ON THE CULTIVATION OF INDIGENOUS OPIUM. 337 
"Towards the end of July, the" moment the capsules begin to oper, 
the stalks are pulled up always holding them straight. Bundles are 
then formed of about a hundred in each and tied together, making what 
is called a sheaf. 
" Ten or twelve days after the pulling up, whilst all the capsules are 
open and well dried, when the grain is hard upon agitating the head*, 
they are rested on a large cloth, and beaten with a little stick, then the 
labourers take each a bunch of poppy stems under each arm, knocking 
the heads against each other, the seed is thus made to fall out on the 
bdche. These bundles are then put standing up in a line to undergo a 
second beating, in a week after the first, when it is perceived that a 
good many capsules still contain seed. 
" The seed passed through a sieve and well cleaned, is ready for 
market, where it sells at a price varying from twenty-eight to thirty -five 
francs the hectolitre, on an average, of thirty-one francs fifty cents lor 
Amiens." 
To these details, I shall add some information resulting from my own 
experience : — 
1. A carnation poppy capsule gives on an average three grammes 
and a half to four grammes of dry seed. 
2. To produce a litre, requires from a hundred and fifty to two 
hundred heads. 
3. The litre of seed weighs 600 grammes, and consequently the 
hectolitre 60 kilogrammess. 
From the poppy seed there is extracted by pressure an oil, which 
next to olive oil holds the highest rank for alimentary use. It gives 
28 litres per hectolitre. 
This oil is white, siccative, of a very agreeable sweet odour, something 
like that of the hazel nut, its density is from 0-9253 taken by the oleo- 
metest of M. Lefebvre of Amiens and marks 55° 25' the centesimal 
alcoometer ; it is soluble in twenty-five parts of alcohol (cold), and six 
of boiling alcohol, and remains liquid at ten, and even fifteen degrees 
below zero — it never turns rancid. 
Notwithstanding the prejudices which exist, I ought to say that 
neither this oil, nor the seed which furnishes^it, have any unwholesome 
property* 
It does not contain any narcotic principle, children eat poppy seed 
without being indisposed, and birds as well as poultry are very fond of 
it. M. Emile Mouchon, pharmacien at Lyons, in his Dictionary on 
" Bromatologie vegetale exotique" relates the daily use that has been made 
of it from time immemorial by the different nations of Europe. 
The Egyptians, the Greeks, and the ancient Romans kneaded it with 
honey and with flour to make cakes that were much esteemed. The 
* It was Eosier, who first, at the end of the last century, proved them to be 
innocuous. 
