Production and Commerce—In France the cultivation is carried on by small peasant proprietors; the flowers are collected at the end of September or in the beginning of October. The stigmas are quickly taken out, and immediately dried on sieves over a gentle fire, to which they are exposed for only half an hour. According to Dumesnil[2490] 7,000 to 8,000 flowers are required for yielding 500 grammes (17½ oz.) of fresh saffron, which by drying is reduced to 100 grammes.
Notwithstanding the high price of saffron, its cultivation is by no means always profitable, from the many difficulties by which it is attended. Besides occasional injury from weather, the bulbs are often damaged by parasitic fungi as stated by Duhamel in 1728[2491] and again by Montagne in 1848.[2492]
The most considerable quantity of saffron is now produced in Spain, namely in Lower Arragon, in Novelda near Alicante, in the province Albacete (Northern Murcia), in La Mancha, near Huelva, and also near Palma in the island of Mallorca. It is brought into commerce as Alicante and Valencia Saffron. The quantity of saffron exported from Spain in 1864 was valued at £190,062; in 1865, £135,316; in 1866, £47,083. The drug was chiefly exported to France.[2493]
French saffron, which enjoys a better reputation for purity than the Spanish, is cultivated in the arrondissement of Pithiviers-en-Gâtinais, in the department of the Loiret, which district annually furnishes a quantity valued at 1,500,000 (£60,000) to 1,800,000 francs.[2494] The exports of France in 1875 were 97,021 kilogrammes, 84,337 of which being imported from Spain.
In Austria, Maissau, north-east of Krems on the Danube, still produces excellent saffron, though only to a very small extent; the district was formerly celebrated for the drug. Saffron is produced in considerable quantity in Ghayn, an elevated mountain region separating Western Afghanistan from Persia.[2495] A very little of inferior quality is collected at Pampur in Kashmír, under heavy imposts of the Maharaja.[2496] Saffron is also cultivated in some districts of China. Finally, the cultivation has been introduced into the United States, and a little saffron is collected by the German inhabitants of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.[2497] But in almost all countries the cultivation of saffron is on the decline, and in very many districts has altogether ceased.
The imports of saffron into the United Kingdom amounted in 1870 to 43,950 lb., valued at £95,690. The article is largely exported to India, but there are no general statistics to show the amount. Bombay imported in the year 1872-73, 21,994 lb., value £35,115.[2498] It is a curious fact that now Spanish saffron finds regularly its way to India.
Uses—Saffron is of no value for any medicinal effects, and retains a place in the pharmacopœia solely on the ground of its utility as a colouring agent. A peculiar preference for it as a condiment exists in various countries, but especially in Austria, Germany and some districts of Switzerland. This predilection prevails even in England—at least in Cornwall, where the use of saffron for colouring cakes is still common. Saffron is largely used by the natives of India in religious rites, in medicine and for the colouring and flavouring of food.
As a dye-stuff saffron is no longer employed, at least in this country, its use having been superseded by less costly substances.
Adulteration—Saffron is often adulterated, but the frauds practised on it are not difficult of detection. Sometimes the falsification consists in the addition of florets of Calendula dyed with logwood, or of safflower, or the stamens of the saffron crocus, any of which may be detected if a small pinch of the drug be dropped on the surface of warm water, when the peculiar form of the saffron stigma will at once become evident.
Another adulteration of late much practised, and not always easy to detect by the eye, consists in coating genuine saffron with carbonate of lime, previously tinged orange-red. If a few shreds of such saffron be placed on the surface of water in a wineglass and gently stirred, the water will immediately become turbid, and the carbonate of lime will detach itself as a white powder and subside. Saffron thus adulterated will freely effervesce when dilute hydrochloric acid is dropped upon it. We have examined Alicante Saffron, the weight of which had been increased more than 20 per cent. by this fraudulent admixture. The earthy matter employed in sophisticating saffron is said to be sometimes emery powder, rendered adherent by honey. We have found that adulterated with carbonate of lime to leave from 12 to 28 per cent. of ash.[2499]