1 Noy., 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 493 
Olive oil requires no special preparation. It is sufficient for it to be good, 
neutral, thoroughly refined, and inodorous. For the same purpose glycerine, 
paraffin, and vaseline have been successfully employed. 
The flowers are placed for from twelve to forty-eight hours in these fatty 
substances heated to a maximum temperature of 65 degrees. The exhausted 
flowers are replaced by fresh ones. When successive renewals have been made 
from ten to twenty-five times, the fatty bodies have acquired the requisite 
perfumed strength, which is indicated by the figures 6, 12, 18, 24, 86, according 
to the intensity of the perfume. 
This operation is performed by women. Each has her receptacle or trough 
containing from 100 to 150 kilogrammes of lard, in which she stirs the flowers 
continually. 
In order to recover the fatty bodies, the exhausted flowers are passed 
through a hydraulic press. The scent-saturated lard is put through a sieve and 
run into immense tin cases, and constitutes the concentrated pommade. Many 
compounds containing orange and rose flowers are prepared by this method. 
Absorption or Osld Process.—Vhe action of heat is entirely dispensed 
with in the case of flowers with a very volatile scent such as jasmine, tuberose, 
heliotrope, and with these the cold process is adopted. Frameworks are made 
use of Om. 08 in depth (32 inches), Om. 60 broad (25 inches), and 1 metre 
long (3:2 feet), the bottom made of glass on which is spread a layer of 
purified lard or of vaseline, and on that a bed of flower petals. ‘These flowers 
are renewed daily during the whole flowering season. 
When oil is used, pieces of cloth are saturated with olive oil of the best 
quality stretched on the framework, and on these <he flowers are deposited. 
When the operation is complete these cloths are subjected to strong pressure 
to express the perfumed oil. 
The lard and perfumed oil, mixed with alcohol, produce the alcoholic 
extracts used in perfumery. ‘The extraction is generally a very tedious business. 
It demands valuable material of a costly nature, and often the resulting pro- 
‘ducts are more or less stained or altered by a slight odour of fat or oil which 
depreciates theiy value. 
Lately, Mons. Piver has perfected this process by avoiding the contact 
between the fatty body and the scented matter and transferring the perfume of 
the flower to the lard by a current of air or gas. 
In this process, called pneumatic, the air passes several times into a vessel 
containing fatty substances divided into very fine particles. 
The neutral oil may yet advantageously replace the lard in this new system. 
Dissolution.—In._ 1835, a French chemist, Robiquet, first conceived the 
idea of substituting, for fatty substances, dissolvents more easy to handle and 
requiring less expenditure. ; 
The principle of dissolution consists in immersing the flowers ina dissolvent 
(sulphuret of carbon or petroleum spirit) which absorbs their scent. This 
liquid, subjected to a current of steam, yields up the dissolved perfume in all 
the perfection it possessed whilst in the plant ; it is then restored to a state of 
absolute purity for further use. 
Concrete essential oils are thus obtained, having a perfume a hundred times 
greater, it appears, than that of the pommades obtained by the methods of 
extraction already mentioned. 
Present Conpirion oF THE CULTIVATION OF SCENT-PLANTS AND OF THE 
Manuracrure or Hssenrian Ors. 
From the economic point of view, the position of the cultivators of scent- 
jplants is not as brilliant as might be supposed. 
This industry, which was very remunerative some years ago, has greatly 
extended, particularly in the Grasse district, in Algeria, and in certain parts of 
Italian Liguria, following the example of Provence. This very important 
increase in the area under flowers has forcibly brought about an over-production 
le 
