January In, 19U3. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
the principal opium-producing countries are India, China, Asia 
Minor and Persia. Though the plants grow well in the more 
temperate countries, and the quality ot opium derived from 
them is good, the quantity is much less, so that it is not 
profitable to cultivate the plants as opium producers. For 
medicinal purposes the best quality of opium is that produced 
in Asia Minor and Persia, inasmuch as it contains a larger 
percentage of the alkaloids for which opium is valued. 
The methods of collecting opium in India and Asia Minor are 
practically the same, and differ only in detail. The heads are 
incised while st ill attached to the growing plants in the Poppy- 
fields, and the opium exudes in the form of a milky juice, 
which becomes plastic on exposure to the air, and is then 
scraped off. The following description of its collection and 
manufacture, as carried on at the celebrated opium factory and 
stores at Patria, is gathered from Sir Joseph Hooker’s charming 
•'Himalayan Journals”:—The Poppy flowers at the end of 
January and the beginning of February, and the capsules are 
sliced in February and March with a little sharp instrument 
with jagged edges (Figs. 3 and I). The cultivation of the 
plant is very carefully conducted. During the N.W. or dry 
^r 
Lillian G. Jackson. 
3. I oppy head incised, opium exuding. 
4. Lancet or instrument used for incising Poppy heads. 
5. Opium pipe. 
(5. Poppy seed, much magnified. 
winds, the best opium is procured; the worst during the moist 
or E. and N.E., when the drug imbibes moisture, and a watery, 
bad solution of opium collects in cavities of its substance, and 
is called Passewa, according to the absence of which the opium 
is generally prized. At the end of March, the opium jars 
arrive at the stores and continue accumulating for some weeks. 
Every jar is stored in a proper place, and its contents separately 
tested with extreme accuracy and valued. When the whole 
has been received, the contents of all the jars are thrown into 
great vats, whence the mass is distributed to be made up into 
balls for the markets. This operation is,carried on in a long 
paved room, where every man is ticketed, and many overseers 
are stationed to see that the work is properly conducted. Each 
workman sits on a stool, with a double stage and a tray before 
him. On the top stage is a tin basin containing opium sufficient 
for three balls ; in the lower, another basin, holding water. 
In the tray stands a brass- hemispherical cup, in which the 
ball is worked. To the man’s right hand is another tray with 
two compartments, one containing thin pancakes of Poppy 
petals pressed together; the other a cuplul of sticky opium- 
water made from refuse opium. The man takes the brass cup 
and places a pancake at the bottom, smears it with opiuin- 
water, and, with many plies of the pancake, makes a coat for 
the opium. Of this he takes about one-third of the mass before 
him, puts it inside the pancake and agglutinates many others 
over it. The balls are then again weighed, and reduced or 
increased as is found necessary. At the end of the day each 
man takes his work to a rack with numbered compartments, 
and deposits it in that which answers to his own number. 
Thence the balls (each being put in a clay cup) are carried to 
an enormous drying-room, where they are exposed in tiers and 
constantly examined and turned to prevent then- being attacked 
by weevils, small boys creeping along the racks all day long 
for this purpose. When diy, the balls are packed in two 
layers of six each in chests, with the stalks, dried leaves and 
capsules or fruits of the plant, and sent down to Calcutta. A 
good workman will prepare from thirty to fifty balls a day, the 
total produce being 10,000 to 12,000 a day. During one 
working season 1,353,000 balls are prepared for tlie Chinese 
market alone, for it is in China that the principal part of the 
so-called Provision Opium is consumed, either for smoking, 
eating, or drinking, as it is used in the preparation of various 
intoxicating beverages. Through various periods of history 
down to the present day the evils of opium-smoking have been 
continuously denounced, but in consequence of its use having 
gained such a strong hold upon the people, together with the 
fact of its returning; such a vast revenue, its cultivation and 
manufacture has been allowed to proceed unchecked. The 
whole question of the use and abuse of opium is too long and 
difficult to be entered upon here, nor would it probably be of 
much interest to the bulk of the readers of The Gardening 
World, but they may bear in mind, while enjoying the beauties 
that Poppies impart to the garden, that they have a dark side 
in their history, as well as important medicinal uses, and a 
great money value. It may further be interesting to know 
that the manner of smoking opium differs entirely from that 
of tobacco-smoking, and this will be better understood by refer- 
enceto the illustration of an opium pipe (Fig. 5). The stems 
are mostly made of bamboo, and the bowls of porcelain ; these 
bowls fit into a metal plate, which partially clasps the bamboo. 
In the centre of the howl at the top is a small hole; over this 
hole is placed a very small quantity of opium about the size 
of a pea ; this is lighted over a lamp, and the lips applied to 
the extreme end of the bamboo, which is usually fitted with a 
piece of ivoiy or bone. A few draughts are then taken by the 
smoker, who is in a reclining position, when the evil effects 
soon begin to- show themselves, and the sufferer becomes a slave 
to the opium habit. 
Our notice of Poppies would not be complete without a 
reference to the seeds, as they in themselves are of considerable 
value in commerce, and are imported into the United Kingdom 
and other parts of Europe in large quantities for expressing 
the sweet oil with which they abound, and which is largely 
used as a table or culinary oil, as well as for lubricating 
machinery. It, is a fact worth noting that, though the active 
principle of Poppies generally is of a narcotic nature, and is 
most largely developed in the Opium Poppy, it is entirely 
absent from the seeds, so that they not only yield a wholesome 
oil, hut are also used in the blue and white forms for feeding 
caged birds under the name of mawseed. The residue or cake, 
after the oil is expressed, is also used for feeding cattle. These 
seeds form interesting! microscopic objects, being of a kidney 
shape, and marked over the entire surface with numerous small 
pits or holes. Fig. 5 represents a much magnified seed. 
SECRETARIES OF SOCIETIES will oblige by 
entering in their books the new address of THE 
GARDENING WORLD, 37 and 38, Shoe Lane, 
London, E.C., and notify us as to dates of meetings, 
shows, etc. 
