of British Opium. 77 



more abbreviated by dry and warm weather. No procrastina- 

 tion must therefore be suffered to purloin any part of it. 



3, The third point is, to take care to engage a sufficient num- 

 ber of hands for the quantity of ground occupied by the poppies. 

 From a neglect in this particular, it appears to me thatMr. Jones's 

 failure, mentioned in the essay before referred to {Edinburgh 

 Journal, p. 261,) chiefly arose. If indeed he may properly be 

 said to have/aiZerf, when he received ten guineas per pound for 

 five pounds out of twenty-one pounds seven ounces, and had 

 the remainder to dispose of at the market-price. Mr. Jones, as 

 he himself tells us, had more than five acres of poppies, and 

 only one man and seven or eight boys to attend to the whole, not 

 more than sufllicient, according to Mr. Young's calculation, for 

 half an acre. But he probably knew pretty well that twenty- 

 one pounds of opium would be sufficient to secure the premium 

 of the Society of Arts, ^c. ; and, being a London druggist, 

 he knew better how to dispose of dried poppy-heads to as 

 great advantage as if he had been at the expense of employ- 

 ing a greater number of hands in wounding and collecting opium 

 from them. It is plain, from what he says in one of his calcula- 

 tions, viz.*, "Judging from the number of heads wi& preserved," 

 that a portion of the crop was appropriated to the purpose of 

 obtaining dried poppy-heads. With which intention, partly, it 

 is not improbable that the field might have been originally sown. 

 But, however that may be, it is quite necessary that a sufficient 

 number of hands be engaged, in proportion to the quantity of 

 poppies. In my mode of proceeding, I believe, one person, if 

 skilful and active, might be equal to the management of ten or 

 twelve rods of ground, particularly if it had been sown at differ- 

 ent periods, so that the plants might come to maturity in suc- 

 cession. That accurate botanist and correct author, J. Ray, tells 

 us (in his Historia Plantarum : de Papavere,) that in the eastern 

 countries the cultivators of poppies are attentive to this point. 

 His words are, " serendo observant, ut unusquisque rusticus 

 tantum serat quantum putat se habiturum qui coUigant." And he 



* Transactions of the Society of Arts. Vol. 18. \>. 170. 



