330 ON THE CULTIVATION OF INDIGENOUS OPIUM. 
mitting the diggings between the lines to be multiplied, would carry 
with it a very perceptible economy. 
In the latter case, however, it would be necessary to dig with the 
hand the intervals left between each poppy in the rows. 
To make these seed plats regular Luse a kind of large rake, furnished 
with a long handle firmly fixed. This rake has only three teeth of a 
harrow, flattened like a lance, being each fifteen centimetres in length 
by four in breadth. The teeth are fastened in a piece of oak six centi- 
metres square and one metre twenty in length ; two of them are 
placed at ten centimetres from each of the extremities of the wood, and 
the third between the two others, 40 centimetres from the one and 60 
from the other. It is sufficient to drag this instrument over the 
soil, previously harrowed, to obtain three furrows, the first destined 
for the poppies, leaving an interval of 40 centimetres, and the third, 
distant from the second 60, will show on the ground the breadth of a 
walk, and serves as a guide in the next operation, the first tooth of the 
instrument having to go over the third furrow made by the tLird 
tooth in the preceding operation. So that in each new operation, the 
first tooth of the instrument ought to follow exactly the third furrow 
made by the preceding operation. 
Besides this, I arrange the sowing of the plant in such a manner that 
the lines may be as much as possible in a direction from north to 
south, so that the rays of the sun may more easily penetrate between 
the rows of plants. 
, When the whole of the intended plantation is thus traced the seed 
is then to be sown, having previously mixed it with fine sand or dry 
earth in order to obtain a thin and regular sowing, and afterwards a 
light roller is to be passed over the field. 
The seed remains in the ground a fortnight before the plant appears, 
and develops itself so slowly, that at the end of twenty days the stem is 
scarcely half a millimetre thick, and only five millimetres high, with 
six small leaves of from four to five millimetres in length. 
As soon as the plant has grown to five centimetres high, which 
happens about forty days after its first appearance, it will be necessary 
to dig very lightly in thinning them. It may, however, be as well to 
retard a little this first digging if the frosts of spring are still to be 
feared. M. Lepage of Gisors does away with them altogether, and con- 
fines himself to simply passing the parior between the lines. 
Twelve days after the first digging, it will be necessary, without in- 
juring the roots of the delicate plant, to practice a second digging, the 
object of which is to raise the surplus plants, and to make a distance 
between those that remain of about thirty centimetres in the direction 
of the lines. If required, another digging may be made, which, by de- 
stroying extraneous vegetables hurtful to the plantation, and facili- 
tating the penetration of rain, will augment the fertility of the soil, 
seeing that the same surface of ground will preserve this portion of 
