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HERE is no important article of commerce about which so little is known as the

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vanilla bean. In a general way, it can be said that its fragrance, flavor and odor are due to an element technically know as ' vanillin," and yet no one is wise enough to tell what it really is or from whence it comes.

In the ripe fruit itself, this peculiar element is not present to any appreciable extent. It makes its appearance during the process of curing. The Mexican Indian wraps the fruit up in blankets a great many times to sweat it, and when his task is done the odor is there.

Of course, man has made an imitation of vanilla. That is the way he cheapens extracts. That is the way people are cheated. That is the way the imitator makes money-at the expense of the public's health.

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Nobody knows, or ever will know, how many foreign substances are used in making artificial vanilla. It is produced from beet sugar, from Siam benzoin, from hemlock. Great quantities of so-called "vanilla extracts are made of tonka beans prepared in balsam of Peru. There is no more true vanilla flavor in these than there is the odor of the rose in a head of cabbage.

Artificial vanilla is not and never can be a substitute for the Mexican vanilla. The fragrance of a flower, or the flavor of a spice, is never due to a single constituent. Nature blends various substances in her own peculiar way. She does this in the vanilla bean.

Artificial vanilla is coarse in taste, inferior in odor, and lacks the delicate blendings of the real bean.