16 ON THE CULTIVATION OF OPIUM IN ARMENIA. 
wards, they hoe around them a third time. Though the 
weeds, when allowed to grow during the summer, suppress 
the growth of the plants and diminish the yield of juice 
from them, they are a protection during the rigours of the 
winter season. If the season is dry, the cultivators water 
the plants each time they hoe them, and if the soil is strong 
or heavy, they water them with great diligence till the 
time of flowering. When the plants have attained about 
three feet (one metre) in height, it is found necessary to 
prop some of them, as in some cases a number of stalks and 
as many as 35 capsules are produced from a single root. 
Of the injuries besetting the plants. — Plants sown in the 
autumn are very liable to be injured by the frost; if, how- 
ever, they are covered by snow, this difficulty is obviated. 
Those sown in the spring sometimes suffer from the same 
cause, especially when a white frost is followed by the hot 
sun; if rain supervenes, however, no injury is likely to 
result. After the plants have grown to the size of lettuce, 
they are not liable to injury from the frost. The young 
plants are also injured by exposure to the sun after a thick 
fog, the moist leaves being burned by the excessive heat. 
On this account it is desirable that the field should be situat- 
ed at the foot of a mountain, so as to allow of the plant 
becoming dry after a fog or white frost, before being 
reached by the sun's rays. When the young plants are 
stunted or injured from these causes, careful cultivators 
plough the field again, and sow the seed a second time so 
as not to lose the entire season. 
Manner of collecting the juice. — When the plants attain 
the height of 2 feet (?m archen) the corolla expands; this 
is composed of four petals, which, after seven or eight days, 
dry up and fall, exposing the capsule, which is then about 
the size of a nutmeg, and goes on increasing from day to 
day. It is generally between the 20th of July and the mid- 
dle of August that the plant has arrived at perfect maturity. 
The proper time for the extraction of the juice is deter- 
