PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS. 899 



plant was cultivated in Egypt in more ancient times. 1 

 In the Middle Ages 2 and in our own day it is one of the 

 principal objects of cultivation in that country, especially 

 for the manufacture of opium. Hebrew writings do not 

 mention the species. On the other hand, there are one 

 or two Sanskrit names. Piddington gives chosa, and 

 Adolphe Pictet khaskhasa, which recurs, he says, in the 

 Persian chashchdsh, the Armenian chashchash? and in 

 Arabic. Another Persian name is kouknar* These 

 names, and others I could quote, very different from the 

 maikon (M//KWV) of the Greeks, are an indication of an 

 ancient cultivation in Europe and Western Asia. If the 

 species was first cultivated in prehistoric time in Greece, 

 as appears probable, it may have spread eastward before 

 the Aryan invasion of India, but it is strange that there 

 should be no proof of its extension into Palestine and 

 Egypt before the Roman epoch. It is also possible that 

 in Europe the variety called Papaver setigeru/m, employed 

 by the Swiss lake-dwellers, was first cultivated, and that 

 the variety now grown came from Asia Minor, where the 

 species has been cultivated for at least three thousand 

 years. This theory is supported by the existence of the 

 Greek name maikon, in Dorian makon, in several Slav 

 languages, and in those of the peoples to the south of the 

 Caucasus, under the form macA:. 5 



The cultivation of the poppy in India has been 

 recently extended, because of the importation of opium 

 into China ; but the Chinese will soon cease to vex the 

 English by buying this poison of them, for they are be- 

 ginning eagerly to produce it themselves. The poppy is 

 now grown over more than half of their territory. 6 The 

 species is never wild in the east of Asia, and even as 

 regards China its cultivation is recent. 7 



1 linger, Die Pflanze als Errerungs und Betaubungsmittel, p. 47 ; I)it 

 Pflanzen des Alien JEgyptens, i. p. 50. 



2 Ebn Baithar, German trans., i. p. 64. 



8 Ad. Pictet, Origines Iwlo-Europeennes, edit. 3, vol. i. p. 3P 



4 Ainslie, Mat. Med. Indica, i. p. 326. 



5 Nemnich, Polygl. Lexicon, p. 848. 



3 Martin, in Bull. Soc. d'Acclimatation, 1872, p. 200. 



7 Sir J. Hooker, Flora of Brit. Ind., i. p. 117 ; Bretschneider, Study 

 and Value, etc., 47. 



