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collection of the Opium. It is, however, with all its disadvantages, a very 
important object to cultivate the Poppy for this purpose in Britain; consi¬ 
dering the great price of foreign Opium, the increasing call for it in medicine, 
the adulteration of what is imported by rice-flour and other articles, and the 
employment that it will find in the collection for women and children. 
Mr. Ball adds, that in 1795, from a bed of self-sown Poppies five hun¬ 
dred and seventy-six feet square, he collected four ounces of Opium, though 
the plants were very thick; and from a few plants that stood detached he 
took from fifteen to thirty-four grains: this ground had been well manured 
with rotten dung. He remarks that semidouble flowers, and those of a dark 
colour, produced the most Opium; that the heads should be about the size 
of a walnut before the incisions are made; and that the foreign dried Poppy 
heads are full three times as big as ours.* Mr. Miller remarks also that they 
are of a different shape; but the size is only owing to climate, and the shape 
indicates no more than a variety. 
Mr. Ball collected from one semidouble Poppy a quantity which he sup¬ 
poses to be more than thirty grains; 'but this plant had twenty-eight heads 
on it. He prefers the double and semidouble flowering plants to those 
which have single flowers. But I have observed that the single Poppy, 
cultivated by our physic-gardeners here for the seed and the heads, have 
generally larger heads than the double Poppy cultivated in gardens. 
But after all, the point of most importance respecting the cultivation of 
the Poppy for Opium in Britain is, whether its quality be equal to that of 
foreign Opium. This has been fully ascertained, not only by a druggist in 
London having agreed with Mr. Ball to give him the same price for what he 
should make in the year 1795 , as the foreign drug should bear at that time; 
but by the testimony of several eminent medical gentlemen in London who 
tried it, in consequence of the request of the Society for the Encouragement 
of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. Dr. Latham observes, that in its 
sensible qualities it does not seem inferior to any; that it possesses the excel¬ 
lence of being perfectly clean, which must always be an advantage when 
given in a crude state; and that probably the purified extract of the foreign 
would not be superior to the English. Dr. Pearson also reports, that he 
found the English Opium to be equally powerful, and to produce the same 
'* Trans. Arts. Yol. XIY. p. 20-4. 
