332 ON THE CULTIVATION OP INDIGENOUS OPIUM. 
This instrument, which has been on my part the object of two 
successive improvements, obtained a bronze medal at the Concours 
Regional of Vesoul in 1863, and the bronze medal at that of Epinal in 
1864. But if it prove useful to the planters of opium, and to the country, 
this will be my best recompense. 
It is composed first, of a frame of iron, furnished with a handle of 
wood, and into which frame, there slides, like the iron of a plane, three 
lancet blades, at a distance from each other, and held afterwards in their 
position by the help of a vice de pression. The blades of the instru- 
ment may be regulated at will. If the incisions are very superficial, 
the vice being fastened, the operation can be continued. If, on the 
contrary, it is perceived they run through the wall of the capsule, the 
length of the blades must be gradually diminished, until they are short 
enough to make superficial incisions ; for every pierced capsule is a cap- 
sule lost, the seed never coming to maturity. If the instrument does not 
wound sufficiently more blade can be exposed, and try again. 
Such was originally my instrument. In a first improvement upon 
it, I changed the shape of the blades, substituting for lancets the blade 
of a penknife ; the point of the latter giving greater facility for com- 
mencing the incisions. In my second, the vice for holding the lancet 
has been changed in position, and placed at the back of the instrument ; 
by the fraction of a turn, it causes the frame of the three blades to 
move either backwards or forwards in an infinitely small degree. 
This instrument, by its construction, enables even the most unskilful 
workman to give to the cutting blades the exact projection necessary for 
producing superficial incisions, and which, not penetrating the wall of 
the capsule, does not injure the growth of the plant, or, consequently, 
the maturity of the seed. 
The instrument with bent teeth spoken of by Messrs. Benard and 
Collas, is little used. It pierces and destroys the wall of the poppy 
head. I tried it in 1860. 
7. Gathering of the Opium. 
When the capsules, or poppy heads, still green, have attained their 
full size (fifteen to twenty days after the falling of the leaves), incisions, 
horizontal and very superficial, are to be made with the little instrument 
I have just described * 
The milky juice then appears, and is collected some minutes 
after, for later it will not fail to become thick, solid, and dry ; and then 
the gathering of it becomes more tedious and expensive : besides, 
in our country, it might be fatally carried away and lost by storm 
showers. 
It is sufficient to hold the head of the poppy between the thumb and 
index finger of the left hand, and to pass horizontally over the surface 
* M. Bonafous, of Turin (Italy), has proved that transverse incisions give a 
quantity of opium juice double that furnished by longitudinal incisions. 
