Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel; Eastern question (Balkan)
Attempts have often been made to grow roses all over Bulgaria, but they
have all proved a failure. It is true that roses have been grown, and
are grown to this day, in Persia, India, Egypt, and China for this
purpose, but they hardly produce any otto-of-rose. They produce almost
exclusively rose-water, and it is chiefly used for local consumption. In
the Maritime Alps of Southern France, and especially in Cannes and
Grasse, they grow quite extensively the “Provence rose,” and they
extract from it a peculiar otto-of-rose, but the quantity is very
limited, and they chiefly use their flowers to make pomades and
rose-water. In Leipzig they also grow roses, but with very little
success. Almost in all the other places where the roses are grown, they
lack the peculiar advantages of climate that Bulgaria possesses, and
have in consequence to use twice and even thrice the quantity of flowers
to make the same amount of otto. The hottest weather ever experienced in
summer in this part of Bulgaria is 88° Fahr. and the coldest of winter
is rarely under 15° Fahr. above zero. Then, during the harvest and
distillation season, which is in the latter part of May and the first
part of June, there we have regular showers of rain and in the mornings
heavy falls of dew—both absolutely necessary for the otto-of-rose
distillation.
After the Russo-Turkish War in 1877-78, when Bulgaria was separated from
Turkey and constituted into an independent Principality, the Turkish
Government spent thousands of pounds in trying to replant the Kazanlik
rose in Asia Minor, and many scores of rose-gardens were planted around
Broussa, but to no purpose. The gardens grew, thrived, and yielded
plenty of flowers, but when distilled they got only rose-water and very
little otto, so the work, in consequence, could not pay. It is the
peculiarity of the soil, and chiefly that of the atmosphere of this
special district in Bulgaria, caused by the peculiar formation of the
mountain ranges surrounding it, which makes the roses thrive and yield
sufficient otto-of-rose to pay for the very laborious work that the
culture entails.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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