Ok opium. 



413 



at a moderate computatirn, it may be prefumed that one half 

 of this fum is employed in the neceflary expences of plough- 

 ing, manuring, lowing, watering, and colle£ling, &c. &c. 

 Say then that 2?. 13. 10, are clear gain, (which muft be al- 

 lowed to be a large proportion.) Now the poppy cannot 

 be employed as an article of diet ; whereas the lettuce, which 

 grows here in the moft luxuriant manner, will amply re- 

 pay the labour and cxpcnce (which at moft is trifling) at- 

 tending its cultivation, by the fale of the fupernumerary 

 plants taken up at an early period for diet, long before the 

 developement of the opium principle. Here then the very 

 labour employed has the double advantage of thinning the 

 plants, thereby rendering the remainder more perfed ; whilll 

 it colledls for the market fuch as have arrived to fufficient 

 maturity for the table. 



The lale of thefe fupernumerary plants would, I con- 

 ceive, ^7/ /m// repay the labour, &c. attending their cultiva- 

 tion: and if the reft yit-lded per acre (9;//v 60 lbs. of opium, dou- 

 ble the profit would arile from its cultivation, above that of 

 the poppy. The great abundance of the juice however, and 

 the luxuriance of the plant, render it highly probable, that 

 double that quantity, if not more, might be procured from 

 the acre of ground. 



The price of this valuable article of the Materia Medica, 

 leads me to hope that farmeis and others will attend to the 

 cultivation of the lettuce, in order to obviate one fource of 

 the annual expenditure of money from the United States ; 

 and as Dr. Ci unipe oblerves in his valuable treatife upon opi- 

 um, " If any overplus remained after our own demands, a 

 ready market would be found for it in the Ealt Indies, 

 where its confumption is vei'y confiderable, and price gene- 

 rally high." 



The medical virtues of opium would appear from the ex- 

 periments of authors, to reiide more particularly in the rx- 

 tmdive principle. If this be certainly the cafe, the opium 



of 



