I 12 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 421. 



which it is intended to hold in forest, are placed under a 

 wisely regulated forest service — a service which will be 

 for protection primarily, but never for stagnation, and 

 always for development and use. 



An Audubon Society has lately been organized in Boston, 

 in the hope of arousing the community to the fact that the 

 fashion of wearing feathers means the cruel slaughter of 

 myriads of birds and threatens the extermination of some 

 of the most beautiful of those which inhabit the United 

 States. Its purpose is to discourage wearing and buying 

 for ornamental purposes the feathers of wild birds and to 

 further the protection of our native species. The circular 

 of the society cites as an instance of the evil it would 

 restrain the aigrette which is now so commonly worn by 

 ladies, and which is made from the feathers of the Egret, or 

 Snowy Heron, the plumes being obtained by lulling the 

 mother at the time of the year when she is hatching or 

 rearing her young, so that, in nine cases out of ten, her death 

 causes the death of her brood. The result of this has been 

 that the Snowy Heron, one of the most beautiful of Ameri- 

 can birds once common in the southern states, has already 

 become exceedingly rare, and its extermination must be 

 only a question of a short time longer unless the fashion in 

 aigrettes changes or their use can be discouraged. 



A subscription of $1 00 and a written agreement not to 

 purchase or encourage the use of feathers of wild birds for 

 ornamentation entitles any one to become a member of the 

 society, which includes among its officers some of the most 

 distinguished men and women of the commonwealth. The 

 objects of such a society appeal not only to lovers of 

 nature, but to every man, woman and child interested in 

 the prosperity of the country, for birds are the farmers' and 

 gardeners' friends, destroying annually countless millions 

 of insects which, without their aid, would devour the profits 

 of the husbandman. Such a cause should have the support 

 of all civilized men and women, and such societies should 

 be organized in every state to carry on an active campaign 

 against the wickedness of a fashion which destroys beauty 

 and life to gratify human vanity in one of its lowest 

 forms. 



Miss Harriet E. Richards, Boston Society of Natural His- 

 tory, Berkeley Street, Boston, is the secretary of the society, 

 to whom applications for membership should be addressed. 

 There is no annual assessment. 



New Perfumer}' Products. 



THE perfumer's art has not until recently availed itself 

 of chemistry or strictly chemical operations. Pri- 

 mary articles have been the results of enfleurage, dis- 

 tillation, percolations, expression, decoction or similar 

 operations. The basis of all good perfumes is, and proba- 

 bly always will be, the spirituous extracts which are pro- 

 duced from a few flowers, mostly rose, cassie (Acacia), 

 jasmine, orange, jonquil and violet. 



This extract is produced by washing the pomade or 

 grease which has absorbed the molecules of odor from the 

 fresh flowers, the latter process being known as enfleurage. 

 Alcohol has a greater affinity for the molecules than the 

 grease, and hence quickly robs it of odor. It is evident, of 

 course, that a more direct process could not be used, as 

 alcohol applied directly to the flowers would absorb detri- 

 mental organic compounds. This extract supplies a mel- 

 low floral body to compounds or perfumes which is not 

 otherwise obtainable. Except the rose, none of the flowers 

 mentioned above are distilled for their essential oil. This 

 product in the case of the rose, reduced with spirits, has an 

 entirely different odor from the enfleuraged product, and 

 the same may be said of any flower which it is possible to 

 treat both ways. The simple addition of essential oils to 

 spirits produces a compound lacking in body and richness. 



With a basis of these floral extracts the skillful perfumer 

 undertakes to produce synthetically any desired odor, add- 



ing,' as his experience suggests, various essential oils or 

 infusions of roots, leaves, seeds, resins and animal matters, 

 the latter usually to insure permanency or to bind the some- 

 what various scents composing the combination. These 

 scents all vary, according to their molecular arrangement, 

 and have such differing evaporating points that an expert 

 can analyze a complicated perfume by simply picking out 

 the separate primary odors as they become successively 

 prominent in the evaporation. 



The perfumer's art has been brought to great perfection 

 in the production especially of pleasant "bouquets," and, 

 in a minor degree, simple floral scents are made, which, 

 with nice labels and some imagination, are enabled to pass 

 as fair representations of the odors of popular flowers. A 

 delicate sense of odor is a rare gift, and few persons are 

 familiar with the true scents of the most ordinary flowers, 

 and the ordinary consumer is not critical, requiring only 

 that the article be fragrant pleasing and lasting. Fashions 

 change in perfumery, and it will be noticed in any assem- 

 bly that the present taste is for pronounced odors of the 

 most offensive type. 



The chemist has lately had some rare successes in syn- 

 thetical work and has given the perfumer some products 

 which simulate floral odors with fidelity. One of the 

 newest products of chemistry is ionone, or artificial odor 

 of violets, with which in combination the perfumer is now 

 enabled to produce an extract of violets which not only 

 simulates quite perfectly the odor of violets, but is of remark- 

 able permanency and, more important, has certain striking 

 qualities which appeal successfully to the popular taste. 

 Very perfect extracts of violets are made from the flowers, 

 but if pure these are very delicate and evanescent. Ionone 

 is an interesting chemical compound produced by starting 

 from citrol (a constituent of oil lemon). It is impossible to 

 accurately estimate the exact limits of the new chemical 

 products as used industrially, but as they all seem to depend 

 somewhat on oxidation to develop the full odor, their 

 weak point would naturally be an eventual degeneration, 

 unlike natural products whose oxidation is extremely slow. 



Another commercially valuable odor is artificial musk, 

 Musk Baur (or, chemically, trinitroisobutol toluene), which 

 is successfully used as a base or binder in many perfumes 

 where its presence would not be suspected by thelayman. 

 Terpinol (Laire) is a direct product of spirit of turpentine, 

 which in combination reproduces the odor of Lilac blos- 

 soms perfectly. The old-fashioned extract of Heliotrope 

 of the perfumer was, at the the best, a fiction, and usually 

 unstable and unsatisfactory also from its dark color, which 

 stained linen. The Piperonal or Heliotropine of the chem- 

 ist produces, with Jasmin spirit and coumarin, an extract 

 perfect in odor and so colorless as to be known as extract 

 of White Heliotrope. 



Coumarin is the odorous principle of Tonka Bean, Wild 

 Vanilla, Woodruff and Sweet Grass (Anthoxanthum odo- 

 ratum). It is now prepared synthetically and is practi- 

 cally used as a substitute for the natural products, largely 

 in scenting tobacco. 



Vanilla is a minor article with the perfumer, being used 

 most largely for flavorings, but, as it seems to be asso- 

 ciated with the trade, it may be well to note that vanilline, 

 or artificial vanilla, has proven a commercial success, and 

 largely replaces the seed-pod of the Orchid. 



There are various other synthetical products which are 

 in a more or less forward state, notably those which seek 

 to replace neroli and the rose, but they are scarcely out of 

 the experimental state. For a long time the maker of soap 

 ha% been using ethers and aldehydes, which are cheap 

 sources of- such odors as oil of wintergreen, oil of bitter 

 almonds, etc. The chemist has now classified most flower 

 odors into a few typic il sections, as the indoloid, aminoid. 

 parafinoid, benzoloid and terpinoid, according to the molec- 

 ular arrangement of the odoriferous principle. These sec- 

 tions do not include the great number of flowers with the 

 honey scent, as sweet pea, honeysuckle, etc., whose 

 molecular arrangement has not been determined with cer- 



