Show PICKING BilliONS fLOWERS I I I I I I i I c 1t 1 i 1 fltt t i I SORTING FLOWER PETALS Grasse in the southern part of France is the center of the perfume industry I in-dustry There the women and girls may be seen with broad hats on their heads gathering flowers from 5 oclock until 11 in the morning and then returning with their fragrant burdens bur-dens to the houses where they pluck the leaves from the blossoms and pass the rest of the day in preparing them for the work of extracting theessences or essential oils which contain the perfume per-fume itself In March they begin picking violets from which the popular violet water is made and from the beginning of May to the end of June they gather the jess amine roses and orange blossoms as well as the tube roses in 7uly the mignonette in August and the cassia in September But the maidens are not gathering blossoms to sick into their hats or to clasp at their belts to add to personal charms it is their daily bread earned in a beautiful and delightful de-lightful fashion A breath will blow the rose leaf from you and the nimble fingers of the women must move rapidly rapid-ly to pluck the billions and millions of leaves that go to make up the 1200000 kilogrammes of rose leaves alone that are used each season Besides there is a million kilogrammes of jessamin to be plucked and Violets and orange blossoms to the extent of 2000000 kilo grammes a year To give an idea of the number of plants that are raised for this huge result it is calculated that each stalk of jessamine yields two kilo grammes of blossoms a season So there must be at least 500000 stalks to yield the million kilogrammes required re-quired fV V the I Butithe gathering of the blossomsns bnlythe begiqning of thqwork forj then the flow ers nvast beplcked iipart and all of the spoiled leaves thrown 0 ill 7 L > 1 < j aside Then the making of the perfume per-fume begins The leaves are spread one by one upon layers of pure lard that cover plates of glass Three or four times these lowerlayers are renewed re-newed before the lard has absorbed all I of the perfume that it can hold for the fat haS a peculiar attraction for the I essential oil of the flowers This per fumed lard is th < pomade of commerce com-merce not the pomades used for hair or heard l but the rude material out of which these are afterwards manufactured manufac-tured The lard is then either shipped as It is to other manufacturers or put into alcohol which1 draws off the perfume per-fume from the fat having a stronger attraction therefore than the lard antI the result is the finest eau de cologne Most of this pomade Is shipped as Ifr sand3 to all parts of Europe and I America but some of it 13 reserved and I the oils are extracted by distilling pro ctrses making the pure extracts So I much for the industry which has made Grasse rich and famous But in this story lies much that is suggestive for us in the United States 1 It if beyond question that In many portions of the United States just n3 fine and strongly perfumed flowers can be raised as in Prance The varieties of rof03 for Instance which are best for making perfumes are not the American Amer-ican Beauties or La France but the commoner varieties which will grow luxuriously almost anywhere In the stutes It is certain that if the attention atten-tion of some of our women were directed direct-ed to this matter they could tarn many a dollar pleasantly by the manufacture of perfumes It would require no complicated com-plicated machinery to make pomade just as it is i made at Grassa The lard could be bought and relined it could be spread onthe plates of glass and it would be both pleasant anil profitable l to ifpend a few weeks InJune picking roses and spreading the leaves on the absorbing fat Then if you did not care to make the cologne yourself you could sell your pomade and get a good price for it n n WOMEN GATHERING JESSANIME AT GRASSE PRANCE 0 I 6 > i1 J < t |