

 be called in question. The present supply of the Euro- 

 pean and American markets is derived chiefly from 

 Turkey and from the perfumery region of the south of 

 France. The attar or oil of roses is produced most 

 largely in Bulgaria and parts of other Balkan states as 

 well as in Asiatic Turkey, principally from the damask 

 rose, which may be taken as a form of Rosa gallica. A 

 white-flowered rose, R. alba, is much grown in the more 

 exposed situations, as it is considered hardier than the 

 red-flowered damask rose. It is very free in bloom and 

 productive of oil, which is, however, inferior in quality. 

 The attar is obtained by distillation, which is there 

 conducted in a crude manner. In the Grasse district 

 (southern France), the rose-water, obtained as explained 

 above, is considered to yield more profit than the attar, 

 which is rather regarded as a by-product of the dis- 

 tillation. 



But the best rose perfumes hi France are extracted 

 by maceration, finishing with enfleurage, processes that 

 secure the true rose odor, which is not altogether 

 represented by attar or rose-water. Rose pomade and 

 its alcoholic extract are perhaps the finest of rose 

 products. What is known as the Provence rose, a 

 hybrid or variety of Rosa centifolia, the type to which 

 the cabbage or hundred-leaf rose of old gardens and 

 the moss roses belong, is almost exclusively used in 

 France and also in Germany, where a limited quantity 

 of very fine attar is produced. 



The centifolia and gallica varieties of perfume roses, 

 as weh 1 as a hybrid of Rosa rugosa under the name of 

 Rose Parfum de L'Hay, have been tried in this country 

 with encouraging results as far as facility of culture, 

 quantity, and quality of perfume-content are con- 

 cerned, but the economic possibilities of rose-culture 

 here for this purpose are far from being worked out at 

 this tune. These varieties are all quite hardy and may, 

 without doubt, successfully be grown over a vast 

 extent of country, though for practical perfume-pro- 

 duction the warmer climates, coupled with abundant 

 summer moisture, seem to be needed. Deep fertile 

 and retentive but well-drained clay or loam soils are 

 best adapted for rose-culture, and these may be had hi 

 abundance in the Southern and Middle Atlantic states, 

 where the future rose industry of the United States, 

 when it becomes a commercial possibility, may be 

 expected to develop. The luxuriant growth of roses on 

 the Pacific Coast has long attracted attention, but 

 exuberant vegetation does not always imply a rich 

 perfumery-content, and there is a suspicion that the 

 cool fogs of the coast and the hot aridity of the interior 



