292 MORE POT-POURRI 



of the essential differences, and advantages even, of 

 foliage leaves as opposed to those floral leaves we call 

 flowers. I am also particularly anxious to try and show 

 that there .is a sanitary basis, rather than a merely 

 sensuous reason, for the usage of sweet odours and 

 vegetable perfumes, whether the same be fresh'orldried, 

 living, dead, or distilled. Modern researches have amply 

 proved that ozone is developed when the sun shines on 

 most kinds of fragrant plants, such as flowers. Fir 

 and Pine trees, and sweet herbs generally.' It is not 

 much trouble to sow Lemon pips, and yet what is 

 more delicious and reviving than the crushed leaf of a 

 Lemon tree? 



I have found my increased number of Rosemary 

 bushes a great joy. They live everywhere with the 

 slight protection before described — namely, stuffed in 

 all sorts of places under shrubs. But to grow and 

 flower to perfection, as they do in Italy, they want to 

 be under a wall in a warm corner, and fairly well 

 nourished. No doubt their tendency to be killed in 

 hard springs in the open must be the reason that so 

 many gardens, especially small ones, where they are 

 most precious, are content to do without them. 



Many books and periodicals praise the old customs 

 of using aromatic herbs, but in old days the smells 

 they had to conceal must indeed have been innumer- 

 able. I suppose, unless by reading the accounts of 

 how Russian peasants live even now, we cannot have 

 any idea what England — and indeed all Europe — was, 

 as regards dirt, two centuries ago. Our sweet modern 

 homes are very different. All the same, how many 

 houses are disagreeable from the smell of cooking 

 which pervades them ! Burning dry Lavender, dried 

 Rosemary, dried Cedar-wood, or the essential oils of 

 any of these, entirely does away with this nuisance, 



