March, 1848. OPIUM, GROWTH AND COLLECTION OF. 83 



The E. I. Company grant licences for the cultivation of 

 the poppy, and contract for all the produce at certain rates, 

 varying with the quality. No opium can be grown with- 

 out this licence, and an advance equal to about two-thirds 

 of the value- of the produce is made to the grower. This 

 produce is made over to district collectors, who approx- 

 imately fix the worth of the contents of each jar, and 

 forward it to Patna, where rewards are given for the best 

 samples, and the worst are condemned without payment ; 

 but all is turned to some account in the reduction of the 

 drug to a state fit for market. 



The poppy flowers in the end of January and beginning 

 of February, and the capsules are sliced in February and 

 March with a little instrument like a saw, made of three 

 iron plates with jagged edges, tied together. The cultiva- 

 tion is very carefully conducted, nor are there any very 

 apparent means of improving this branch of commerce and 

 revenue. During the N. W., or dry winds, the best opium 

 is procured, the worst during the moist, or E. and N.E., 

 when the drug imbibes moisture, and a watery bad solution 

 of opium collects in cavities of its substance, and is called 

 Passewa, according to the absence of which the opium is 

 generally prized. 



At the end of March the opium jars arrive at the stores 

 by water and by land, and continue accumulating for some 

 weeks. Every jar is labelled and stowed in a proper 

 place, separately tested with extreme accuracy, and valued. 

 When the whole quantity has been received, the contents 

 of all the jars are thrown into great vats, occupying a very 

 large building, whence the mass is distributed, to be made 

 up into balls for the markets. This operation is carried on in 

 a long paved room, where every man is ticketed, and many 

 overseers are stationed to see that the work is properly 



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