Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1886 — The Poppy Problem. [ARTICLE]

The Poppy Problem.

It would be worth knowing if one of those districts corresponds to that part of the Turkish Empire producing the Papaver somniferum, or opium poppy. The wholesale price of prime opium is nearly $lO a pound, and in the neighborhood of Janina and Beirut 160 pounds per acre is not considered an uncommon yield. The Turkish planter, as well as the Yankee importer, are handicapped by enormous taxes; but a Tennessee or Texas farmer could make a poppy-garden as profitable as a sil-ver-mine. The demand for the .drug is increasing at a rate suggesting the suspicion that the favorite stimulant of our Chinese coolies must have had a sudden access of Caucasian votaries. Thirty years ago our total imports amounted to hardly 90,000 pounds, in 1873 that quantum had already risen to-319,000 pounds, and for 186 j 1,000,000 pounds would possibly be an underestimate. Seeds could possibly be obtained from Meran, in Southern Austria, where experiments on a small scale have for years been tried in all sheltered valleys.