The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-06-16
FLOWERS IN THE HOME
SHIRLEY DARE NAMES PLANTS TO
GATHER AND HOW TO USE THEM.
Novelties, Balsam Fir Tips for Pill
lows and Aromatic Sprays.


oi- THAT ueicdte incense which one Will
be sorry to miss from the fields of heaven.
IL such perfect thing can be left out
there. The very soil of these hillsides is
fragrant with the dust of sweet things
grown upon them-scented grass. sweet
clover rioting the cinderbeds along the
railroads, sweet fern and barberry, black
birch and Taurus benzoin. or spice bush.
and the wild cherry, which gives the woods
that haunting fruity fragrance. infatuating
the sense in early autumn and late spring.
an odor Of remembrance which carries the
heart away with longing after ali sweet
and departed things. What is 1t? A trace
OF hydrocyanic acid and sweet varnish on
bark and leaves. Yet one had rather catch
the tantalizing watts OF it than to hear
much music. What We made Of that
scent and sound and air can play upon
US as to draw the soul from the body with
intensest longing? That wild cherry odor
is STEPPED in the sweetness of all seasons
doomed and faded-the aroma of that
yiewiess draught in which we pledge the
dead.
FIJI your house with sweet things for the
children to remember after you are gone.
An odor will reach them. remind them of
home when language is worthless. Never
mind poor home if it is airy and clean
and perjury with wild natural things.
know house where the closets smell of
vernai grass and sweet clover gathered
years gone by, and the balsamic scent Of
white sage, plucked in California more
man thirteen years ago, has hardly left
It's shelf. These things are for the health
Oh our bodies ana affections.
sweet scents are antiseptic, nervine, slim
ulant, sedative-ifdeed, you may get the
whole round of medication out of them
Inc greater part of what we call the sweet
est mowers have the hydrocyanic base un-
uerneath their honeyed scent. Lilacs, arbu-
Ius orange blossoms. violets and all the
fruit blossoms are tinctured with its ether
apple bloom most delcately of all. Certain
white pinks have dash of 1T, but the car
nation and gillifiower tribe are the exquis-
ties or flowers, as far as scent is concerned,
and purely stimulant vivifying. Their
breath exhales ozone, and so does rosemary,
plant of the sea, which / long to see ac-
climated here with its mates, lavender and
wallhowers- You find hedges of lavender in
California, home OF sweet aromatics. but !
hunted the flower markets of New York
this year in vain for single plant, and
found but two of rosemary, with sorry
looking array Of forced wall1owers. So we
scented plants. choice enoug h in themselves
but lacking association. Our finest native
shrubs of the laurel family which scent
ness smell to us only of root beer and the
BARRIERS shop. Were sassafras tropic
Toa and nd Snake root
as vertivert frangipanni 1t is cruel to see
the destruction of the wild cherry trees
for few trees have finer qualities. The
wood wrought into cabinetwork is hardly
less fragrant than the violetwood of Aus
tralia, and the bureaus and closets panel
ed with 1t in old French work keep their
scent though made in the reign of the
Elegant French women were very fond
of the Golfers and cabinets of this wood,
hardly second to mahogany in lustre and
richness. The trees might be preserved
and the worms killed by discreet manage
ment if all the useless boys in the country
were set to burn out the canker nests
wherever seen. If Arbor day. were given
up to this good work with battalions of
boys carrying kerosene torches 1T would be
put to better use than it Is now. The OBJ
servance mostly consists in setting out a
before the summer is over and the after
noon is given up to rupturing blood YES
sells and getting up intestinal hemorrhages
by bicycle racing. Boys would find more
sport burning out worms nests if they
were shown how, and all the Gid campaign
torches would be put to reasonable use
ems work either. / was up before sunrise
this morning burning out the only two
rests this year out OF forty INFESTED trees
and late those worms were fought with
the torch of war, an old broom and
pail of kerosene. A few branches were
killed, but the worms died too. What if the
pests do start in the wild cherry thickets-
must we lose one of the choicest orna-
mental and useful trees of the country
when each neighborhood has idle boys
enough to sweep the woods Of the worms
without chopping down the coppices?
THE KIND TO GATHER.
Even at the North we may keep calen-
dar of fresh incense each month from our
own fields and woods. The year of per-
fume begins when the prunings and billets
of the cherry trees are burnt on the
hearth, in March evenings, shedding de-
lectable aroma through the house. In
April gather witch hazel twigs and buds
and balm of Glead buds for their wild,
woodsy odor grateful as that Of wild
olive These things fresh are very different
they blend with other aromatics in making
strange, pleasant combinations. May
wakes the maidenly .odor Of the, 'vernal
grass, which is cut in punches thick
the wrist to dry in closets, as the English
keep their woodroffe and tussilago of sim
liar fragrance These punches 0utlast a law
June is the month for beginning potpourri
and filling rose jars. which may be filled
the scent of the true rosa damascena. from
which altar is made, if you are fortunate
enough TO find them. An Old English Flora
says the water from the common f dog rose
when distilled from any of the garden
roses The evergreen single white rose
Yields the f1ne-Sc60teQ dlldI lIOHi Tie COdSt
OF Barbary and Egypt; the double rose
loses it's yield of oil, though some zoses
which have scentless altar make fragrant
rose water-rosa centifolia or hundred
leafed rose chief among them.
For rose lars pure and simple admit no
other flower and the choicest for enduring
ojor is the common province or cabbage
rose. almost unknown in our gardens filled
with purplish hybrids Its peta.s keep their
fragrance more than year In close en-
yeIope. Fragrant tearoses deserve 70 be
kept by themselves: jar OF bonslline petals
ia a thing to make one dream. Gather all
roses as soon after opening as possible, in
the morning of dry day, as soon as the
dew is off, though one would not willingly
forego the example of English girls in nov
70 gather the rose leaves that have fallen
ON the grass Rose leaves are rose leaves
provided they are free from rain dew
They should be strewn thinly on paper or
cheese cloth. with half an hour in the sun
and finish drying in the shade. in an airy
Mace. TIL. noon. Put them quickly away
in bulk. A glass candy Jar will be found
the best thing to store them in Do not
ing the lar a rap to settle them, and put
thin cotton wadding under the tin cap. Salt
is added to rose petals in many recipes for
rose lars but this is a mistake. Abroad
rose leaves are picked for making COM
mercial rose water, being first wilted in the
sun and packed in casks In alternate lay
ers of petals and fine salt, to be distilled
to preserve the leaves as to absorb their
remaining moisture, which IL gives UP in
distillation. From these picked roses we
get the pure imported rosewater'' sold.
the weak brackish stuff, which is no more
like freshly distilled roses than win ordi-