THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
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individuals, including women and children, for each family, these figures, which 
apply solely to Bengal, give us a total exceeding six millions of people who are 
more or less engaged in the cultivation of the poppy. 
Assuming that the number of the population engaged in Central India in 
poppy cultivation is about equal to the number so employed in Bengal, it is 
ealculated that there is a grand total exceeding twelve millions of the people 
of India to whom the cultivation of the poppy is a matter of deep interest 
and advantage. 
Mr. Buckland thus describes the system of cultivation : When the land 
has been ploughed and harrowed, the poppy-seed is sown in the end of October 
and the beginning of November. A soil of sandy loam is considered the most 
suitable. The seed is usually saved from the crop of the previous year, the 
capsules which have yielded most opium being also productive of the best seed. 
Six pounds of seed are sufficient for the third of an acre. As soon as the 
seed begins to germinate, which is about a week after it is sown, the field 
is divided by a cross series of ridges into rectangular compartments, or beds, 
about eight feet in length by four feet in breadth, the alternate ridges being 
made broader than the others to form the water-channels for the irrigation of 
the plant. The flowering of the plant takes place about seventy-five days 
after germination, and the petals, which are four in number, are gently 
removed on the third day after their first expansion. These petals are to be 
pasted together into leaves, as they are technically called, which are used to 
form the outer shell of the opium cake. In the course of another 
eight or ten days the capsules are sufficiently ripe for the extraction of the 
juice. 
In order to extract the opium the capsule is lanced in the evening with 
a small instrument consisting of four blades, something similar to the blades 
of a cupping instrument. The incisions are made from below upwards, in 
perpendicular lines, and much skill is needed to make them of the right 
depth. Each capsule is usually lanced three or four times, at intervals of 
two or three days. In the operation of lancing the work is generally performed 
by the ryot and his family. The opium is collected in the early morning of 
the day following the day of lancing. The juice which has exuded from the 
incisions is scraped off with a small scoop, from which it is transferred to a 
metal or earthen vessel, and is taken to the ryot’s house. Here it is treated 
in a simple manner, so as to get rid of mildew and any excessive moisture. 
In addition to the crude opium, which is produced in the simple manner that 
has just been described, the poppy plant yields an additional profit to the 
cultivator from its flower petals and from its stalks and leaves. The collection 
of the petals, and the preparation of the leaves, are the duty — and a favourite 
duty — of the females of the cultivator’s family, who generally manage to 
appropriate the proceeds as pin money. In addition to the value of the 
petals of the flowers there is a small profit derivable from the stalks and 
leaves of the poppy plant. These are collected from the plants after they have 
stood long enough to wither and dry, and the leaves and thinner parts of 
the stalks are then broken up into “ trash,” as it is technically called, which 
is used for packing the opium cakes softly and snugly in the chests for 
exportation. The thick parts of the stalks are used by peasants for fuel or 
thatching purposes. 
The crude opium having been gathered by the cultivator and stored in his 
own hut, he has to watch it carefully from day to day to see that it is free from 
mould, and to turn it over from time to time to raise its consistence by exposure 
to the air. “ Consistence ” is a technical term in the opium department, indicating 
