334 ON THE CULTIVATION OP INDIGENOUS OPIUM. 
are of a delicate green, which they preserve for about eight days : the wall 
of the capsules, then very thin, is elastic ; yields under the pressure of the 
instrument for incising, is difficult to cut, or else may be pierced through, 
in this case, nothing is obtained but a milky juice, so thin that it falls 
almost immediately over the leaves of the plant, where it is impossible 
to gather it. 
Later still, the capsules become of a deep green tint, grow hard, re- 
sistant, and their surface is covered with a kind of whitish dust, easily 
removed by the finger. The longitudinal depressions corresponding with 
the false partitions of the interior, become very apparent ; the capsule, 
then under the incising instrument, makes a slight noise, analogous to 
that which the cutting of an apple produces. 
The sap, slightly yellowish, which comes in abundance from it, 
concretes rapidly and gives an opium very rich in morphia. It is then, 
at this stage of vegetation, that it is necessary to practice light incisions 
of the poppy head to obtain the best results. Later in their growth, the 
capsules become yellowish and yield little opium. 
However, some travellers say that it is only at this moment that the 
gathering of the opium takes place in Oriental countries. But the trials 
made in France have all proved that it is then too late to take the juice. 
2. It must not be forgotten that a too superficial incision gives less 
milky juice than that which penetrates half through the thickness of 
the wall of the capsule ; but the contrary extreme must not take place, 
and the capsule be pierced, which would let part of the opiate juice into 
the interior of the head, and finally destroy the seed. 
3. When it is intended to incise, for example, the same heads three 
times, the length of each horizontal incision must be less than the third 
of the circumference of the head, and the cuttings must not cross each 
other. 
4. It must be remembered that the first incisions made of the cap- 
sules in an opportune time, furnish opium the richest in morphia ; 
that the second gives a production less abundant, and not so rich as the 
first ; and the third less rich still than the second, and so on, until in the 
end the last incisions do not pay in produce for the time they take. • 
5. The first incision made at the right moment, as already remarked, 
gives a product more abundant and richer than any other. I think, 
therefore, to economise time and labour, it would be better to use a 
greater quantity of ground, and only to practice a single incision on all 
the plantation, thus leaving aside the late capsules. In this way it 
would be always possible to hire labourers by the day, and to pursue the 
operation from the disappearance of morning dew until four or five in the 
evening. 
It would even be possible, in certain localities, to sow poppies for 
the seed in preference to rape, which gives an oil of a quality very in- 
ferior to the poppy, and only to incise the whole plantation once, 
observing always that this one incision of each head must be circular 
