PERFUME OF PLANTS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XI, Issue 243, 18 October 1921, Page 3 (Supplement)

PERFUME OF PLANTS.

(From a correspondent). How the clamp brings out the scents of the garden, which in this dry climate is usually the one thing lacking. My day’s journey takes me under a great clump of gum trees, and this week the aromatic scent, surging up from the ground, is quite a strong tonic. Now that colour is being used as a healing agency, one wonders whether we make sufficient use ot this other sense. Smelling salts as a pick-Xne-up are in common use, and as we become more civilised no doubt wo shall use the scents of plants for the different ailments of the day. MasterJinck points out in his essay on “Perfumes” that the ancients interested themselves in the heavier scents, such as; Musk benzoin, incense and myrrh, while the aroma ot flowers is seldom mentioned in Greek and Latin poetry, or in the Bible, and at the present time a peasant seldom smells a flower. . He puggests that smell is the last of our senses to he developed, and the one that so far appears to have the, least practical use. He points out that it is the keeper of the air we breathe, and the chemist that- watches over the food we eat. for we. are at once suspicious of evil smelling air or food. I will quote what lie says : “But besides this practical mispion it has another which corresponds with nothing. Perfumes are utterly useless to the needs of our physical life. When too violent or too lasting they may even become detrimental to it. Nevertheless, we possess a faculty that revels in them, and brings us Hie joyful tidings of them with as much conviction as though it concerned the discovery of a delicious fruit or drink. This uselessness deserves our attention. It must hide some fair secret.’ lie says that it is doubtful whether the scent of flowers serves to attract inpects, as many of the most sweetscented flowers do not admit of crossfertilization. so that we are ignorant of its useful relation to the flower itself. As it has now been proved that there are sounds too high or too low to be caught by our hearing apparatus. SO there may bo scents too refined or too coarse to be sensed by us, and no doubt our range will increase. Tho scent may be the manifestation of the flower’s soul, and we may find that everything that has a soul has a fragrance, and whereas at present our noses onljk pick up 4he smell of human bodies, in the future we may enjoy the fragrant perfume of the soul that inhabits the body. ’ Natives often have a certain sense of smell highly developed. Travellers tell us that in Central Africa the odour of the white man is so obnoxious that, should he sleep in one of their huts, the only remedy is to burn it down. The senses seem to get less acute as civilisation progresses, although it be that, in the light of what Maeterlinck says, we become more aware on higher levels. As the thoughts of a scientist are unintellibigle to an ignorant man, so the range of vision of hearing and of smell may widen with the devel opment of the soul. Physical man has become blase for want of new worlds to conquer, and it may be that the schoolboy’s imagination will now need inspiring by the doings of .great fighting men, who wage war with different weapons. War has ceased to an inspiring topic, hut we must be careful that we find the right way of enthusing the young generation to become bold and courageous. In America, at the present time, the successful business man is the great figure. He seems rather a poor successor to the great men who have down the centuries, attracted the boys and girls of the British race. AVe need great men whose souls will make the earth fragrant and so lead others to the conquest of higher worlds.