220 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



under a fine of three thousand livres for every 

 offence. 



Notwithstanding this penalty the clandestine sale 

 of the article was encouraged, and gradually in- 

 creased until 1735, when a still severer decree was 

 issued against its employment ; and its sale was in- 

 terdicted most rigorously, unless the oil offered for 

 sale had a previous admixture of a certain quantity 

 of extract of turpentine to each cask, thus restricting 

 its use to the painter and varnisher. This second 

 enactment only served to annihilate all public sale; 

 but the secret demand continued to increase, till at 

 length, in 1773, an agricultural society undertook to 

 re-examine the subject ; and chemical investigations 

 confirmed the opinion which had been pronounced 

 more than fifty years before. The people, in the 

 course of half a century, had become more enlight- 

 ened, and the free sale of this oil was again per- 

 mitted, without raising any formidable opposition. 

 Since that period the prejudice has gradually been 

 removed, and poppy oil is now in general estimation 

 on the Continent. It has been ascertained that not 

 only the oil which is expressed, but that no part of 

 the seed, has any of the deleterious properties of 

 opium ; and in Brabant the oil-cake from poppy 

 seeds is constantly used as food for cattle with ob- 

 vious benefit. 



This is an object of careful cultivation in some 

 parts of the Continent, and its advantages have been 

 held out to the attention of the British agriculturist, 

 who, it is thought, might profitably engage in its 

 production. 



. The time of sowing the seed is in March to the 

 middle of April. About two pounds per acre is 

 usually the quantity sown broad-cast. It would 

 be superfluous to give any description of this well' 



