The St. Johns herald., 1900-02-24
IN THE LAVENDER FIELDS.
The Work of Harvesting EnglandS Great Crop of Scent-LRden
 Flowers


 There are few more delightful scenes than field of lavender, with the morn ing sun lighting up the ever changing colors of the swaying stems. As heecy clouds move across the sky the blue mauve of the field takes darker tinge, and then, as the suns brilliant light plays again without hindrance on the great patch of scent-laden flowers, the hue becomes almost Cambridge blue. But only for moment; the variations are ceaseless. The color of a lavender field has baffied the brush of many an artist, and none that we can recall has ever been able to catch these wondrous shifting tints with anything like truth.
 Spring frosts often do considerable
 damage to the lavender plants, but all l though this year the frosts were keen enough to cut down the potato haulm they seem to have spared the lavender. The net result is that, while the bunch es of so-called "Mitcham lavender" which find their way to Covent Garden are full and we'll favored this year, the yield of essential oils is also excellent, for the long spell of sunshine has en- riched the little cups which constitute the sprigs of bloom. It may surprise a good many people to learn that there is not, nor has there been for many years, such a thing as Mitcham laven- der. There was a time when Figs Marsh boasted as many as five stills, and when Mitcham was certainly the center of the lavender industry, but the scene of operations has shifted, and now Beddington, Wellington and Car shalton constitute with a radius of about six miles Surrey's lavender grow ing area. There are something like 150 acres under cultivation in Surrey (notably at Carshalton), and if the re- tailers maintain the Mitcham legend it is because the Surrey lavender is noted for its quality and Mitcham is a good name to stick to. The flower is also grown at Hitchin (Herts), Grove Ferry, near Canterbury, and in Bedfordshire.
 Lavender growing is certainly one of the things better done in England than in France, for pound of English oil ranges in price from 25 shillings to as much as 100 shillings in exceptional times, whereas seven shillings or eight shilliDgs is the price obtained for an equal quantity of the French variety. A good deal of the French lavender is grown wild, and the natives of the Apes Maritimes gather it and distill the oils in primitive fashion. There is nothing primitive in the way the in- dustry is carried on in this country, and a visit to the fields of one of the largest growers of Carshalton, William Wood, affords abundant evidence of the careful manner in which operations are conducted from the time when the young plants are put in the ground until they have reached the zenith of their oil-yielding powers in the third and last year of their existence. In the first year they are planted some 20 inches apart, and in the following sea- son alternate rows are transpiaEted elsewhere, leaving the spreading plants more than tAFee-fset of space in which to thrive and develop. The planting is done on the square, and the symmetry of design presented to a visitor standing in the center of field of yearlings, the rows radiating in perfect formation from middle point, is eminently attractive. There is no mistaking the two and three-year- old crops, for while the former may be, as they are this season, full bodied nI Sxr ha 4e plants are weighed down with the weight of their oil-laden cups. Then, too, there is . distinct difference in colr between a field of lavender two years old and one which is nearing the end of its term, the young blossoms partaking of more delicate hue. One advantage the lavender grower pos sesses over other cultivators is that he has no need to fear the depredations of the birds. Cartridges and larks may build their nests in his lavender, but the scent of the flower tempts them not at all, and but for the fact that the rab- bits may bite off the struggling sprigs which interfere with their runs the law ender has no enemy save the spring frosts.
 The harvesting has to be conducted with great care. The fields rapidly ripen under the summer sun, and all the reaping which is done for the callers of sweet lavender, 16 branches penny" has to be done while the dew is still upon the land, for to bunch the sprigs when the sun has dried the ripe blooms would mean to lose millions of the scent giv- ings cups thnt would fall under the pressure of the reaper. The lavender which is destined for the distillery, and which is cut throughout the day, is laid on what are known as St. Peters burg mats, which are bound around about 60 pounds of lavender stalks, and in this way the bloom is carried to the stills. Here coppers holding as much as a ton of lavender boil the flowers, the steam which is given off being con- densed, and the oil separated from the water. Stripped to the waist, the men work night and day in the heat of the barn-like buildings of two stories, with the furnaces below and the distillery in the floor above. Carefully the boil ing process is watched until the time comes for securing the precious oil of lavender, which makes scent for the million. But that after all is the busi- ness and the least attractive side of the calling of the grower over whose fields one is roaming. It is the growing lav- ender which possesses so many charms for the visitor The air is charged with a faint scent of the flower, the bees (black humble bees) buzz in thousands