THE OPIUM POPPY. 209 
India and Africa, which have the hottest climates, is of the poorest 
quality; while that of Turkey and France, which have the coldest, is 
the best. In India the average yield of opium per acre is said, by 
good authority, to be from twenty-five to forty pounds avoirdupois. 
In the department of Somme, in France, 40,000 acres are cultivated 
annually with the poppy, and the good opium sells at wholesale for 
$8 to $10 per pound, according to the quality. At a standard of 10 
per cent. of morphia it will sell for $7 to $7 50 per pound. Besides 
the opium extracted from the capsules of the plants cultivated on this 
large area of land, the seeds have some years been sold for about 
$896,000 for the oil which they contained. The average yield of cil 
from the seeds of capsules which have not been scarified is 25 to 27 per 
cent., and it is considered better for salad oil than most olive oils sold 
in the market. Seeds from scarified capsules should not be used for 
planting, as their vitality has been much weakened by this process, and 
the plants which they produce are correspondingly feeble. They yield 
only about two-thirds as much oil as other seeds. The poppy is also 
cultivated in Germany on a large scale, both for opium and for oil. Its 
culture commenced only a few years ago, but so great has been its suc- 
cess that the opium produced there has nearly supplanted the use of 
the foreign article. From Germany it passed over to France, and there 
are now 60,000 to 70,000 acres under profitable cultivation in the latter 
country. 
EXPERIMENTS. 
In Jefferson County, New York, one-fourth of an acre, planted with 
the poppy, produced twenty-seven pounds of opium in four years, 
equal to one crop of twenty-seven pounds per acre, which, at $10 per 
pound, would amount to $270, as the income of one acre of land for one 
year. Specimens were sent to New York for analysis, and the percent- 
age of morphia was found to be equal to the average of the best im- 
ported. The grower thinks it will pay to cultivate the poppy in this 
country, if the work is conducted with proper skill; and that he can get 
more money from one acre of land planted with poppy than from three 
acres with any other crop which he has ever seen. A man of small 
means, who will cultivate it with skill and perseverance, can make it 
profitable. A capable boy can cultivate a quarter of an acre easily. 
It requires no more weeding and hoeing than any garden crop. Good, 
rich land is required, which should be pulverized and leveled as for 
onions. Hesows in drills as given in our second method, and thins out 
to six inches. between the plants. The young plants which are thinned 
out make excellent greens, fully equal to the beet or the spinach. 
Dr. E. Lewis, of Topeka, Kansas, cultivated the poppy in York Coun- 
ty, Pennsylvania, and gives it as his opinion that opium can be profita- 
bly produced in the latter State. He makes one incision horizontally 
around the capsules soon after the petals of the flowers have fallen, and 
usually performs the operation only once upon the same capsule; but 
if it is large he would perform it twice at different times. 
Mr. W. H.* White, of South Windsor, Connecticut, has cultivated the 
poppy, on a small scale, in the garden. After the petals have fallen he 
makes five, six, or more slight cuts in the capsules from top to bottom, 
a little before noon. A few hours after the incisions have been made 
the opium is scraped off and allowed to stand for a short time, when it 
is worked into balls. Families in that State sometims collect it in this 
way for their own use asa medicine for their children, and find that 
it answers all the purposes of the opium of the shops. A ball ag 
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