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505 
In which it is colleded has been defcribed long ago by Kaempfer and 
others; but the moil circumftantial detail of the culture of the Poppy, 
and the method of procuring the opium from it, is that given by 
Mr. Kerr, as pradifed in the Province of Bahar : he fays, cc The field 
" being well prepared by the plough and harrow, and reduced to an 
" exad level fuperficies, it is then divided into quadrangular areas of 
" k\m feet long, and five feet in breadth, leaving two feet of inter- 
which is raifed five or fix inches, and excavated into an aque- 
dud for conveying water to every area, for which purpofe they 
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" have a well in every cultivated field. The feeds are fown in 
" Odober or November. The plants are allowed to erow fi 
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:ight inches diftant from each other, and are plentifully fupplied 
vith water. When the young plants are fix or eight inches high, 
hey are watered more fparingly. But the cultivator ftrews all over 
the areas a nutrient comport of afhes, human excrements, cow 
dung, and a large portion of nitrous earth, fcraped from the high 
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" ways and old mud walls. When the plants are nigh flowering 
" they are watered profufely to increafe the juice. 
" When the capfules are half grown, no more water is given, and 
they begin to colled the opium. 
At fun-fet they make two longitudinal double incifions II upon 
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each half-ripe capfule, pafling from below upwards, and taking 
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care not to penetrate the internal cavity of the capfule. The 
incifions are repeated every evening until each capfule has received 
fix or eight wounds ; they are then allowed to ripen their feeds. 
The ripe capfules afford little or no juice. If the wound was 
made in the heat of the day, a cicatrix would be too foon formed. 
The night-dews by their moifture favour the exftillation of the 
juice. 
Early in the morning, old women, boys, and girls, colled the 
juice by fcraping it off the wounds w T ith a fmall iron fcoop, and 
depofit the whole in an earthen pot, where it is worked by the 
hand in the open funfhine, until it becomes of a confiderable 
fpiffitude. It is then formed into cakes of a globular fhape, and 
four pounds in weight, and laid into little earthen bafins to 
Kaempfer fays, that in Perfia, a five-pointed knife is ufed for making the incifions. 
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Anocn. ExqU Obji 15 
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