perience testifies that different parts of plants possess not only different, but opposite qualities. Oranges and lemons, which are used in profusion, possess juices that are both palatable and refrigerating; but these are inclosed in a rind, the essential oil of which is extremely acrid and stimulating and it is well known that the bland and nutritive tapioca is the produce of a tree whose roots are highly poisonous. In this case, therefore, the argument from analogy may be considered as a very proper motive for caution; but, if it advances farther, it degenerates into a pernicious prejudice.

There have been, however, many incidental circumstances which have had a partial influence in removing these prejudices. It is well known that compounders of medicine have made a very liberal use of the seeds of poppies, as substitutes for the oil of sweet almonds, without the least detriment to the patient. They have sometimes imputed to it additional virtues, from its being supposed to possess narcotic properties. But that they have erred in their hypothesis is plain, from the practice of many individuals who have made the seeds of poppies a common article of food *.

But it will be the principal object of the following paper to inform the inhabitants of this country, through the medium of your publication, that the above objection has been repeatedly advanced and repeatedly confuted; that experiments, first made with a degree of caution, have finally removed prejudices long and inveterate; and that the white poppy (papaver hortense semine albo) is cultivated to a very great extent in

* See Prosper Alpinus, lib. iv. cap. i. Geofrey Mat. Med. tom. i. p. 715. Lewis's Materia Medica, article Papava Album.

France,

France, Brabant, and Germany, and more recently in Holland, chiefly to extract the oil from its seeds; which is found not only to be salubrious, but to be peculiarly delicate in its flavour. It is now become a considerable article of commerce: the oil of a superior quality, for the use of the table, and the inferior for manufactories and various other purposes. It is produced not only with considerable profit to the cultivator, but also to the merchant and consumer.

. As it is natural to imagine that the prejudices against the common use of poppy oil for culinary purposes, will be very general, since they are apparently sanctioned by prudent caution, it is not expected that the most positive assertions, founded upon the experience of strangers on the continent, would be sufficient to remove them. But a circumstantial narrative of a contest which has already taken place; and of the final triumph of experience over the opposition founded on analogous reasoning; and a particular statement of the advantages which have accrued to the cultivator, merchant, and consumer, may perhaps attract the attention of some agriculturists in our own country, who may thus be encouraged to make similar experiments: and as the issue must be the same, they will be able to produce absolute demonstration that the oil is totally destitute of the noxious qualities that have been ascribed to it; and finally convince the public that it may become a cheap and useful substitute for the olive oil, and a very beneficial article of commerce.

: For this purpose I shall state to the agriculturist a succinct account of the rise and progress of the cultivation of the poppy, in order to express the oil from the seed; the manner of cultivating it, and the emoluments

which have been received by the cultivator, from au thentic documents in the Dutch and German languages which are in my possession.

In the year 1798, the Society established at Amsterdam for the encouragement of agriculture, being informed that the oil of poppies was cultivated in several parts of France, Flanders, and Brabant, thought it an object of sufficient importance to make more particular inquiry; and they learned from indubitable authority, not only that it was generally used in the place of olive oil, but that several thousand casks of it were exported annually, a large quantity of which was imported into Holland, and sold under the name of olive oil, or mixed with it in considerable abundance; and they appealed to several merchants who were members of the Society for the truth of this assertion, without being contradicted..

These facts induced the Society to propose three premiums, consisting of a silver medal and ten ducats each, which were divided into the three following classes.

The first to the husbandman who should sow not less than half an acre of a clayey soil with poppy seed; the second on a sandy ground; and the third on turf or peat land.

They also offered to the person who shall have cultivated the largest quantity of ground, on the two first species of soil, in the most masterly and advantageous manner, a gold medal, value fifty ducats, or that sum in money, in lieu of the above premiums.

The candidates were to give an accurate statement of the quantity of seed sown per acre; the time of sowing, and of gathering the poppies; the quality of the soil; the manner of procedure in every part of the process;

the

the quantity of oil produced, and the total of the expences.

In consequence of the above proposals, in the year following (1799) Mr. P. Haak became a claimant; sent in satisfactory specimens of the oil produced, accompanied with testimonials from two respectable physicians, that upon experiments made, it fully appeared that the use of the oil was not in the least prejudicial to the human constitution; and that the oil-cakes were very wholesome and nutritive food for cattle.

The Committee appointed to receive this report, not only expressed their entire satisfaction at the attestations of the physicians, but they laid before the Society at large an account of the proceedings which had taken place in France, upon the interesting question concern, ing the noxious or salubrious qualities of the poppy-oil, in the following Narrative.

So early as in the beginning of the seventeenth century, the oil of poppies was produced in such large quantities, that it gave rise to great and lasting contentions, which rose to such a height, that the government was desired to interfere, and appease the contending parties, either by authorizing the use of this oil, or totally to prohibit the consumption, according as experiments should decide whether it contained the noxious qualities ascribed to it, or not.

The opposers urged the objections already stated: they asserted, that as the capsulum or poppy-head contained juices highly narcotic, this must also be the case with its seeds; that the frequent use of the oil extracted from them exposed the consumer to all the dangerous consequences arising from the too liberal use of opiates; and that they would finally obtund the faculties of the VOL. XIII.-SECOND SERIES.

Q

soul;

soul; that the oil was of a drying quality, for that it was upon this account it became peculiarly useful to painters: they therefore implored government to confine its uses to this object.

The advocates maintained that no proofs existed of these pernicious effects; on the contrary, experience testified that the seeds were peculiarly nutritive both to men and cattle; they asserted that the ancient Romans, concerning whose mental powers there could be no doubt, were accustomed to mix the oil and meal of the poppy seed with honey, and have it served up as a second course at their tables; and that it was on account of its nutritious qualities so well known to the Romans, that Virgil gives it the title of vescum, food, by way of pre-eminence; and that the peculiar qualities of this oil rendered it a desirable object of cultivation; that its taste was delicate and pleasant, somewhat resembling that of the hazel nut; that it continued in a fluid state, exposed to a much greater degree of cold than was required to congeal the olive-oil; that it contained a larger quantity of fixed air, which preserved it a longer time from being rancid; that in these particulars it not only approached to the finest oil of Provence, but it mitigated the disagreeable taste which that oil acquired by length of time; and that the poppy-oil decidedly deserved a preference to every other oil expressed from seeds, whether nut, almond, or beech; which, though they yielded large quantities, soon became rancid; and as there was no appearance of its being pernicious in the more extensive use of it, so valuable a product ought not to be confined within the narrow bounds of the painter's use.