74 The Poppy. 



area, for which purpose they have a well in every cultivated field. 

 The seeds are sown in November and October. The plants are 

 allowed to grow six or eight inches distant from each other, 

 and are plentifully supplied with water; when the young plants 

 are six or eight inches high, they are watered more sparingly ; 

 but the cultivator spreads over all the areas a great quantity of 

 manure, mixed with nitrous earth which he has scraped from the 

 highways and old mud walls. When the plants are near flower- 

 ing, 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 sunset they make two longitudinal 

 double incisions upon each half-ripe capsule, passing from below 

 upwards, and taking care not to pentrate the internal cavity of 

 the capsule. The incisions are repeated every evening until 

 each capsule has received six or eight wounds ; then they are 

 allowed to ripen the seeds. The ripe capsules afford little or no 

 juice. If the wounds are made in the heat of the day, a cicatrix 

 would have been formed too soon. The night dews, by their 

 moisture, favor the exstillation of the juice. Early in the morn- 

 ing, old women, boys and girls collect the juice by scraping it 

 off the wounds with a 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 vessels to be further exsiccat- 

 ed. These cakes are covered over with the Poppy or Tobacco 

 leaves, and dried until they are fit for safe. They frequently 

 adulterate it with an extract of the plant procured by boiling, 

 and various other substances which they keep secret. 



Another method is, to make an extract from those capsules 

 which have refused to yield their juice by exudation. Both 

 methods were known to the ancients. Newman was informed at 

 Genoa and Leghorn, by the Turks, that in some places the heads, 

 stalks and leaves are committed to the press together, and that 

 this juice inspissated affords a very good Opium. 



It was formerly supposed that the first preparation, by exuda- 

 tion, which is far the most valuable and powerful, was never 

 sent here, being consumed in the countries that make it. The 

 experiments of the English cultivators have proved that this is a 

 mistake, and that we really receive the strongest kinds is beyond 



