To prepare the extract of cassie, take six pounds of No. 24 (best quality) cassie pomade, and place upon it one gallon of the best rectified spirit, as sent out by Bowerbank, of Bishopsgate.  After it has digested for three weeks or a month, at a summer heat, it is fit to draw from the pomatum, and, if good, has a beautiful green color and rich flowery smell of the cassie blossom.  All extracts made by this process—­maceration, or, as it may be called, cold infusion, give a more natural smell of the flowers to the result, than by merely dissolving the essential oil (procured by distillation) in the spirit; moreover, where the odor of the flower exists in only very minute quantities, as in the present instance, and with violet, jasmine, &c., it is the only practical mode of proceeding.

In this, and all other similar cases, the pomatum must be cut up into very small pieces, after the domestic manner of “chopping suet,” prior to its being infused in the alcohol.  The action of the mixture is simply a change of place in the odoriferous matter, which leaves the fat body by the superior attraction, or affinity, as the chemists say, of the spirits of wine, in which it freely dissolves.

The major part of the extract can be poured or drawn off the pomatum without trouble, but it still retains a portion in the interstices, which requires time to drain away, and this must be assisted by placing the pomatum in a large funnel, supported by a bottle, in order to collect the remainder.  Finally, all the pomatum, which is now called washed pomatum, is to be put into a tin, which tin must be set into hot water, for the purpose of melting its contents; when the pomatum thus becomes liquefied, any extract that is still in it rises to the surface, and can be skimmed off, or when the pomatum becomes cold it can be poured from it.

The washed pomatum is preserved for use in the manufacture of dressing for the hair, for which purpose it is exceedingly well adapted, on account of the purity of the grease from which it was originally prepared, but more particularly on account of a certain portion of odor which it still retains; and were it not used up in this way, it would be advisable to put it for a second infusion in spirit, and thus a weaker extract could be made serviceable for lower priced articles.

I cannot leave cassie without recommending it more especially to the notice of perfumers and druggists, as an article well adapted for the purpose of the manufacture of essences for the handkerchief and pomades for the hair.  When diluted with other odors, it imparts to the whole such a true flowery fragrance, that it is the admiration of all who smell it, and has not a little contributed to the great sale which certain proprietary articles have attained.

We caution the inexperienced not to confound cassie with cassia, which has a totally different odor.  See ACACIA POMADE.

CEDAR WOOD now and then finds a place in a perfumer’s warehouse; when ground, it does well to form a body for sachet powder.  Slips of cedar wood are sold as matches for lighting lamps, because while burning an agreeable odor is evolved; some people use it also, in this condition, distributed among clothes in drawers to “prevent moth.”  On distillation it yields an essential oil that is exceedingly fragrant.