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THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
All Goodenias have to us here a further special interest, as the genus was 
dedicated by Sir James Smith, the founder of the Linnean Society, to the 
Eight Eeverend Dr. Samuel Goodenough, Bishop of Carlisle, a vice-president of 
the society, in appreciation of his researches on British Carices and Algae, this 
distinguished prelate having the fame of his name continued in Australia 
especially through his grandson, the noble-minded Commodore Goodenough, who 
so sadly fell victim to the treachery of savages not far from our shores, when 
in command of the Australian Naval Station. 
THE OPIUM POPPY CULTIVATION IN INDIA. 
The December number of the National JRevieio contains an extremely interesting 
paper on this subject from the pen of Mr. C. T. Buckland, some condensed 
extracts from which may prove acceptable to our readers. 
Although the poppy will grow in almost every country and climate, it 
is in certain parts of India that it has been most carefully and extensively 
cultivated, so as to produce an amount of opium which forms an important item 
in the finance and revenue of the British Empire in India. The Indian opium 
revenue is derived from two sources — Malwa opium and Bengal opium. The 
first is produced in the native States of Central India, and is exported from 
Bombay. The British Government levies a revenue from it by a system of 
export passes, which are regulated in value, so as to keep the price of Malwa 
opium on a certain proportionate level with Bengal opium. The British 
Government has nothing to do with the cultivation of Malwa opium, but merely 
taxes it at the highest amount which it can safely impose. Bengal opium, on the 
other hand, is the produce of the poppy as cultivated in certain districts of 
Behar and the North-west Provinces of Bengal, under the direct superintendence 
of Government agents and other officers appointed for the purpose. A special 
commission was recently appointed by the Government of India to inquire into 
the management of this department, and it is from the report submitted by this 
commission — “ which contains a very complete and minute display of every 
particular connected with opium, from the planting of the poppy-seed to the sale 
of the drug to the merchants who buy it for export to China and the Straits 
Settlements” — that Mr. Buckland extracts a deal of novel and interesting infor- 
mation. 
At one time, it appears, Bengal opium was threatened by the rivalry of 
Turkey opium, which was imported into China via Singapore, and by the com- 
petition in the China market of the opium imported direct from the native States 
of Central India, where cultivation was formerly unrestricted and almost untaxed. 
But Turkey opium failed to suit the palate of the Chinese, and the opium of 
the native States was taxed by the British Government under the name of Malwa 
opium, so as to contribute its full share to the revenue of the Government of 
India. Henceforth the production of opium in Bengal continued to increase 
until, at the present time, the area under poppy cultivation in the Benares 
agency is about one hundred and fifty thousand acres, for which there are 
thirty thousand licenses and six hundred thousand cultivators. In the Behar 
agency the cultivation is estimated by the commissioners at about one hundred 
and fifty thousand acres, with seven hundred thousand cultivators, thus giving 
a grand total of one million three hundred thousand men who devote themselves 
to this husbandry. According to the recognised census estimate of five 
