The drug despatched to London occurs in various forms, the most typical being a short rounded cone, weighing 6-10 oz. Sometimes it is met with in flat circular cakes, 1 lb. in weight. It is usually of firm consistence and good odour, and of a comparatively light-brown tint internally, the surface being strewn with fragments of stalks and leaves. Some is collected with the aid of oil, as in Malwa (India), as attested by the greasiness of the cone, and the globules of oil displayed en cutting it. The best samples give 8-10i per cent. of morphine, reckoned on the opium in its moist state. Very inferior, or almost altogether spurious, samples also come into this market occasionally ; thus some of a soft, black, extractiform character has given only per cent. of morphine, reckoned in the moist ; and some very pale, in small sticks, wrapped in papers, afforded but 0.2 per cent.
In India.—The kind of poppy generally cultivated in India is the same as in Persia, P. somni ferum var. y. album (P. officinale), with white flowers and white seeds ; but a red flowered and black-seeded kind is met with in the Himalayas. The principal opium-producing region of British India lies in the central tract of the Ganges, embracing au area about 600 miles long and 200 wide, and bounded by Dinajpur (Dingepore) in the east, Hazaribagh in the south, Gorakh pur (Goruckpere) in the north, and Agra in the west, thus including the flat, populous districts of Behar and Benares. In 1874, 330,925 acres in the former, and 229,430 acres in the latter, were under poppy-cultivatiou. The next important region embraces the broad table-lands of Malwa, and the slopes of the Vindhya Hills, in the dominions of the Helkar. According to one authority, the kind of poppy grown here is var. $. glabrum, as in Asia Minor and Egypt. The regions just indicated collectively afford the chief supplies of the drug obtained in India, and their products are commercially known as "Patna," " Beuares," and " Malwa," respectively.
Outside these extensive regions, the amount of laud under poppies is relatively very small, though on the increase. The plant is grown for its narcotic throughout the plains of the Punjab, but less commonly in the N.-W. provinces. In the valley of the Bias, east of Lahore, it is cultivated up to an altitude of nearly 7500 ft. Most of the outer districts grow the poppy to a certain extent, and produce a small quantity of indifferent opium for home consumption. But the drug prepared in the Hill States and in Kulu, is of excellent quality, and forms a staple article of trade for the region. Opium is also produced in Nepal, Bassahir and Rampur, and at Doda Kashtwar, in the Jammu territory, at the base of the Himalayas, south and south-east of Kashmir.
From these districts, it is exported to Yarkand, Khutan, Aksu, and several Chinese provinces,—to the extent of 210 maunds (16,800 lb.), in 1862.
The opium industry in Bengal is completely under the control and monopoly of the Govern ment. The districts producing the narcotic are divided between two agencies—one, the mere important, for Behar, and having its head-quarters at Patna; the other, for Benares, at Ghazipur. Wallin these districts, anyone who cheeses may engage iu opium-culture, but is under an obliga tion to sell the produce exclusively to the government agent, at a price fixed beforehand by the latter. This price is approximately 3s. 6d. a lb., the article being sold by the government at about lls. a lb. The profit realised by the government is thus enormous ; but the peasant is well and fully remunerated by the price he receives, and engages in the culture solely of his own free will. The system has been called oppressive, but is really paternal ; with greater freedom to the culti vators, probably over-production and less would soon result.
In Malwa, the opium is free-grown, and is of immense importance to the people, giving a value to the land which no other crop can equal. Thus, while wheat and ether cereals in the best soil ply 19 47.-3 r. a beeguh, land under poppies gives 10-20 r. and even 40 r., and in unusually advantageous positions, up to 60 r. a beegah, The produce is subjected to a heavy duty on entering British territory. Formerly, Indore was the only place at which scales were established for levying this duty; but since the opportunity has been afforded of paying duty at Ujjani, Jaora, and Udepur, and the facilities of railway transit from Indore and Ujjani, the export has increased at the rate of 500 chests a month. The product goes to Bombay for shipment. Opium grown in the Bombay Presidency is subject to the same dues as that from Malwa.
The poppy is a delicate plant, and liable to many injuries from wind, bail, and unseasonable rain. Of late years, the Indian plantations have suffered from blight. Moist and fertile soil is indispensable ; it was said in 1873 that the ground devoted to poppy-culture in Bengal was becoming impoverished, and that the plants no longer attained their usual proportions. Successful trials have been made of the effect of interchanges of seed between the agencies of Behar and Benares; but the experiments with Persian and Malwa seed resulted in failure.