S| The Scented Qarden $£ 



lives in Yukon Territory, and writing from Carcross, 

 within the Arctic circle, she says, ' Last week a party of 

 us climbed a mountain. What struck us most were the 

 glorious flowers we found above timber line. The forget- 

 me-nots were the bluest I have ever seen, and they smelt 

 so sweet.' 



We talk of ' looking ' for spring, but I think we country- 

 folk smell the oncoming spring long before any signs are 

 visible. These first scents are manifold and usually fleeting 

 — the smell of the earth on those rare sunny days which 

 rejoice our hearts early in February, the scent of the wind 

 when it blows from the south after a long spell from the 

 north-east, the scent of young grass when it first pushes up 

 in the pastures, the scent of the first spring rain on wind- 

 dried earth, the indefinable but sweet scent of birch and 

 larch when they first come into leaf. To lovers of sweet 

 scents these familiar smells are as much part of the music 

 of spring as the songs of birds, the busy hum of bees and 

 the bleating of young lambs. 



Fragrance in flowers may, indeed, be described as their 

 music, and it is none the less beautiful because it is silent. 

 In every scented flower and leaf the perfume is exhaled by 

 substances so perfectly blended that they give the im- 

 pression of a single scent, just as several different notes 

 make a chord. We are all familiar with the dual sensation 

 produced by smelling any sweet-scented flower — both an 

 appreciation of the perfume and the still deeper pleasure 

 afforded by something so delicately balanced and, as it 

 were, faultlessly rounded that it seems almost beyond 

 our mere human senses to enjoy it fully. Think of the 

 scent of a rose — preferably a cabbage or a damask rose. 

 Can the chemist with all his skill produce anything which 



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