340 On the Cultivation of the Poppy. 
eight or ten days, until they are perfectly dry. It was cus- 
tomary to cut open the capsulum with a knife: he prefers 
hacking it in two or three places with a bill-hook, and as- 
serts that one person may in this manner do more work than 
ten times the nuinber of hands in the former’manner; and 
that the seeds are more easily evacuated from their cells. But 
the most convenient and expeditious method is to cut off the 
poppy heads as they stand in the field: the reapers having 
an apron before them, tied up at the corners. In this they. 
collect as large a nuniber as is convenient, and empty them 
into bushel baskets placed upon a cloth; by which a con- 
siderable quantity of seed is saved. The heads are after- 
wards put into corn sacks, in a competent number to be 
trodden by men or children -in sabets, or to be bruised by a 
mallet or flail; by these means the heads are confined from 
flying from the stroke, and the seeds preserved from being 
scattered, and afterwards passed through a sieve of a proper 
size. 
In extracting the oil, it is of the utmost importance that 
mill, press, and bags, be perfectly clean and pure., New 
bags are necessary, as those used for linseed, rape, or any 
other seed, will communicate an unpleasant taste to the oil. 
It is adviseable to extract the oil as soon after the harvest as 
possible, as the seeds will yield a larger quantity than if de- 
ferred till the spring, 
The first oil is destined for the use of families. This is 
cold-drawn, as any degree of warmth injures the flavour. 
After as much is extracted in this manner as possible, a con- 
siderable quantity of an inferior quality is obtained by heat- 
ing the cakes, and pressing them a second time. 4 
The oil expressed must remain for the space of five or 
six weeks before it is used, that it may deposit in a sedi- 
ment a kind of milky substance that is mixed with it. It 
must then be poured into another vessel; and this should 
not be perfectly closed at first, bat the opening be covered 
with a linen cloth, or a pricked bladder, that certain exhala- 
tions may pass. Nor should the oil be immediately used 
after the process is finished, as it continues to improve for 
a considerable length of time. 
7 That 
