The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-06-24
ALTAR OF ROSES.
Where and How This CostIiest of All
Perfumes Is Made.

Where and How This CostIiest of All
Perfumes Is Made.
The town of Kasanlik is the most inn
portant center of this industry. Ac-
cording to Turkish etymology, the
meaning of Kasanlilz is the place of
stills or big kettles.
1t is said that the cultivation of rose
bushes and the art of distilling the
petals of these flowers was introduced
into this place long years ago by a
Turkish merchant from Tunis. The
roses are now cultivated in one hum
bred and fifty villages of the district of
Kasanlik, which forms the northern
part of southern Roumelia.
The climate of Kasanlik is temperate
Its soil is sandy and consequently por-
Gus and very permeable, Indispensable
conditions for preventing an accumula-
ton of water in the subsoil, which kills
the rose bushes after frost. This soil
also arrests the development of mush-
rooms, which attack the roots of the
bushes.
Two varieties only of 70 are cult
waited, as a general thing-a red and n
white. The red belongs to the species
Rosa damascena, sometimes called the
rose Of the four seasons: the white is a
variety of Rosa alba. The petals Of the
white rose are never distilled alone,
but cultivators not burdened with scru-
pies find its cultivation profitable. be-
cause the product or its distillatiou, while
poor in perfume, is rich in stearoptene,
that solid crystalline substance, which
is separated from any volatile oil on
long standing or at low temperatures.
The stearoptene is mixed with the oil
of the red rose and the mixture can
then be easily adulterated with the oil
of geranium, which comes from India.
The rose shrubs produce flowers from
their second year and reach a maximum
of production at the end of five years.
The roses, which begin to bloom from
the Goth to the 2sth of May, are picked
every morning until the 18th or Goth of
June, by women, whose fingers,
hardened by practice, do not feel the
| thorns, but which are covered in the
course of their work by a blackish
rosin, which has the smell of turpen-
tine.
This is scratched off the fingers at the
end of each day, and rolled into pellets,
which, it is said, impart delicious odor
to the smoke of tobacco.
The distillation is effected in large
stills, which holds one hundred and ten
pounds of petals and seventy-ive gat-
| Ions of water, furnishing twenty-five
gallons of rose water, at the extremity
of the refrigerating worm of the still
The first product (six and fourth gal
lonsI being more richly perfuned, is
called double rose water; then there
are taken off seven and half gallons
of an intermediate quality, and finally
eleven and fourth gallons of an in
ferior quality.
The small quantity of oil which floats
on the top of the water is separated
from it by the use of Florentine re-
ceiver and sells for two hundred dol
lars quart, the rose water being worth
about fifty cents quart.
| Altar of roses, taken in dose OF
from two to 1--WE drops, is thought to in
crease the activity of the digestive or
gans. A double dose, it appears, al
ways produces an opposite action. As
to its general effect, that is character
lied by marked disposition to Sleep
| Natural Science Review.