354 NOTES ON THE CULTIVATION OP THE POPPY. 



when the fields are covered with rain-water, as it impoverishes the soil. As 

 the season for sowing advances, or about the month of November, flocks of 

 goats, or sheep, if procurable, might be penned with very great advantage 

 on the fields for one or more nights, as the manure thus obtained operates 

 favourably on, and is peculiarly invigorating for the soil. The poppy, unlike 

 many other plants, the soil of which requires what is agriculturally termed 

 ■" a rotation of crops," may be sown on the same ground, year after year, 

 with unerring regularity, as the quantity of decayed vegetable and animal 

 manure put into the soil, imparts sufficient nourishment to the ground to 

 sustain annual crops of poppy without in the least degree being deteriorated 

 by these yearly sowings. 



When the lands are ready, or about the middle of November, the early 

 sowings may commence, and the 2nd and 3rd be concluded in December. 

 The seed should be of the previous year free from damp ; it should be 

 moistened in water the evening previous to sowing, and the next morning, 

 after being removed out of the water, it should be scattered over the fields 

 mixed with fine earth at the rate of two seers per beegah of the large 

 bazar weight : should the ground be dry, it might be irrigated with ad- 

 vantage prior to sowing. Another mode is adopted in some districts, of 

 throwing the dry seed broad-cast. After sowing, the land should be irri- 

 gated the next day (if not previously done), and then on the succeeding day 

 ploughed and harrowed. 



After a week the beds should be made from 3J to 4 cubits in length by 

 2 to 1\ cubits in breadth. All the beds should be placed in consecutive 

 rows, according to the level of the ground, so that there may be no diffi- 

 culty in irrigating the land. A drain or outlet should intervene between 

 every two beds for the passage of water. In lands bordering on rivers and 

 jheels, as they retain their moisture till December, the necessity of forming 

 beds in them does not exist on that account, as they (the beds) are only 

 useful to facilitate the watering of crops. Wells are essentially necessary 

 for poppy-fields, and every facility and encouragement should be given to 

 construct them wherever they are wanted. Kucha-wells may be dug at a 

 very trifling cost, which would be more than three-fold repaid by the 

 productive returns of the crops. Well-water is preferred to water obtained 

 from any other source, such as jheels and rivers ; but the cultivators, from 

 necessity, are frequently obliged, from the want of wells, or their great 

 distance from the fields, to avail themselves of jheel irrigation. 



When the plant attains to the size of two inches in height, the beds, 

 after being well irrigated, should be carefully weeded and thinned, and 

 the plants to be retained should be kept from 3 to 4 inches apart from 

 each other. Two weeks after the same operations are to be practised, 

 all the sickly and superfluous plants, together with all foreign and noxious 

 herbs, should be removed, leaving the vigorous poppy plants at distances 

 of 7 or 8 inches from each other. Then the process of gently 

 digging up the soil with a hoe or spud should be diligently carried out, 

 and the fields must continue to be dug and irrigated every two weeks ; 



