Proceedings of the Fariiers* Club. 597 



.(don't dry it so hard you can't) put it into square forms, one 

 pound in each piece. About three and one-half inches square will be 

 the size of one pound of opium. 



Mr. Wilson makes two kinds of opium, one by cutting gashes in 

 the capsules, and gathering the milk or gum that exudes. Then he 

 cuts the tops of the plants, saving some for seed, and grinds them in 

 a mill, and dries away the juice on earthen plates. This gummy or 

 bogus opium he mixes with the true at the rate of two ounces of milk 

 opium to fourteen of the gum opium. 



Dr. F. M. Hexamer said that the poppy can be cultivated either in 

 hills or raised over the land. All over tlie southern part of Europe 

 the poppy is raised broadcast. The way to manufacture opium can 

 be found in any book on drugs ; so he had his doubts as to the advi- 

 sability of paying $400 for this method. It is a very important 

 object. Opium is used in immense quantities in this country. It is 

 in every drug store. Laudanum is made out of it, morphine comes 

 from it, most of the syrups and soothing liniments contain it. I 

 would advise farmers to procure seed from a seed store and try it 

 themselves. 



Dr. W. W. Sanger. — Every physician knows that this opium is a 

 most dangerous thing to use. • I use it and others use it, in nine cases 

 out of ten, without letting the patients know. They very soon 

 become accustomed to it, it pleases them ; it is a very eas}-^ habit to 

 acquire, but it is a desperate one to get over. The question is, will 

 not the general raising of this drug tend to make more opium eaters 

 among us ? The habit of alcoholism is a desperate one, but it is a 

 perfect heaven beside opium-eating. I, for one, would say that the 

 dearer it is the better. I speak as a medical man, having resided ten 

 years on Blackwell's Island. 



Repoet on Marl. 



Mr. James A. Whitney then submitted the following report on a 

 sample of shell marl, a specimen of peat or' muck, and one of a 

 whitish clay, all from western Virginia. 



The shell-marl was composed of shells broken and worn appar- 

 ently by attrition and pressure, and mingled with a small proportion 

 of dark colored grains of earthy matter. It was so hard as to require 

 considerable labor in pulverizing, which reduced it to a dark-gray 

 powder. Heated with hydro-chloric acid, it effervesced violently, 

 and gave a small sediment containing trifling amounts of alumina, 



