Where Chrysanthemum Powder is Made 
Down in the hidden valleys of the 
islands and over on the mainland grow 
the chrysanthemums. Not the chrysan¬ 
themums of our flower-shows, for their 
gorgeous fanfare would mar the white 
of the picture, but a simple Marguerite 
daisy, here called by its Latin name. 
In May the country is a snow bank of 
flowers and then comes the harvest of 
death. Scattered over the fields, about 
June 1st, one sees the peasants, the men 
arrayed in blue vest and trousers, with 
neat white shirt and flat red cap, and 
the women even more picturesque in 
heavily fluted black skirts made gaudy 
by wide red hems, white, broad-sleeved 
waists, and a neat black vest trimmed 
in embroideries of scarlet and traversed 
down the front by a scarf of shrimp 
pink,—gathering the flowers. The 
whole of the women’s heads are bound 
in a ’kerchief, that is wound to form 
a broad “V” on the back, and that, also, 
is white. 
The peasants are singing at the work, for 
it is easy labor, plucking the odorous flowers, 
that will net them more than the forty-eight 
cents a day on which the best of these people 
live. Nooning time, too, is a merry time, with 
the bread and the flour stuffs, the cooked len¬ 
tils and potatoes and spinach, and possibly a 
A GROUP OF NATIVES 
SOME CHRYSANTHEMUM PICKERS 
trifle of beef or lamb, spread out on the par¬ 
terre of daisies. Only in this section of Dal¬ 
matia can one witness the sight, and a lively 
one it is. 
Brought to town, the flowers, about the size 
of our American five-cent piece, are dried in 
the sun for four or five days, since artificial 
heating is too expensive hereabouts, save in 
seasons of inclement weather. Taken to the 
mill, then, the daisies are thrown into 
circular iron mortars, where two 
broad, erect millstones revolve and 
champ until, at the end of perhaps 
two hours, the flowers have become 
one pale yellow mass of meal. Five 
pounds of fresh daisies, it is estimated, 
will reduce to one pound of the pow¬ 
der. After grinding, the meal is 
carried by elevators to an upper 
floor, whence it passes through fine 
silk sieves that the coarser grains 
may be reground. The remainder 
is then stored in broad bins, ready 
for packing in firkins and sale. 
The metric system is exclusively 
used in the chrysanthemum business, 
and 120 kilograms of the meal are 
set down as the output every second 
hour. As the finished product brings 
80 cents the kilo here, and raw mate¬ 
rial is extremely cheap, the profits are 
2 33 
