OPIUM PLANT. 217 



given by Mr. Kerr, as practised in the province of Baha: he says, 

 " The field being well prepared by the plough and harrow, and 

 reduced to an exact level superficies, it is then divided into quad- 

 rangular areas of seven feet long, and five feet in breadth, leaving 

 two feet of interval, which is raised five or six inches, and excavated 

 into an aqueduct for conveying water to every area, for which pur- 

 pose they have a well in every cultivated field. The seeds are 

 sown in October or November. The plants are allowed to grow 

 six or eight inches distant from each other, and are plentifully sup- 

 plied with water. When the young plants are six or eight inches 

 high, they are watered more sparingly. But the cultivator strews all 

 over the areas a nutrient compost of ashes, human excrements, cow- 

 dung, and a large portion of nitrous earth, scraped from the highways 

 and old mud walls. When the plants are nigh flowering, they are 

 watered profusely to increase the juice. 



" When the capsules are half grown, no more water is given, and 

 they begin to collect the opium. 



" At sun-set they make two longitudinal double incisions upon 

 each half-ripe capsule, passing from below upwards, aud taking 

 care not to penetrate the internal cavity of the capsule. The in- 

 cisions are repeated every evening until each capsule has received 

 six or eight wounds ; they are then allowed to ripen their seeds. 

 The ripe capsules afford little or no juice, If the wound was made 

 in the heat of the day, a cicatrix would be too soon formed. The 

 night dews by their moisture favour the exstillation of the juice. 



M Early in the morning, old women, boys, and girls, collect the 

 juice by scraping it off the wounds with a small iron scoop, and 

 deposit the whole in an earthen-pot, where it is worked by the hand 

 in the open sunshine, until it becomes of a considerable spissitude. 

 It is then formed into cakes of a globular shape, and about four 

 pounds in weight, and laid into little earthen basins to be further 

 exsiccated. These cakes are covered over with the poppy or to- 

 bacco leaves, and dried until they are fit for sale. Opium is fre- 

 quently adulterated with cow-dung, the extract of ihe poppy plant 

 procured by boiling, and various other substances which they keep 

 in secresy." " Opium is here a considerable branch of com- 

 merce. There are about 600,000 pounds of it annually exported 

 from the Ganges." 



