In making a rose-jar the first thing necessary is the jar. If you are going to buy one get an Oriental jar, a great glazed thing, with a double top. These jars come tall enough to reach your shoulder, as they stand on the floor, and as big around as your body. But if you do not want a jar of this size get one as big as a soup-tureen, or one the size of a big coffee-cup.

It is a good plan to drop five drops of oil of rose geranium in your rose-jar while it is empty. One drop of glycerine should be added to prevent evaporation; and when the drops are in the bottom of the rose-jar incline the jar from side to side until the bottom of it is moistened with the oil. Now drop in such loose rose petals as you have. Be sure that they are those that have been scattered upon the window-sill or the table, and are partly dried, or they will grow musty.

Cover the jar with its one cover, or its two covers, as you happen to have them, and give it a little shake. Set away and do not open again until the next day.

Meanwhile dry all the rose leaves you can find. Pull the petals off your roses, lay them out of the sun and let them curl slightly. Twenty-four hours’ drying will be sufficient to shrivel them a little. Next day drop them into the jar; cover, give the jar a little shake, and let stand again.

The fourth day, supposing you have added a teacupful of rose leaves each day, pour three drops of oil of rose geranium upon your leaves, and a teaspoonful of the best alcohol. This holds the natural scent of your leaves and keeps them in good condition.

Continue this way until you have filled your jar, every fourth day adding a teaspoonful of alcohol and three drops of oil of rose geranium.

When you have filled your jar you can put on the cover and shake it well. Turn it bottom side up, being sure that the cover is tight, and let it rest over night; next day turn the right side up, open and add enough leaves to fill the jar to the very top, for as the leaves dry they settle and the sweet paste within becomes more compact and will admit of more leaves.

Do not fill your jar to the brim finally, but let it be only half full. You will find that the leaves settle so rapidly that, even though you keep putting them in, you will still have a jar that is only half full. When they seem to have stopped settling them is the time to stop adding. A jar that is too full cannot be stirred, and it is in the stirring that the sweetness comes forth in winter.

Add now to your jar a teaspoonful of ground cloves and a teaspoonful of ground cinnamon. Shake the jar and leave the cover off over night. Next day turn the leaves out upon a china dish, and when the last leaf can be shaken from the inside of the jar pour into it one drop of glycerin and three drops of attar of rose. This precious attar seems to enter at once into the composition of the jar and to scent the very porcelain with which it is lined.

While it is giving forth this sweetness from the attar shovel the rose leaves back in again, all pulpy and drying as they are; and, on top of the mass, pour a tablespoon of alcohol and six drops each of oil of lavender and rosemary; add one ounce of Tonka bean in powder and two ounces of iris.

Now cover your jar well and set it away. In three days open it again and stir it. Repeat every three days for a month and you will, at the end of that time, have a rose-jar that is complete, one that will send out its fragrance through the room all winter, and which, when open, will fill the whole house with a soft, sweet scent at once invigorating and delightful.