Mr. Little furnishes a complete history of the drug, and the physical and mental effects resulting from its habitual use. There are also some able remarks in Dr. O'Shaughnessy's Bengal Dispensatory:—
For the successful cultivation of opium, a mild climate, plentiful irrigation, a rich soil, and diligent husbandry, are indispensable. In reference to the first of these, Malwa is placed most favorably. The country is in general from 1,300 to 2,000 feet above the level of the sea: the mean temperature is moderate, and range of the thermometer small. Opium is always cultivated in ground near a tank or running stream, so as to be insured at all times of an abundant supply of water. The rich black loam, supposed to be produced by the decomposition of trap, and known by the name of cotton soil, is that prepared for opium. Though fertile and rich enough to produce thirty successive crops of wheat without fallowing, it is not sufficiently rich for the growth of the poppy until largely supplied with manure. There is, in fact, no crop known to the agriculturist, unless sugar cane, that requires so much care and labor as the poppy. The ground is first four times ploughed on four successive days, then carefully harrowed; when manure, at the rate of from eight to ten cart loads an acre, is applied to it; this is scarcely half what is allowed a turnip crop at home. The crop is after this watered once every eight or ten days, the total number of waterings never exceeding nine in all. One beegah takes two days to soak thoroughly in the cold weather, and four as the hot season approaches. Water applied after the petals drop from the flower, causes the whole to wither and decay. When the plants are six inches high, they are weeded and thinned, leaving about a foot and a-half betwixt each plant; in three months they reach maturity, and are then about four feet in height if well cultivated. The full-grown seed-pod measures three and a-half inches vertically, and two and a-half in horizontal diameter. Early in February and March the bleeding process commences. Three small lancet-shaped pieces of iron are bound together with cotton, about one-twelfth of an inch of the blade alone protruding, so that no discretion as to the depth of the wound to be inflicted shall be left to the operator; and this is drawn sharply up from the top of the stalk at the base, to the summit of the pod. The sets of people are so arranged that each plant is bled all over once every three or four days, the bleedings being three or four times repeated on each plant. This operation always begins to be performed about three or four o'clock in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day. The juice appears almost immediately on the wound being inflicted, in the shape of a thick gummy milk, which is thickly covered with a brownish pellicle. The exudation is greatest over night, when the incisions are washed and kept open by the dew. The opium thus derived is scraped off next morning, with a blunt iron tool resembling a cleaver in miniature. Here the work of adulteration begins—the scraper being passed heavily over the seed-pod, so as to carry with it a considerable portion of the beard, or pubescence, which contaminates the drug and increases its apparent quantity. The work of scraping begins at dawn, and must be continued till ten o'clock; during this time a workman will collect seven or eight ounces of what is called "chick." The drug is next thrown into an earthen vessel, and covered over or drowned in linseed oil, at the rate of two parts of oil to one of chick, so as to prevent evaporation. This is the second process of adulteration—the ryot desiring to sell the drug as much drenched with oil as possible, the retailers at the same time refusing to purchase that which is thinner than half dried glue. One acre of well cultivated ground will yield from 70 to 100 pounds of chick. The price of chick varies from three to six rupees a pound, so that an acre will yield from 200 to 600 rupees worth of opium at one crop. Three pounds of chick will produce about two pounds of opium, from a third to a fifth of the weight being lost in evaporation. It now passes into the hands of the Bunniah, who prepares it and brings it to market. From twenty-five to fifty pounds having been collected, is tied up in parcels in double bags of sheeting cloth, which are suspended from the ceilings so as to avoid air and light, while the spare linseed oil is allowed to drop through. This operation is completed in a week or ten days, but the bags are allowed to remain for a month or six weeks, during which period the last of the oil that can be separated comes away; the rest probably absorbs oxygen and becomes thicker, as in paint. This process occupies from April to June or July, when the rain begins. The bags are next taken down and their contents carefully emptied into large vats from ten to fifteen feet in diameter, and six or eight inches thick. Here it is mixed together and worked up with the hands five or six hours, until it has acquired an uniform color and consistence throughout, become tough and capable of being formed into masses. This process is peculiar to Malwa. It is now made up into balls of from eight to ten ounces each, these being thrown, as formed, into a basket full of the chaff of the seeds pod. It is next spread out on ground previously covered with leaves and stalks of the poppy; here it remains for a week or so, when it is turned over and left further to consolidate, until hard enough to bear packing. It is ready for weighing in October or November, and is then sent to market. It is next packed in chests of 150 cakes, the total cost of the drug at the place of production being about fourteen rupees per chest, including all expenses. About 20,000 chests are annually sent from Malwa, at a prime cost charge of two lacs and 80,000 rupees. It may easily be supposed that manipulations so numerous, complex, and tedious, as those described, give the most ample opportunities for the adulteration to which the nature of the drug tempts the fraudulent dealer.
In order to enable the cultivator to carry on his agricultural operations, he receives from time to time certain advances, the amount of which reaches in the aggregate to about one-half of the value of the estimated out-turn of produce. If the land has been under cultivation in previous seasons, its average produce is known; if it be new land, and considered by the Sub-Deputy Agent as eligible, then the cultivator, in addition to the usual advances, receives an advance of so much per biggah to enable him to bestow a certain amount of extra care in tilling and dressing the soil. The first advance is made on the completion of the agreement or bundobust, and this takes place in September and October. The second advance is made on the completion of the sowings in November, and the final or Chook payment is made immediately after the delivery and weighing of the produce. Nothing therefore can be fairer to the cultivator than this system of advances; he is subject to no sort of exaction, in the shape of interest or commission on the money which he receives, and it puts within his power the certain means of making a fair profit by the exercise of common care and honesty. It is an established rule in the Agency that the cultivator's accounts of one season shall be definitively settled before the commencement of the next, and that no outstanding balances shall remain over. When a cultivator has from fraud neglected to bring produce to cover his advances, the balances due by him are at once recovered, if necessary by legal means; whereas, if he can satisfactorily show that he has become a defaulter from calamity and uncontrollable circumstances, and that the liquidation of his debt is placed entirely beyond his power, his case is then made the subject of report to the Government by the Agent, with the request that the debt may be written off to profit and loss. These provisions are most wise, for outstanding balances may be made the means of oppression, and to their operation may be traced a considerable amount of litigation and agrarian crime in the indigo districts of lower Bengal. It is clear that when such balances become so large that the cultivator cannot discharge them, he is no longer a free agent, but is perfectly subservient to the will of his creditor, for whom he must cultivate whether he desire it or not. Such burdens may even be handed down from father to son. The fairness of the Agency system, and the justice with which the cultivators are treated, are best evidenced by the readiness with which they come forward to cultivate, and also by the comparative rarity of agrarian crime, arising out of matters connected with the poppy cultivation.
Opium is grown to some extent in Egypt; 39,875 lbs. were produced in 1831, and sold at two dollars a pound.
At the end of October, after the withdrawal of the Nile waters the seed, mixed with a portion of pulverised earth, is sown in a strong soil, in furrows; after fifteen days the plant springs up, and in two months has the thickness of a Turkish pipe, and a height of four feet; the stalk is covered with long, oval leaves, and the fruit, which is greenish, resembles a small orange. Every morning before sunrise, in its progress to maturity, small incisions are made in the sides of the fruit, from which a white liquor distils almost immediately, which is collected in a vessel; it soon becomes black and thickish, and is rolled into balls, which are covered with the washed leaves of the plant; in this state it is sold. The seeds are crushed for lamp oil, and the plant is used for fuel.
A plant known in Jamaica under the name of bull hoof yields a narcotic which has been administered successfully in the shape of tincture and a syrup, instead of opium. This is the Muracuja ocellata, or Passiflora muracuja, of Swartz, an elegant climber, bearing bright scarlet blossoms. There is another species, M. orbiculata, found in Hayti and other islands, which may be expected to partake more or less of the properties of the former. The flowers are the parts most commonly employed.
THE TOBACCO PLANT.
Several species of Nicotium furnish tobacco; that chiefly used in Europe is procured from N. Tabacum and its numerous varieties, a plant naturally inhabiting the hotter parts of North and South America. The popular narcotic furnished by tobacco is probably in more extensive use than any other, and its only rivals are opium and the betel-nut and leaf of the East. The herb for smoking was brought to England from Tobago, in the West Indies, or from Tobasco, in Mexico (whence the name), by Sir Ralph Lane, in 1586. Seeds were shortly after introduced from the same quarter.
"Tobacco, as used by man," says Du Tour, "gives pleasure to the savage and the philosopher, to the inhabitant of the burning desert and the frozen zone; in short, its use, either in powder, to chew, or to smoke, is universal; and for no other reason than a sort of convulsive motion (sneezing) produced by the first, and a degree of intoxication by the two last modes of use."
Tobacco is an annual plant, attaining a height of six feet, having dingy red, funnel-shaped flowers, and viscid leaves. The leaves are the officinal part, and their active properties depend on a peculiar, oily-like alkaloid, called Nicotin. The flavor and strength of tobacco depend on climate, cultivation, and the mode of manufacture. That most esteemed by the smoker is Havanna tobacco, but the Virginian is the strongest. The small Havanna cigars are prepared from the leaves of Nicotium repanda, Syrian and Turkish tobacco from N. rustica, and fine Shiraz tobacco from N. persica. With the exception of the Macuba tobacco, which is cultivated in Martinique in a peculiar soil, the tobacco of Cuba is considered the finest in the world. That grown in the island of Trinidad is, however, fully equal to it in quality, but all raised in the colony is generally consumed there, and is little known in the English market. This ought not to be the case, for no article would pay better.