PROCEEDINGS OF THE HORTICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 613 



pounds of jasmine flowers, 40,000 pounds of violets, 30,000 pounds of tube- 

 rose flowers, besides thousands of pounds of lilac, mint, thyme, rosemary, 

 and other fragrant plants. In giving this estimate, you must understand 

 it is for the flowers free from stalk, leaves or wood ; and this is the con- 

 sumption of only one out of tlie hundreds of manufacturers in France and 

 __ Italy. 



Have you ever been in a city noted for any particular branch of manu- 

 facture ? If so, you will have observed that every other house appears to 

 be a factory. Chimneys are sending up their volumes of smoke. The rat- 

 tling and hum of machinery surround you on every side. If you go to 

 Grasse, in the south of France, there every one appears to be employed in 

 the manufacture, or rather the art of extracting the odors from flowers. 

 The whole town smells of flowers ! Walk in the country, and almost every 

 wagon you meet, or every peasant girl or boy, is carrying baskets of 

 flowers to the difierent laboratories in the town. Indeed the whole air is 

 80 impregnated with their fragrance, that for miles before you come to 

 their vicinity you can smell their delicious fragrance, as it is wafted along 

 by the breeze. But it is not my intention of here giving in detail a full 

 statistical account of the quantities and value of flowers used for this pur- 

 pose, but only to observe that t^e remarks I have just made are from per- 

 sonal knowledge; from having resided for many years in the immediate 

 vicinity of Grasse and Nice. But this is a branch of commerce only just 

 opening up in America; and who can foretell to what an extent it will not 

 some day arrive at ; for America possesses every degree of climate neces- 

 sary for the production of flowers, the same as Italy and France. Already 

 there are hundreds of acres under the cultivation of lavender, peppermint 

 and wintergreen, which are extensively exported to Europe. 



But I will not detain you longer on this subject, for it is of so much 

 importance as a branch of commerce to this country, that I feel the growth 

 of flowers in America for the manufacture of perfumes, to be a fitting sub- 

 ject for another discussion. I will therefore turn to the cultivation of 

 flowers for the decoration of our dwellings, either as plants or as cut 

 flowers. Perhaps there is no city in the world where cut flowers are so 

 extensively used as in New York. I say tliis from a personal knowledge 

 of the consumption of London and Paris, the former a city with more than 

 double the population of New York ; yet I think I am correct when I say 

 the consumption of cut flowers for bouquets is nearly double in New York 

 to what it is in London. And in order that you may judge somewhat of 

 that consumption, I will give you the quantity of flowers I have myself 

 cut for that purpose during the past season, say since September last. Ot 

 that beautiful carnation called La Purite, of which there is a specimen on 

 the table, I have cut 50,000 blossoms; of Bouvardia, 30,000; of the double 

 Chinese primrose, 70,000; of tuberoses, 30,000 ; besides about 50,000 ot 

 other flowers, such as roses, camelias, heliotropes, &c. ; and yet I am only 

 one of the many engaged in the cultivation of flowers for the bouquet 

 makers of New York. 



I may here observe, that although New York takes the precedence over 

 the cities of the old world in the matter of cut flowers, it is not so in regard 

 to plants in pots ; for there the consumption is far greater than here. In 



