At the present day opium is produced on an important scale in Asia Minor, Persia, India, and China; to a small extent in Egypt. The drug has also been collected in Europe, Algeria,[202] North America,[203] and Australia[204] but more for the sake of experiment than as an object of commerce.
We shall describe the production of the different kinds under their several names.
1. Opium of Asia Minor; Turkey, Smyrna, or Constantinople Opium[205]—The poppy from which this most important kind of opium is obtained is Papaver somniferum, var. β. glabrum Boissier. The flowers are commonly purplish, but sometimes white, and the seeds vary from white to dark violet.
The cultivation is carried on throughout Asia Minor, both on the more elevated and the lower lands, the cultivators being mostly small peasant proprietors. The plant requires a naturally rich and moist soil, further improved by manure, not to mention much care and attention on the part of the grower. Spring frosts, drought, or locusts sometimes effect its complete destruction. The sowing takes place at intervals from November to March, partly to insure against risk of total failure, and partly in order that the plants may not all come to perfection at the same time.
The plants flower between May and July according to the elevation of the land. A few days after the fall of the petals the poppy head being about an inch and a half in diameter is ready for incision. The incision is made with a knife transversely, about half-way up the capsule, and extends over about two-thirds the circumference, or is carried spirally to beyond its starting point. Great nicety is required not to cut too deep so as to penetrate the capsule, as in that case some of the juice would flow inside and be lost. The incisions are generally made in the afternoon and the next morning are found covered with exuded juice. This is scraped off with a knife, the gatherer transferring it to a poppy leaf which he holds in his left hand. At every alternate scraping, the knife is wetted with saliva by drawing it through the mouth, the object being to prevent the adhesion of the juice to the blade. Each poppy-head is, as a rule, cut only once; but as a plant produces several heads all of which are not of proper age at the same time, the operation of incising and gathering has to be gone over two or three times on the same plot of ground.
As soon as a sufficient quantity of the half-dried juice has been collected to form a cake or lump, it is wrapped in poppy leaves and put for a short time to dry in the shade. There is no given size for cakes of opium, and they vary in weight from a few ounces to more than two pounds. In some villages it is the practice to make the masses larger than in others. Before the opium is ready for the market, a meeting of buyers and sellers is held in each district, at which the price to be asked is discussed and settled,—the peasants being most of them in debt to the buyers or merchants.
To the latter the opium is sold in a very soft but natural state. These dealers sometimes manipulate the soft drug with a wooden pestle into larger masses which they envelope in poppy leaves and pack in cotton bags sealed at the mouth for transport to Smyrna. According to another account, the opium as obtained from the grower is at once packed in bags together with a quantity of the little chaffy fruits of a dock (Rumex sp.) to prevent the lumps from sticking together, and so brought in baskets to Smyrna, or ports farther north.
The opium remains in the baskets (placed in cool warehouses to avoid loss of weight) till sold, and it is only on reaching the buyer’s warehouse that the seals are broken and the contents of the bags exposed. This is done in the presence of the buyer, seller, and a public examiner, the last of whom goes through the process of inspecting the drug piece by piece, throwing aside any of suspicions quality. Heffler of Smyrna asserts that the drug is divided into three qualities, viz.—the prime, which is not so much a selected quality as the opium of some esteemed districts,—the current, which is the mercantile quality and constitutes the great bulk of the crop,—and lastly the inferior or chiqinti.[206] The opium of very bad quality or wholly spurious he would place in a fourth category. Maltass applies the name chiqinti (or chicantee) to opium of every degree of badness.
The examination of opium by the official expert is not conducted in any scientific method. His opinion of the drug is based on colour, odour, appearance and weight, and appears to be generally very correct. Fayk Bey (1867) has recommended the Turkish government to adopt the more certain method of assaying opium by chemical means.
In Asia Minor the largest quantities of opium are now produced in the north-western districts of Karahissar Sahib, Balahissar, Kutaya, and Kiwa (or Geiveh), the last on the river Sakariyeh which runs into the Black Sea. These centres of large production of opium send a superior quality of the drug to Constantinople by way of Izmid; the best apparently from Bogaditch and Balikesri, near the Susurlu river. Angora and Amasia are other places in the north of Asia Minor whence opium is obtained.