PAPAVER 



OPIUM 



Malwa 



THE OPIUM POPPY 



Seasons. 



Eotation. 



Malwa. 



Black Cotton 

 Soils Useless. 



Districts. 



Panjab. 



Manufac- 

 ture. 



Crude 



Bengal 



Opium. 



Scratching. 



Construction of 

 Knife. 



provision opium. Some eight or ten days after the removal of the petals 

 the capsules are ripe. The earliest collection of opium in Bengal is, there- 

 fore, about the end of January, and may be continued to the middle of 

 March. In the United Provinces the seasons are a little later, flowering 

 not being general till March and collection of the drug extended well into 

 April, and in the hills till June. After the poppy is off the soil the land is 

 usually left fallow till the succeeding kharif and is then sown with other 

 crops, or in rare instances is highly manured and sown again with poppy. 

 [Cf. Baden-Powell, Pb. Prod., 1868, i., 295-7 ; Stewart, Pb. Plants, 1869, 

 10 ; Duthie and Fuller, Field and Garden Crops, 1883, ii., 64-8 ; Basu, 

 Agri. Lohardaga, 1890, ii., 41-2 ; K.E.P., Rev., Offic. Corresp. on Opium, 

 1896 ; Mukerji, Handbook Ind. Agri., 1901,441-5; Shahpur Gaz., 168-70 ; 

 Excise Admin. Repts,] 



Malwa, Panjab, etc. Of Malwa, for example, it has been said a 

 mild climate, plentiful irrigation, rich soil and diligent husbandry are 

 indispensable. The black cotton soils from which annual crops of wheat 

 may be obtained without any manure are useless for poppy unless richly 

 fertilised. In Baroda, poppy follows a crop of bdjra. The following 

 are the centres of production of Malwa opium : In Central India 

 Indore, Gwalior, Bhopal, Bandelkhand, Baghelkhand, Malwa and Bhopa- 

 war : in Rajputana Mewar, Jaipur, Haraoti and Tonk, Eastern Kajpu- 

 tana States, Kotah, Alwar, Bikanir and Western Kajputana States. An 

 interesting account of Opium in Malwa was prepared by Mr. H. Hastings 

 in 1895. Shahpur is the chief opium-growing district in the Panjab, the 

 supplies going mainly to the chief Sikh centres of Lahore and Amritsar. 

 [Cf. Mollison, Textbook Ind. Agri., 1901, iii., 245-7.] 



EXTRACTION AND MANUFACTURE OF OPIUM. 



The cultivation of the poppy yields several distinct and paying sub- 

 stances. There are (1) the inspissated sap of the green capsules crude 

 opium; (2) the moisture and soluble substances that drain from the 

 opium, known as pasewa ; (3) the poppy petals; (4) the "trash" or 

 powder prepared from the leaves, dried stems, etc. ; (5) the capsules ; 

 and (6) the oil-seed. The first-named three substances are those alone 

 with which the Opium Department are concerned, and these, therefore, 

 have to be dealt with here in some detail. 



1. Crude Opium. The green capsules are scratched in the afternoon 

 with an instrument called the nashtar. This consists of four sharp blades 

 tied together with cotton, passed between the blades so as to keep them one- 

 thirtieth of an inch apart and allow of scratchings being made to a certain 

 depth through the wall of the capsule and no farther. It is important 

 that the wall of the capsule be never completely severed, but at the same 

 time a purely superficial scratching is useless. The exact degree of pene- 

 tration to ensure the best possible flow of milk requires great skill. The 

 padding of cotton between the blades is intended to assist in this matter, 

 since the blades can but cut up to that point when drawn at a certain angle. 

 The incisions are usually made from below upwards, more or less per- 

 pendicularly. By modern usage this is done in the afternoon, but according 

 to Johnson, "in the hottest part of the day, the juice as it exudes in the 

 night may be protected by the pellicle formed in the day ; the wound 

 ought to be diagonal to prevent the juice from falling off in the night when 

 the dews are heavy." 



Each capsule is usually lanced in this manner three or four times at 



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