A PLEASANT INDUSTRY.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 89, 14 April 1908, Page 6

A PLEASANT INDUSTRY.

We have already referred to the suitabi!ity of Blenheim's soil and climate for the cultivation of scent-pro^-ducing plants, and a writer in the Nelson Colonist is now urging that such an Industry might well be started in Nelson. l This correspondent, who writes "as one of the provisional jam factory committee," says:—Sir,— Nelson is^-a place in which money could be made oift of flowerfs, by providing the material for -the manufacture of liquid perfumes3, scents for pomades, and fancy soap. The industry is one that finds employment for many persons, principally women and children, on the Continent, notably Grasse, on the Rhine, a day's, journey from Cannes, which supplies the perfume manufacturers of London and Paris with raw material extracted from the flowers and leaves. Grasse is described by visitors' as a paradise of flowers. Roses, orange flowers, violets, jonquils, jasmine, verbena, red thyme (used, in ..sachet powder), tuber roses, peppermint, aspic, sweet basil, mignonette, lavender, red geraniums, and cassia are grown in profusion for their extracts. The principal flowers are roses, jasmine, tuber roses, orange flowers (from which come the essence of rieroli), cassia, mignonette, jonquils and violets. The flowers . and leaves (for some extracts) are generally gathered early in the morning. The extent of-the industry at Grasse may be judged from the fact that in a year nearly five million pounds weight of roses jrere picked, nearly four million poinids of orange blossoms, 560,OOOlbs of'• jasmine, 280,0001bs of violets, 60,0001bs of cassia; 40,0001bs of tuber roses, and 30,0001b of jonquils. The jam factory industry was the result of a provisional committee being set up to investigate the matter, the late Dr Irvine being the chairman of that Committee, which body made inquiries in San Francisco, with the result that Mr S. Krkpatrick came to Nelson, and eventually the X Jam factory was successfully established by him. Let a provisional Committee be set up to deal similarljTwith the industry I now write about. If the industry was established it would add materially to the charm of Nelson, for what is more pleasing to the eye than a profusion of magnificent blooms? The raw material would doubtless have to be sent away to where the perfume manufacturers could obtain cheap and constant labour.