How to amuse yourself and others : $b the American girl's handy bookBeard, Lina
General
How to amuse yourself and others : $b the American girl's handy book
Beard, Lina
Amusements -- Juvenile literature; Handicraft -- Juvenile literature
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.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
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
=Spring Flowers in Winter?=
If you search in the woods during December you may find, tucked away
in sheltered spots, little woodland plants which, when taken up and
carefully transplanted in a flower-pot and set in a sunny window, will
soon begin to grow, sending up tender stems, and in about three weeks
will blossom. The little fairy-like flowers seem even more beautiful
coming in the cold wintry weather.
Fruit-tree twigs and sprays from flowering shrubs will blossom when
the ground is white with snow, if cut from trees about the first of
February, placed in well-heated water in a warm room, and the water
changed every day for some that is almost but not quite hot.
The twigs being kept warm will blossom in a few weeks.
It is quite a pretty idea to take up and plant in a little flower-pot
=The Four-leaved Clover.=
Very frequently you may find a tuft bearing only the mystic number,
and should it happen to have a five- or six-leaved clover in with the
others, they will add to the luck.
If you possess one of these charmed plants, it is said “good luck” will
always be near at hand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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