The Democratic advocate., 1878-07-20
Our @liu.
MAKING PERFUMES.

ueNo1eu 10 maAluS perfumes from nowers.
Among the towns of this region are Cannes
and Vence. During the months of Feb
ruary, March and April the violet is the
flower in season, and the price is from so
cents to 81 fo7 two pounds weight of flow
ers. The kind used is known as the Par
mese violet, which is double and exceed
ingly fragrant May, june, and half July
is the time for roses and the flower of the
orange-tree In Venee these blossoms are
very cheap, the former costing a cents
per pound and the latter. cents. From
the end of July until the beginning of
October the jessamine and tuberose are in
flower, and then there is q lull for the
mountain regions, but not for Cannes, for
at that time begins the season Of the flow
ering cassie, tree Of which must beg to
confess my ignorance. 1t is not an acacia,
but the tree has enormous thorns, and the
blossom is light yellow, and resembles n
pea. But it is the special nature of this
tree that it will not flower upon lime or
ehalky soil, only upon soil of deeomposed
granite. Hence, though it blossoms at
Cannes, it refuses to flower at Antilles,
half mile south, and is altogether plant
of very restricted habitat. 1t blossoms
until the beginning of December, and
fetches 30 cents to GO cents per pound,
according to the abundance or scarcity of
the season. At the present moment, in
Vence, roses are the order of the day, and
on the deliciously clean and cool tile floor
ing Of the factory the rose-blossoms were
piled up thickly in huge, glowing heaps.
In back room was long table; covered
with a snow-white table-cloth, and around
this were seated some 30 women and young
girls, waiting impatienly to be served with
roses, which they were to pluck There
was only sample quantity, for the rains
had interfered somewhat with the Vence
crop, and these came from the neighbor-
ing village Of La Tourette, from a new
man. Three very pretty girls, who were
permanently employed in the factory, at a
signal from the proprietor, took great wicker
baskets, and, heaping them with roses,
emptied them upon the table-cloth in front
of the pluckers. 1t was a very charming
pieture-the village girls and old women
and little tots not years old, in pictur-
esque costume and very wonderful straw
hats, all seated around the board heaped
up with the glowing blossoms, wonderfully
relieved by the white cloth. The good-look-
ing girls did not wear any hats-trust them
for that-and Immediately, from natural
thirst for decoration, chose the loveliest and
stuck them behind their ears. Then pluck
ing began in earnest. Seizing the unhappy
flowers firmly in the left hand and grasp
ing the stalk close to the ovary, they, with
an angry twist, separated the blushing
corollas and threw them into big basket
ensconced between their knees. A cent a
pound is the tariff, and when there is no
stint of flowers, the girls can always earn
half franc, or 10 cents.
When the roses were weighed, and a
tall Venetian, standing beside the proprie-
tor with his hand full of coppers, had paid
everybody his sous, the flowers were re-
packed in baskets by the three hand
maidens of the establishment and taken
below Here were vats half filed with
warm oil in some instances, and in others
with warm grease, made by mixing lard
and beef suet, most carefully prepared and
cleaned in the Winter months To every
three etrrees, or watts, was a man armed
with wooden paddle, and as the girls
poured the rose-blossoms into the oil and
grease, they stirred about until the whole
was one hideous wretched paste of dirty
brown color. The men who manipulated
the grease had warm time of it, for it
offered considerable resistance TO the pad
die, and the perspiration fairly poured
down their brows as they worked their
spatules. Twenty-four hours the leaves
remain soaking, and then they are packed
into coarse linen bags and put under a
powerful press, which squeezes the per
fumed oil into stone gutter, from which
it pours BY pipe into a straining-bag, aud
thence into a vat. To warm the oil and
grease, precautions have to be taken.
They are not placed in communication
with the fire, but are lodged in huge cop
per boilers half filed with water, fixed in
a range, which occupies one entire end Of
the apartment. When warmed to blood
heat the oil and grease are poured into
their respective euvees, and the operation
with the paddle is repeated with fresh
roses. Twenty-Five times are roses poured
into the watts before the oleaginous matters
are sufficiently saturated to be sent to the
great perfumers and chemists as B,atieres
premieres. For orange flowers from 10 to
% infusiOns are necessary, according to
the quality demanded. The violet de.
mands at least 30, but for the n.qfieres
Premieres of the jessamine and the tube
rose there Is an immense diversity of range
The best qualities, however, demand GO
infusions, but when a perfumer wants the
best that can possibly be made, there is nc
limit, and the operation of infusion is re.
peated as long as blossoms can be procured
| asked the proprietor if the oil would still
absorb the perfume, and he said yes, for
jessamine and tuberose. The strong odors
of the Orange-hower and the rose render
fewer infusious necessary, and, indeed, for
some low grades of orders there are not 50
many infusions even as 10 Then, again,
tho warming of the oil draws out the per-
fume much faster, but the delicate charae-
ter of the jessamine and the tuberose is
opposed to such course, and for them