Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Jan.,  1887. 
Otto  of  Rose  Industry. 
35 
The  flowers  of  the  Thracian  rose  are  rather  thin,  and  their  rich- 
ness in  essential  oils  lies  in  the  ovary  and  the  stamens  (of  which 
there  are  an  extraordinary  number),  rather  than  in  the  petals.  For 
distilling  purposes  the  entire  flower  of  the  Thracian  rose  is  taken, 
while  of  the  other  varieties  the  corolla  leaves  alone  are  employed. 
Almost  every  small  Bulgarian  farmer  distils  his  own  oil,  the  stills 
used  being  of  the  most  elementary  description,  and  it  is  thought  that 
if  a  Western  firm  were  to  undertake  the  distilling  a  larger  percent- 
age and  better  quality  of  oil  might  easily  be  obtained.  The  roses 
are  grown  in  fields,  where  they  are  placed  in  rows  about  2  yards 
apart,  and  alternating  with  rows  of  grape  vines  or  kitchen  vegeta- 
bles. To  a  practical  man  it  would  appear  that  in  the  Bulgarian 
fields  the  plants  are  grown  too  closely  together  and  have  no  room 
left  to  expand  properly.  As  hints  to  intending  experimenters  in 
Western  Europe,  Mr.  Schmalfuss  recommends  that  the  soil  should 
be  well  manured  with  old,  partly-decomposed  manure,  the  applica- 
tion of  which  should  be  repeated  every  third  year.  The  plants 
should  be  placed  in  rows,  about  8,000  trees  to  the  acre,  and  during 
the  first  two  years  the  rows  of  rose-plants  may  alternate  with  rows 
of  kitchen  vegetables.  It  may  be  found  to  pay  to  cut  the  shrubs 
in  the  second  year  close  to  the  ground.  The  yield  of  that  year 
is  of  course  lost  by  this  proceeding,  but  the  luxuriance  of  the  plant 
for  the  future  is  thereby  much  increased.  After  the  third  year  the 
planting  of  vegetables  must  be  discontinued.  The  soil  must  be 
kept  free  from  weeds  and  rendered  loose  twice  a  year  by  hoeing. 
The  fields  might,  experimentally,  be  protected  at  the  north  side  by 
hedges.  The  flowers  must  be  gathered  early  in  the  morning  and 
placed  loosely  in  open  baskets,  which  should  be  kept  in  the  shade. 
Of  the  roses  common  in  Western  Europe  the  light  and  dark  red 
varieties  of  moss,  Bourbon,  and  Remontant  roses  are  richest  in 
essential  oil,  and  might  be  employed  advantageously,  Mr.  Schmal- 
fuss thinks,  so  long  as  the  Thracian  roses  are  not  obtainable  in 
quantities.  Unfortunately,  it  would  appear  that,  for  the  present  at 
least,  there  is  no  prospect  of  a  supply  of  Thracian  roses  sufficient 
to  admit  of  a  proper  experiment.  When  Mr.  Schmalfuss  com- 
menced his  investigations  in  Bulgaria  he  did,  not  meet  with  any 
considerable  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  native  otto  merchants, 
who,  at  that  time,  appear  to  have  been  perfectly  skeptical  regard- 
ing the  possibility  of  the  remunerative  distillation  of  otto  outside 
