Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-12-14
VALUES OF PLANTS.
Shirley Dare Surprises Her Readers
by Changing Her Pen.
ECONOMIES OF MODERN BOTANY
And Sense and Romance About New
England Pharmacologist.
AN ODD LETTER FROM AN OLD FRIEND
lwR1rrrN ZOE rHr prsrArcH.,

Ministers are allowed to change pulpits
why should not correspondents change pens
AS the subject Of this letter is not likely tt
see it make no scruple in giving it to my
readers.
'I wanted to tell you about my visit t.
your pharmacist among the hills, but thert
was no time when got back to Boston, anG
since I came the tariff on Belfast linens
with questions rising from it, has engrossed
my mind. What fine thing it is to be an
importer of fine goods these times? 1t gave
me two hours hunt to find the place. but
what glorious noonlng it was among the
splendors ot your New England au-
tumn! All the air was sun and SPICE and
the woods were painted in variations in am
Der and warm yelIows that held the sun. The
house itself charmed me, set In its nice grass
plot and snug in its garden, coy enough for
Old England. The front entry has no smell
OF mildew or potatoes in the cellar. as small
houses, and large ones too, sometimes, have
In this part of the country; but scent of
something dry and rich hung family and
pleasantly about it. / like a house that
smells warm and good when you enter it. I
suppose the odor must have come from Miss
Annie's mats and punches of French
Lavender and bergamot, sent over by a
friend, and woven and tied with ribbons in
every pretty sort of way.
HOME OF A PHARMACoLoGIST.
II pushed on for the pharmacien, and
found him In his working room-the long,
bare chamber in the ell, refited for its novel
use. 1t attracted at glance-the exceed
Ing neatness of everything, the white walls,
the roof cut BY windows which gave q wide
prospect of hilly chain and evergreens near
by. the long work tables and shelves of new
pine, whose scent, mingled with that of
drugs and essences, ranged with laboratory
| implements and bottles of queer shapes;
an old fashioned alright stove, Shaker
chair and tip-tahle keeping company with
a revolving bookshelf in the corner, and the
sunshine from the broad easements draw
ing the eye to the slopes outside.
1T looked the haunt of a man who knew
and enjoyed his work-made it his pleasure
instead OF his task. Doors opened across
tiny back entry to an equally sunny cham
Der, where better furnishing betrayed a
feminine presence; everything quaint, bright
and exceedingly tasteful, with great punches
OF pine, berried cedar and autumn leaves
setting off the shining old mahogany tables
and shelves. Everything was tine soul of
comfort and strict taste and inviting at q
glance. Before L got through with the
afternoon l wished 1 were doomed to 81, 200
a year, no business and a home like this in
a slightly remodelled farmhouse.
THEY WERE TWIN ENTHUSIASTS.
The pharmacist came forward from his
| work with that slight gesture of tossing back
| his hair and an impatient blaze of the eyes
| which recall the Rubinstein of wears ago
He anticipated some idly curious Interrupt
tion, but your note made that all right, and
before knew it we both were at the bench,
Blanque lecturing on his favorite studies
with enthusiasm, which found delighted
hearer.
st is good to find a man who lives for
something beyond mere money making and
supporting his family, and who finds his
labor yield results worth having for himself
and others. There are so many pussy men,
who dose and yawn through an art or
science, and fancy they are devoting their
lives to it, with nothing to show at the end.
This one lives and thinks to the point. In
the first place, he knows his subject, has
practical handling of 1t and makes it
interesting to others.
Chemistry is really a grand science,
even to a common man like me. ] forgive
you that smile at the sentence. But why
are We not allowed to learn something worth
knowing about this world we live in at
school, something beyond few dozen
break-iaw names. which is ali carry away
with me from the laboratory at old Brown?
IT they had not battered nv ears with
dimethyl ethers OF NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
or cynnamates of cynnamyls and seventeen
syllabled derivatives 1, too, might have had
glimpses OF the curious, beautiful things
which B!anque finds in his world.
SOME DELICATE PROCESSES.
"Blanque does not seem to exist to pull
1T to pieces like too many other chemists,
but to study new combinations and the
means of heightening the value of what ex-
lists. 1 saved scraps OF his talk to tell you,
but cannot write it all. There absolutely is
such thing as pelargonic acid. thought
you were guylng me about it. Blanque
has been trying at odd times to separate it
from the skins of wild grapes, but it beats
Matchmaking for long drawn, delicate proc
esses. To catch the fragrant spirit of rose
geranium or vine blossom or to isolate
that is the right word, 1 believe, the fra
grant principle of rue, for instance, from its
bitterness needs an Ariel for laboratory
assistant. You never would believe what
powerful perfumes he separates from his
bitter herbs or what aromatic camphor he
distills from hrysanthemums-only few
drops in tiny vial, but priceless on account
of the difficulty of extracting it.
by the way, your pharmacIen tells me
not to call him pharmacist, but pharmacolo-
gist-that is, one who studies the history
and qualities of plants and drugs, not
merely compounds them by rote. His only
ambition Tor money would be to have an es-
tate where he could grow quantities of
plants for distillation to show what could be
done with them. / had very good lesson
in economic botany the hour or so when we
went walking out to Blue Hill. 1 felt we
were discovering a new Indies along the
roadside thickets.
PRoSAIC AND DESPISED TREASURES.
''Do you know that the cotton grass
which covered the country in the time of the
Indians, now nearly disappeared, has a
fiber invaluable for paper making if there
only were enough of it? The dead leaves
lying in heaps would tan a finer and more
fragrant skin than Russia leather. The |
berries of the squaw root in msrshy spot |
have the taste and properties OF coffee. The |
old field baIsam, or life everlasting, of |
which the fields were full, yields pleasant |
aromatic water which has virtues for lung |
diseases and the complexion. The common |
magnolia of the swamps has aromatic bark |
which cures fevers when quinine fails, and |
can be continued longer without i'll conse- |
quences. Rightly prepared it is a sub |
stitute for tobacco, and is used to break up
the tobacco habit.
''Of course you know that the roots of Jack
in-the pulpit are rich in starch, deiicase as
arrowroot and invaluable for face powder.
Properly treated it makes one of the finest
cosmetic powders in the world. The sedges
of our swamps would give us paper fine
as japanese bast paper, and of fragrant cos
metic plants he named, l should think,
dozen among the common things of the
wood. 1t must be delightful to lay one hand
upon plant or vine and command its prop