rity, 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