ROSE OIL, OR OTTO OF ROSES.
By CHARLES G. WARNFORD LOCK.
This celebrated perfume is the volatile essential oil distilled from the flowers of some varieties of rose. The botany of roses appears to be in a transition and somewhat unsatisfactory state. Thus the otto-yielding rose is variously styled Rosa damascena, R. sempervirens, R. moschata, R. gallica, R. centifolia, R. provincialis. It is pretty generally agreed that the kind grown for its otto in Bulgaria in the damask rose (R. damascena), a variety induced by long cultivation, as it is not to be found wild. It forms a bush, usually three to four feet, but sometimes six feet high; its flowers are of moderate size, semi-double, and arranged several on a branch, though not in clusters or bunches. In color, they are mostly light-red; some few are white, and said to be less productive of otto.
The utilization of the delicious perfume of the rose was attempted, with more or less success, long prior to the comparatively modern process of distilling its essential oil. The early methods chiefly in vogue were the distillation of rose-water, and the infusion of roses in olive oil, the latter flourishing in Europe generally down to the last century, and surviving at the present day in the South of France. The butyraceous oil produced by the distillation of roses for making rose-water in this country is valueless as a perfume; and the real otto was scarcely known in British commerce before the present century.
The profitable cultivation of roses for the preparation of otto is limited chiefly by climatic conditions. The odoriferous constitutent of the otto is a liquid containing oxygen, the solid hydrocarbon or stearoptene, with which it is combined, being absolutely devoid of perfume. The proportion which this inodorous solid constituents bears to the liquid perfume increases with the unsuitability of the climate, varying from about 18 per cent. in Bulgarian oil, to 35 and even 68 per cent. in rose oils distilled in France and England. This increase in the proportion of stearoptene is also shown by the progressively heightened fusing-point of rose oils from different sources: thus, while Bulgarian oil fuses at about 61° to 64° Fahr., an Indian sample required 68° Fahr.; one from the South of France, 70° to 73° Fahr.; one from Paris, 84° Fahr.; and one obtained in making rose-water in London, 86° to 89½° Fahr. Even in the Bulgarian oil, a notable difference is observed between that produced on the hills and that from the lowlands.
It is, therefore, not surprising that the culture of roses, and extraction of their perfume, should have originated in the East. Persia produced rose-water at an early date, and the town of Nisibin, north-west of Mosul, was famous for it in the 14th century. Shiraz, in the 17th century, prepared both rose water and otto, for export to other parts of Persia, as well as all over India. The Perso-Indian trade in rose oil, which continued to possess considerable importance in the third quarter of the 18th century, is declining, and has nearly disappeared; but the shipments of rose-water still maintain a respectable figure. The value, in rupees, of the exports of rose-water from Bushire in 1879, were--4,000 to India, 1,500 to Java, 200 to Aden and the Red Sea, 1,000 to Muscat and dependencies, 200 to Arab coast of Persian Gulf and Bahrein, 200 to Persian coast and Mekran, and 1,000 to Zanzibar. Similar statistics relating to Lingah, in the same year, show--Otto: 400 to Arab coast of Persian Gulf, and Bahrein; and 250 to Persian coast and Mekran. And Bahrein--Persian Otto: 2,200 to Koweit, Busrah, and Bagdad. Rose-water: 200 to Arab coast of Persian Gulf, and 1,000 to Koweit, Busrah, and Bagdad.
India itself has a considerable area devoted to rose-gardens, as at Ghazipur, Lahore, Amritzur, and other places, the kind of rose being R. damascena, according to Brandis. Both rose-water and otto are produced. The flowers are distilled with double their weight of water in clay stills; the rose-water (goolabi pani) thus obtained is placed in shallow vessels, covered with moist muslin to keep out dust and flies, and exposed all night to the cool air, or fanned. In the morning, the film of oil, which has collected on the top, is skimmed off by a feather, and transferred to a small phial. This is repeated for several nights, till almost the whole of the oil has separated. The quantity of the product varies much, and three different authorities give the following figures: (a) 20,000 roses to make 1 rupee's weight (176 gr.) of otto; (b) 200,000 to make the same weight; (c) 1,000 roses afford less than 2 gr. of otto. The color ranges from green to bright-amber, and reddish. The oil (otto) is the most carefully bottled; the receptacles are hermetically sealed with wax, and exposed to the full glare of the sun for several days. Rose water deprived of otto is esteemed much inferior to that which has not been so treated. When bottled, it is also exposed to the sun for a fortnight at least.
The Mediterranean countries of Africa enter but feebly into this industry, and it is a little remarkable that the French have not cultivated it in Algeria. Egypt's demand for rose-water and rose-vinegar is supplied from Medinet Fayum, south-west of Cairo. Tunis has also some local reputation for similar products. Von Maltzan says that the rose there grown for otto is the dog-rose (R. canina), and that it is extremely fragrant, 20 lb. of the flower yielding about 1 dr. of otto. Genoa occasionally imports a little of this product, which is of excellent quality. In the south of France rose gardens occupy a large share of attention, about Grasse, Cannes, and Nice; they chiefly produce rose-water, much of which is exported to England. The essence (otto) obtained by the distillation of the Provence rose (R. provincialis) has a characteristic perfume, arising, it is believed, from the bees transporting the pollen of the orange flowers into the petals of the roses. The French otto is richer in stearoptene than the Turkish, nine grammes crystallizing in a liter (1¾ pint) of alcohol at the same temperature as 18 grammes of the Turkish. The best preparations are made at Cannes and Grasse. The flowers are not there treated for the otto, but are submitted to a process of maceration in fat or oil, ten kilos. of roses being required to impregnate one kilo. of fat. The price of the roses varies from 50c. to 1 fr. 25c. per kilo.
But the one commercially important source of otto of roses is a circumscribed patch of ancient Thrace or modern Bulgaria, stretching along the southern slopes of the central Balkans, and approximately included between the 25th and 26th degrees of east longitude, and the 42d and 43d of north latitude. The chief rose-growing districts are Philippopoli, Chirpan, Giopcu, Karadshah-Dagh, Kojun-Tepe, Eski-Sara, Jeni-Sara, Bazardshik, and the center and headquarters of the industry, Kazanlik (Kisanlik), situated in a beautiful undulating plain, in the valley of the Tunja. The productiveness of the last-mentioned district may be judged from the fact that, of the 123 Thracian localities carrying on the preparation of otto in 1877--they numbered 140 in 1859--42 belong to it. The only place affording otto on the northern side of the Balkans is Travina. The geological formation throughout is syenite, the decomposition of which has provided a soil so fertile as to need but little manuring. The vegetation, according to Baur, indicates a climate differing but slightly from that of the Black Forest, the average summer temperatures being stated at 82° Fahr. at noon, and 68° Fahr. in the evening. The rose-bushes nourish best and live longest on sandy, sun-exposed (south and south-east aspect) slopes. The flowers produced by those growing on inclined ground are dearer and more esteemed than any raised on level land, being 50 per cent. richer in oil, and that of a stronger quality. This proves the advantage of thorough drainage. On the other hand, plantations at high altitudes yield less oil, which is of a character that readily congeals, from an insufficiency of summer heat. The districts lying adjacent to and in the mountains are sometimes visited by hard frosts, which destroy or greatly reduce the crop. Floods also occasionally do considerable damage. The bushes are attacked at intervals and in patches by a blight similar to that which injures the vines of the country.