THE OPIUM POPPY 



a mile per annum.^ The seeds themselves are very light and are 

 of some value ; they may be eaten like caraway-seed, as com- 

 fits, or crushed to supply an oil for lamps, or used as medicine. 

 It is said that the value of the seed raised in France was in 

 one year £170,000. The heads themselves are also valuable 

 (they are worth 35s. per thousand), and even the dried stalks 

 and leaves, for they may be used as fodder. 



But the real reason why the plant is cultivated in so many 

 parts of the earth is the great value of the opium obtained 

 from it. This is gathered in the following curious way. As 

 soon as the dew has dried off the plant, the cultivator goes 

 round the beds and scratches every poppy-head with a tool 

 made up of three knives tied together. That is the time re- 

 commended by Theophrastus, and it is apparently still the 

 usual time to choose. In the late afternoon, from four to 

 seven, he comes round again and scrapes off the congealed milk, 

 which is then worked up into cakes and taken to the factory. 



It is prepared by being kneaded, dried, and rubbed until 

 it is of a pale golden colour.^ Finally, it is enclosed in a 

 mass of poppy petals, sometimes mixed with the fruits of 

 a kind of dock, and is then ready for export. 



It is cultivated in a great many parts of the world — 

 Turkey, Syria, Persia, France, China, the United States, 

 Germany, Queensland, but especially in British India, where 

 the immense plains at Malwa used to furnish opium worth 

 about sixty million rupees annually (after deducting all 

 expenses). This was mostly exported to China, and 

 amounted to a tax of about threepence per head on 

 every Chinaman ; it was also sufficient to defray about 



^ This is not quite certain. 



2 Rudyard Kipling has a most interesting account of the great opium 

 factory at Malwa. 



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