the Economic Products of India.
37
Races Grown.
PAPAVER
somniferum.
CULTIVATION
Races.
experiment on the Deegah land. The plants generally acquired a some
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what more robust habit, but they again proved miserably poor drug-pro
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ducers, the maximum produce being about 4½ seers per bíghá. It is to be
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observed, however, that even this is a considerable increase on the first
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season's results. Again in 1874-75 I gave them a third season's trial.
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They all suffered, however, so seriously with the common poppy mould, that
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they gave considerably less opium than they had done the previous season.
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This blight injury, however, they suffered from in common with nearly all
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the local varieties. I will now describe the Malwa varieties from the
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specimens grown in the gardens last season : having now been grown in
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this district for five successive seasons, a period sufficient, as one might
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naturally anticipate, for the perfect acclimatisation of an annual herb in a
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district, where others of its own kin are so extensively and successfully
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cultivated."
11th, Lukria.—" This variety has increased much in vigor of habit,
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and is, so to speak, more hardy, i.e., better suited to the climate, &c., than
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it has hitherto proved. It has an erect, slightly branched stem from 4
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to 5 feet high ; the leaves oblong-ovate, from 12 to 16 inches long by 5 to
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8 inches broad, the margins sinuous, irregularly lobed, coarsely and bluntly
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toothed ; texture thin, papery ; the colour a pale sea-green ; the flowers,
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large, white, usually with rose, lilac, or pink margins, and deeply fringed ;
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the capsules oblong, from 2 to 2½ inches long by 1¾ to 2 broad, and of a
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dull glasseous green. It has now considerably improved in its drug-yielding
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qualities, having this season yielded 6 s. 9 c. per bíghá of excellent drug."
"The rains being unusually light last season. not a few of all the sorts
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sprung up in the plots from seed which had been left on the soil in the
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harvesting of that season's crop. This was the case with the lukria.
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The plot was sown up this season with a variety of black-seeded poppy
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from Turkey. Not a single seed, however, germinated of it on this plot,
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nor on two other plots on which it was sown. The few young plants that
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did spring up on the first plot ultimately proved to be of the lukria
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variety, cultivated thereon last season. The plants are remarkably vigor-
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ous in habit, more resembling the more robust of the local sorts than the
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hitherto spare forms of the Malwa kinds. They rise up with stout, branchy
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stems to a height of from 4 to 5 feet ; the leaves large, oblong, with slightly
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lobed, irregularly toothed, and wavy margins, the lower leaves being from
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16 to 21 inches long by 8 to 9 inches broad, of a thick, but soft texture,
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and of a dull sea-green colour. A very few have coloured flowers ; the
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others large, white, and deeply fringed. The capsules large, from 2½ to
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3¼ inches long by 2 to 2½ in diameter. They have also proved a much
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more copious drug-producing race than any of the other Malwa kinds
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sown in the usual way. Thus from the 125 plants on the plot I collected
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1¼c . of opium, so that allowing 14,520-12 inches apart, equal to the b í g h á ¶
(a low rather than a high estimate), we have a return of about 9 s. Id. of
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opium per bíghá. We thus see that the process of acclimatisation has
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been greatly accelerated by a purely natural selective agency, the more
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vigorous germs, or those best adapted to the conditions of climate, soil,
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&c, surviving ; the weaker we may assume to have been destroyed.
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This, as I think, well illustrates the much disputed phenomena of accli
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matisation. In the Malwa and local poppies we have clearly varieties
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endowed with different constitutions best adapting them to their respective
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localities, while by a few years' cultivation we find this variety acquiring
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increased vigor of habit, yielding more drug, and ultimately equalling the
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local sort."
Lukria.
12th, Leela.—" The seed of this sort was much mixed with that of
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the preceding in the sample originally received by me from the Agent.
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It presented, however, a considerable percentage of two well-marked