CULTIVATION  OF  THE  OPIUM  POPPY  IN  AUSTRALIA.  555 
the  air-dried  gum  contained  less  than  two  per  cent,  of  morphia. 
The  season,  however,  was  damp  and  somewhat  cold,  and  this  he 
(Mr.  Sutton)  believed  was  detrimental  to  the  production  of  any 
large  proportion  of  morphia.  The  question  was  really  very 
little  understood,  but  from  experiments  in  various  parts  of  the 
world  it  seemed  an  undoubted  fact  that  fine,  dry,  warm  weather 
produced,  in  any  tolerable  climate,  a  fair  quality  of  opium  ; 
whereas,  in  a  contrary  season,  the  other  and  less  valuable  con- 
stituents (narcotine,  &c.)  were  predominant.  It  was  therefore 
probable  that  the  effect  of  sunlight  and  warmth  would  be  to 
convert  a  portion  of  these  constituents  into  the  more  valuable 
form  of  morphia.  He  also  stated  that  it  was  his  intention  to 
grow  some  poppies  in  his  own  district,  should  he  be  able  to  pro- 
cure good  seed,  and  also  forward  some  to  Australia,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  investigating  the  matter  more  fully. 
Mr.  Dymond  remarked  that  in  his  opinion  we  ought  to  go  to 
Smyrna  for  seed. 
Mr.  Brady  said  he  understood  some  of  the  Norfolk  speci- 
mens of  opium  contained  a  very  large  percentage  of  morphia.  He 
believed  it  was  considered  impossible  to  produce  opium  on  a  large 
estate  with  a  large  staff  of  laborers  ;  and  in  Asiatic  Turkey  pop- 
pies are  grown  for  the  purpose  only  by  small  farmers.  The 
French  had  tried  the  growth  of  poppies  in  Algeria,  but  with 
little  success,  so  that  other  conditions  besides  climate  seemed  to 
be  requisite.  The  extract  of  poppy  capsules  had  been  found  by 
Mr.  Dean  and  himself  to  differ  entirely  from  true  opium  in  mi- 
croscopic characters. 
Mr.  Groves  (Weymouth)  expressed  his  belief  that  the  pro- 
duction of  opium  was  a  continuous  process  of  the  incised  poppy, 
and,  therefore,  that  the  proposal  to  obtain  opium,  or  anything 
resembling  it  in  strength,  by  expressing  the  unripe  capsules, 
would  prove  delusive.  He  had,  himself,  on  two  occasions,  exam- 
ined carefully  the  ripe  capsules.  On  the  first  occasion  he  had 
recovered  sufficient  alkaloids  to  justify  further  experiment.  The 
second  experiment  was  conducted  upon  50  lbs.  of  crushed  cap- 
sules. From  that  large  quantity  was  obtained,  narceia  23  grs., 
morphia  75  grs.,  narcotine  36  grs.,  codeia  33  grs.    He  had  a 
