10 Mr Young on the Preparation of Poppy Oil, 
that the seeds of die poppy are sold in the markets, and are 
reckoned delicious eating ; they are used in emulsions, and en- 
ter into the cooling prescriptions of the Hindostan physicians. 
This is corroborated by A, W. Davis * : According to him, the 
seeds are valuable for the oil they contain ; and, as an article of 
food, are in great request with the natives ; and when used 
in this way, it is scarcely to be distinguished from olive oil, 
which is often adulterated with it *f*. I have seen large quanti- 
ties of poppy seed exposed for sale in the bazaar of Calcutta. 
We are told by Mr C. A. Fisher, in his Letters written du- 
ring a journey to Montpellier, in the year 1804, that the oil of 
Provence, which, on account of its purity, mildness, and fine 
flavour, is famous all over Europe, is exported to Italy in large 
quantities, and was formerly exported to many distant countries ; 
but since the hard winters of 1789 and the following years, so 
many olive trees have been frozen, and, during the revolution, 
so few planted, that Aix (which was the principal seat of its 
traffic) has now entirely lost its first and most lucrative branch 
of commerce. 
Two inferences may be drawn from the preceding observa- 
tion. Our best oils, though imported from Italy, are probably 
of the growth of Provence, and it is still more probable that the 
inferior sorts could not be afforded, even at the present price, 
without a large mixture of the poppy oil. 
It is generally admitted, that certain crops sown according to 
the drill system, come to greater perfection than when sown in 
the broad-cast way. That this is the case with the poppy, will 
appear from the following statement. 
In cultivating the poppy for opium, I sowed it in three diffe- 
rent ways. 
The first broad-cast, upon beds three feet wide, with an alley 
between, and thinned out to the distance of four and five inches. 
The second on beds three feet wide, in rows, six rows to a 
bed, and six inches between the plants. 
The third on the spaces between rows of early potatoes, four 
feet wide. Two rows of poppies on each space ; twelve inches 
* Transactions of the Society of Arts, vol. xvi. p, 275. 
’f Rees’s C^iclopmlia, vol, xxv. crt. Oil of Poppy Seed or Pink Oil. 
