The following are some of the details of the cultivation and extraction of perfumes as given in Mr. Warrick's paper:
ORANGE PERFUMES.
The orange tree is produced from the pip, which is sown in a sheltered uncovered bed. When the young plant is about 4 feet high, it is transplanted and allowed a year to gain strength in its new surroundings. It is then grafted with shoots from the Portugal or Bigaradier. It requires much care in the first few years, must be well manured, and during the summer well watered, and if at all exposed must have its stem covered up with straw in winter. It is not expected to yield a crop of flowers before the fourth year after transplantation. The flowering begins toward the end of April and lasts through May to the middle of June. The buds are picked when on the point of opening by women, boys, and girls, who make use of a tripod ladder to reach them. These villagers carry the fruits (or, rather, flowers) of their day's labor to a flower agent or commissionnaire, who weighs them, spreads them out in a cool place (the flowers, not the villagers), where they remain until 1 or 2 A.M.; he then puts them into sacks, and delivers them at the factory before the sun has risen. They are here taken in hand at once; on exceptional days as many as 160 tons being so treated in the whole province. After the following season, say end of June, the farmers prune their trees; these prunings are carted to the factory, where the leaves are separated and made use of.
During the autumn the ground round about the trees is well weeded, dug about, and manured. The old practice of planting violets under the orange trees is being abandoned. Later on in the year those blossoms which escaped extermination have developed into fruits. These, when destined for the production of the oil, are picked while green.
The orange trees produce a second crop of flowers in autumn, sometimes of sufficient importance to allow of their being taken to the factories, and always of sufficient importance to provide brides with the necessary bouquets.
Nature having been thus assisted to deliver these, her wonderful productions, the flowers, the leaves, and the fruits of the orange tree, at the factory, man has to do the rest. He does it in the following manner:
The flowers are spread out on the stone floor of the receiving room in a layer some 6 to 8 inches deep; they are taken in hand by young girls, who separate the sepals, which are discarded. Such of the petals as are destined for the production of orange flower water and neroli are put into a still through a large canvas chute, and are covered with water, which is measured by the filling of reservoirs on the same floor. The manhole of the still is then closed, and the contents are brought to boiling point by the passage of superheated steam through the coils of a surrounding worm. The water and oil pass over, are condensed, and fall into a Florentine receiver, where the oil floating on the surface remains in the flask, while the water escapes through the tube opening below. A piece of wood or cork is placed in the receiver to break up the steam flowing from the still; this gives time for the small globules of oil to cohere, while it breaks the force of the downward current, thus preventing any of the oil being carried away.
The first portions of the water coming from the still are put into large tinned copper vats, capable of holding some 500 gallons, and there stored, to be drawn off as occasion may require into glass carboys or tinned copper bottles. This water is an article of very large consumption in France; our English cooks have no idea to what an extent it is used by the chefs in the land of the "darned mounseer."
The oil is separated by means of a pipette, filtered, and bottled off. It forms the oil of neroli of commerce; 1,000 kilos. of the flowers yield 1 kilo. of oil. That obtained from the flowers of the Bigaradier, or bitter orange, is the finer and more expensive quality.
The delicate scent of orange flowers can be preserved quite unchanged by another and more gentle process, viz., that of maceration. It was noticed by some individual, whose name has not been handed down to us, that bodies of the nature of fat and oil are absorbers of the odor-imparting particles exhaled by plants. This property was seized upon by some other genius equally unknown to fame, who utilized it to transfer the odor of flowers to alcohol.