Читать книгу How to Amuse Yourself and Others: The American Girl's Handy Book - Adelia B. Beard - Страница 19

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Rose-leaves are the most simply prepared. Take a covered jar, fill it with sweet-scented rose-leaves, and scatter through them some salt. Keep the jar closed tight, and when the petals have dried the “scent of the roses will cling to them still,” so that every time the jar is opened a delicious fragrance will fill the air. Or you can cover the rose-leaves with melted lard, and leave them for a day or two in some place at a temperature of about 140° F.; then cool it and knead the lard in alcohol. Pour off the alcohol in fancy glass bottles and use as handkerchief perfume.

For varieties we find this method:

“The delicate odor of pinks and other flowers may be obtained as follows: Get a glass funnel, with the narrow end drawn to a point; in this place lumps of ice with salt, by which a very low temperature is produced. The funnel should be supported on an ordinary retort-stand and placed near the flowering plants, when water and the ethereal odor of the blossom will be deposited on the exterior of the glass funnel, and will trickle down to the point, from which it drops at intervals into a glass vessel below. The scent thus obtained is very perfect, but is apt to become sour in a few days unless some pure alcohol is added. By this process many odors may be procured for comparison and study. To obtain the odor in perfection the blossom must be in its prime.”

Dry some sweet clover, and the fragrance will be sweet and pleasant. Fill a fancy bag of some thin sheer material with the clover, and you will find that you have imprisoned the fresh breath of summer.

Old-time lavender can be prepared in the same way.

Our thoughts so far have been for the flowers in their season. But did it ever occur to you that it is possible to have