Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1895 — Doctoring Cut Flowers. [ARTICLE]

Doctoring Cut Flowers.

"There are a great many dodges that the public never dream of in connection with the enormous sale of but-ton-holes and bouquets. For instance, we often give a perfume by artificial means to the flowers we sell,” said a florist to a writer in Answers. "The greater number of doctored flowers are either those which are fading, and ‘off-color,“ or those which usually have no scent at. all. In the ease of the former the flowers are daily dipped in a weak solution of sal ammoniac. which, for a time, revives them in the most marvellous way. “But the chief doctoring is with the

flowers which, as a rule, have little or no scent. First of all these are put into a metal box with ice, and then by a very simple process they are subjected to a continuous current of carbonic add charged with perfumes of the required vivacity. There is an immense amount of profit made by scenting those violets which in the order of naturp have no perfume. ‘fn certain districts prodigious quantities of violets having no scent are to lie found, while the naturally odorous ones are quite rare by comparison. But hi first-class florists’ places no unscented ones are sold, for an alcoholic solution fixed by means of glycerin is used in the case of the scienless ones we receive. It is the same with other ttowers.except that some other appropriate scent is used instead of the violet, of course.