'GAZETTEER OF PERSIA. VOLUME II' [‎222r] (448/706)

MAZANDARAN
431
quality, being dark and moist. Both these defects, in all probability, arise
from want of skill in the cultivation and preparation of this valuable plant.
Tobacco does not succeed in Mazandaran ; its produce is harsh and bad,
and all who are found of good smoking import their tobacco from Shiraz
and Tabas. Silk is not produced in any great quantity, nor is opium much
or successfully cultivated, although the poppy which produces it grows
sufficiently well. The land in Mazandaran yields only one full crop in the
year, but barley is sown occasionally in spring, for horses and cattle, as a
green crop ; it is cut about this time, after which they plough up the
ground, and plant it with rice, which is produced in great quantities :
Great quantities are sent to Tehran, Gilan, Kazvin, Tabriz, and Russia
and it forms also the principal food of the inhabitants. The sugar is mostlv
consumed in the province ; the cotton is used in native manufactures, and
some is also sent to Gilan. The silk is comparatively small in quantity,
and of inferior quality to that of Gilan ; it is used in native manufactures,
mixed with cotton. Beans, wheat, and barley are grown in the moun
tainous districts, and some flax in the lowlands. During the winter, a great
many labourers come from the upper country and are employed here ;
their wages at this se son is about 6d. a day.
“ The principal fruits are a great variety of the orange, lemon, and
citron species, the Persian names of some of which are as follows : tuisurkh
ndrmuf, the mandarin orange ; badrang, a very large kind of citron, with a
knotty, rough and thick rind ; mined), a fruit, in shape something like a
pear, and of a pleasant acid, the colour, both inside and outside, is that of
a lemon ; timu, sweet and sour lemons, ndrangi ; a bitter orange like the
Seville, and iuisabz, balang, tabushghabi, dardbi, turanj, varieties of the
above-named fruits ; Sultan Murakabat, a shaddock, rather a rare fruit
sometimes weighing 6 or 7 pounds.
“ There are evergreens, which in winter give a lively and cheerful ap
pearance to the gardens, which are filled with them. A great quantity of
ab-i-narangi, the juice of some of the species, expressed and put into
bottles, is sent to the interior, and is used in making sharbats. Besides these
fruits, there are to be found apples, pomegranates, quinces, pears, peaches,
walnuts, grapes and melons. The vines are seen climbing the trunks of the
forest-trees, and their stems are sometimes 8" and 10" in diameter. The
appearance of the melons is here the reverse of those of the upper provinces
of Persia ; the water-melon of Mazandaran being long and of a greenish
yellow, like the ordinary bread melon ; while the bread-melon is a round,
dark, mottled, green fruit, like most water-melons.”
The climate and marshy soil of the lower parts of Mazandaran seem
well-adopted to the growth of the sugarcane. The appearance of a field
of this plant is that of a dense mass of ordinary reeds of a height of about
5 feet. The canes kept for planting are preserved under ground during the
winter and in the month of March, the ground having been prepared, they
are cut into pieces of two or three joints, and planted in rows. At each
joint there is a bud, and each bud produces from eight to as many as ten
shoots. The canes arrive at maturity in about eight months, when they are
cut down close to the roots. The process of expressing the juice is verv
crude and, as no attempt is made to purify the liquor, the sugar has a strong