Drug Abuse

REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION. 1893-94

CHAPTER V. METHODS OF CULTIVATION AND MATTERS CONNECTED THEREWITH.

151. Before describing the cultivation of the hemp plant, it will be proper to mention the products which are got from it. It has been shown that the plant which yields the true hemp fibre is the same as that which produces the narcotics. The seed is the familiar hemp seed which is given to cage birds. It is also occasionally eaten by the natives of India, especially in the Himalayas, and an useful oil is expressed from it. The fibre and seeds only come incidentally within the scope of the present inquiry. The narcotic products of the plant are ganja, charas, and bhang. Dr. Prain has described very fully the physiological processes by which the narcotic principle is secreted in the various parts of the plant. For the purposes of the Commission it is sufficient to state plainly and briefly what the three articles are in the simple forms in which they first enter the market. The definitions with which the Commission's list of questions is introduced are as follows. They are borrowed from Dr. Prain :-

" Ganja consists of the dried flowering tops of cultivated female hemp plants which have become coated with resin in consequence of having been unable to set seeds freely."
"Charas is the name applied to the resinous matter which forms the active principle when collected separately."
" Siddhi, bhang, subzi, or patti are different names applied to the dry leaves of the hemp plant, whether male or female, and whether cultivated or uncultivated. "

These definitions have been generally accepted by the witnesses, but the result of the inquiries is to show that they require some explanation. First, with regard to ganja.

152. Over nearly the whole of India distinction is recognised between the ganja and the bhang plant. Though the natives may mistake the sexes, it is clear that the female plant is the one which is called ganja and the male plant bhang. The plants are distinguishable even in the wild state, the loose flowering panicle of the male from the comparatively stiff and apparently blossomless spike of the female. The hill ganja of Assam, and the wild ganja that seems to be occasionally found and used throughout Eastern Bengal and the Sub-Himalayan region, and even in Kashmir, must be the female flower spike which has often been quite innocent of any tending. In examining the evidence, therefore, the definition of ganja given above must often be read as with the word cultivated omitted.

153. Then as regards bhang, the witnesses often use the word to include the female flower head as well as the leaves of the plant, and the green leaves as well as the dry. The male flower head must also enter into it in consequence of the rude method of preparing the drug, viz., by drying the plants and beating out the leaves. But the male flowers are not more narcotic than the leaves ; the point to be noted is the inclusion of the female flower head in bhang. The confusion arises from the name of the product bhang being used also for the liquid form in which the hemp drugs are consumed. Ganja pounded up and made into drink becomes bhang. This is the way in which Garhjat ganja is used at Puri. In the west and south of India the distinction between the products bhang and ganja is frequently lost. Bhang is cultivated in Sind with similar precautions to prevent the fertilization of the female plant as in Bengal, and the product is called nothing but bhang, and is rarely used for anything but concocting drink and sweetmeats, the smoking ganja being imported. Bhang is the ancient name of the plant. It is also the name of the form of narcotic product which was earliest discovered, for it must have taken time to learn the art of isolating the female plant and so producing ganja. Bhang is also the name of the most simple style of consumption, viz., by pounding and drinking, which must have preceded smoking. Naturally, therefore, bhang is a more comprehensive term than ganja, and often includes it, especially where the production of ganja has not become a recognised industry. In the Madras Presidency ganja is the more general term, so much so that in some places the word bhang is hardly understood. This is probably due to the hemp plant being only known to the people as cultivated for the production of ganja.

154. Charas may not always be the pure resinous matter. It generally contains leaf dust and other impurities picked up in the process of manufacture. But it is hardly ever confounded with ganja or bhang. Its appearance, that of dark green or brown paste, is distinct from that of both the other drugs. In Kashmir and the Punjab only is the name ganja sometimes applied to charas, probably because charas is prepared from the female or ganja plant (Governor of Kashmir). There is reason to think that in some parts of Rajputana the distinction between charas and ganja is not very strictly observed, and that the former name is occasionally given to the latter drug.

155. In Bengal the hemp plant is grown solely for the production of ganja in the area of regular and licensed cultivation. The illicit cultivation which is to be found in insignificant quantity all over the province, and the character of which has been described, yields for the most part bhang and not ganja fit for smoking. Ganja of inferior quality is produced in the Tributary States of Orissa in considerable quantity. In the Tributary States of the Chota Nagpur Division ganja of the same quality is produced, but in less quantity. The cultivated product of Hill Tippera appears to be still lower in the scale as regards quality, and very little in quantity. It is proposed now to describe the skilled cultivation of the Ganja Mahal, where the agricultural processes for the growth and preparation of ganja haVe undoubtedly been brought to greater perfection than in any other part of India, and, as far as information will allow, the more homely practices prevailing outside that tract. Babu Hem Chunder Kerr's report contains a detailed account of the Rajshahi cultivation ; Dr. Prain has given a brief outline of the mode of culture ; and Mr. Price, Collector of the district of Rajshahi, has submitted a sketch of the cultivators' business during each month of the year. Babu Hem Chunder Kerr's report is the basis of the information furnished by most witnesses. Endeavour will be made to compile a succinct account from these materials.

156. Hemp is an exhausting crop, and requires a light, well-drained soil. It appears that there is but a limited quantity of thoroughly suitable ground in the Ganja Mahal, and that there is a tendency to abandon the outlying lands and concentrate the cultivation about Naogaon. The ganja plant is reared in a seed bed or nursery and planted out into the field. The field is selected between January and the middle of March, and must be one which has lain fallow, or has borne nothing but light crops, such as pulses or mustard, during the two previous years. It must not be overshadowed by trees. It is first ploughed to remove weeds and stubble as thoroughly as the cultivators' means will allow. In April and May the field is liberally dressed with fresh surface earth from surrounding lands, the quantity used depending on the quality of the field. The turf and weeds on the sides of the field are next dug up in clods and thrown on to the field, the holes thus made being filled up with earth from the ditches. The field is thus cleaned to its extreme boundaries, and the weeds utilised as dressing for the land. In this process a small bank about nine inches high is raised round the field. The fresh earth added to the field becomes desiccated in a week or so, and then cow-dung manure is added and the field well ploughed again. From this time till September ploughing, followed by harrowing with the bamboo ladder, is carried out from time to time, the belief being, as Babu Hem Chunder Kerr says, that the oftener the land is ploughed the better is the crop. A channel is made to keep the field well drained.

157. The details given by Babu Hem Chunder Kerr regarding the selection of the seed bed have special interest in connection with the subject of the spontaneous growth. He writes : " A plot of land near the homestead of the cultivator is generally made available for a nursery, and the people in order to make themselves sure of its dryness always make a point of using those lands only in which a tuberous-rooted, grass-like vegetable called matha (Cyperas rotundas, L.) grows. The growth of niatha is, in their opinion, a sure sign of the land being quite dry." In another place Babu Hem Chunder Kerr says : " The nursery or seed bed consists of a plot of high, light, sandy loam." The selection of this plot is made in May, and as soon as one or two showers have fallen it is ploughed. The ploughing is repeated three or four times each month till August. The object is complete pulverisation of the soil, and, if necessary, the bamboo ladder in addition to the plough is passed over the land for this purpose. Manure is not used, and the land must be quite free of shade of any kind. The seeds are sown broadcast on a fine day after a ploughing, and the sowing is followed by harrowing to cover the seed. The bed is carefully drained. The following remarks from Babu Hem Chunder Kerr's report are quoted to show certain idiosyncrasies of the plant for the same reason that the previous verbatim extracts were made : " Seeds are not sown on either a rainy or even a cloudy day when rain is apprehended, as the wet ground rots them. Even if it rains three or four days after the seeds have been sown, most of the seeds are destroyed, as the earth gets hardened into a cake after the rain, and the germs cannot force their way through it. In such a case fresh seed has to be sown in another nursery again    
Nor is the grass weeded out at any time after the sowing of the seeds. They are also never irrigated. The cultivators are of opinion that the growth of grass in the seed beds is beneficial to the young plants, inasmuch as it protects the latter from the action of the wind."

158. Towards the end of August or beginning of September the field is again dressed with cow-dung, refuse, and house-sweepings.
About a week or ten days after this comes the day for planting out. The field is ploughed and harrowed, and made into ridges " well smoothed and beaten down with the hand," and the seedlings are planted out. All this is done on the one day for fear that the soil which has been so thoroughly pulverised should get too dry.

159. It is necessary to again quote verbatim from Babu Hem Chunder Kerr for the same reason as before : " The number of ploughings is regulated by the nature of 'the soil, k hear or clayey lands, in which hemp is occasionally grown, requiring more frequent ploughing than fields of poll soil or light, sandy loam, which form the majority of the ganja beds. The seedlings at the time of transplantation are from four to five weeks old and from six to twelve inches high. The smaller ones are collected for higher and drier fields, in which they are enabled to throw out their roots much quicker and easier, and grow up much faster than in low fields, the soil of which is somewhat heavy owing to the existence in it of a greater amount of moisture, which retards the growth of very tender plants.
If rain falls within three or four days after the transplantation, it proves injurious to the young plants, the roots of which, not having taken any hold upon the soil, rot and die away."

160. The operations of the next few weeks are thus described by Dr. Prain : " A month or so after transplantation, about the middle of October, the fields are carefully weeded ; a fortnight later, beginning of November, the ridges are hoed down as far as is possible without injuring the roots of the hemp, which are then well manured with oil-cake, or a mixture of cake and .cow-dung, and the ridges rebuilt over the manure. About the middle of November the plants are trimmed by the removal of the lower branches ; this helps to give the plant the pyramidal shape that ensures the flowering tops being as close together as possible, obviates the formation of ganja close to the ground, where it would certainly get covered with sand and mud, and finally admits of another course of ploughing and harrowing with a narrow ladder between the ridges ; this course immediately follows the trimming, and is itself followed by a second course of manuring with powdered cow-dung and oil-cake, after which the ridges are again rebuilt."

161. At about this stage the detection and removal of the male plants is begun. An expert is required for the work, either the professional poddar or parahhdar or the cultivator himself if he has acquired the necessary skill in distinguishing the male from the female plants. The exact differences by which the plants are distinguished by the experts cannot be described with confidence. The operation takes place before the flowers are developed ; and Babu Hem Chunder Kerr says that the inspection is invariably made in the morning so as to have a good light, which shows how fine these differences must be. The poddar breaks over the plants which he decides to be male, the cultivator plucks them out, and fills the blank spaces with plants from the parts of the field where they are left in greater number. Then follows the first irrigation, which is regulated so as to moisten the ridges, but leave no water standing in the furrows. The poddar's visit may be repeated two or three times, and the field may be irrigated from three to six times in the following few weeks. The cultivator himself is always on the look-out to detect and remove male plants which may have been overlooked at the regular inspections. Between the first and second irrigations the ridges are hoed and the field manured a third time.

162. Babu Hem Chunder Kerr states that the male plant begins to flower in November and the female plant in the beginning of January, and Dr. Prain adds that from the time the latter flowering begins " the cultivator is on the outlook for those abnormal male flowers on his female plants which the poddar could not possibly have foretold." The ganja begins to ripen about the middle of February, " the state of maturity being indicated by a brownish appearance and the falling off of all the larger leaves." The Commission visited Naogaon on the 16th February, when the harvest was in full swing.

163. There are one or two matters in which the ways of the Bengal cultivator are different from those of the people of other provinces. They talk of the ganja-bearing plant as the male and the pollen-bearing plant as the female. In the Central Provinces and the west of India the cultivator seems to have learnt more of the principles of fructification in plants, and generally calls them by their true sexes. The existence of the khasia (emasculated) plant, which Babu Hem Chunder Kerr calls hermaphrodite, and Dr. Prain describes as " functionally defective," " useless but innocent," and " collated, as its name implies, with the sex to which it really belongs," has apparently no parallel at Khandwa in the Central Provinces. The plant is left standing at harvest, or rejected from the heap if it has been gathered by mistake. The Bengal cultivator does not grow a crop specially for seed as is done at Khandwa. He uses the grains that fall from his ganja in the processes of manufacture, which.are very numerous, notwithstanding all the pains that have been taken to eradicate the male plants.

164. The cultivation of hemp in the Ganja Mahal is a practice that is handed down from father to son in common with so many arts and industries in this country. Beyond this the industry cannot be said to be confined to a class. Musalmans very largely preponderate among the cultivators in about the proportion of 7 to 2 according to Mr. Price. There is no evidence that the occupation is held in contempt, a point which Dr. Prain has discussed at pages 47 and 48 of his report. Babu Hem Chunder Kerr entered fully into the details of cost of cultivation and the profits of the cultivator. He estimated the former at Rs. 50 to Rs. 6o and the latter at Rs. 25 to Rs. 50 per bigha. There is no equally good information of more recent date. Ganja ranks as one of the superior crops.

165. Babu Hem Chunder Kerr notices a fact which appears repeatedly in the evidence from all provinces that " when the plants begin to flower in clusters and the resinous matter is formed, rain spoils the ganja." The quantity and superiority of Central Asian charas is said to be due to the dryness of the climate in that region. This is a point of considerable interest as a possible explanation of the inferiority of the drug when cultivated in the rainy season. There is no evidence of cultivation
in the Darjeeling district for fibre. From the evidence relating to other parts of the Himalayas, it is improbable that such cultivation does not exist.

166. Though there is not any great amount of illicit cultivation, it will be interesting to note the information furnished by reports and evidence as to the methods employed in it. Mr. Basu, Assistant to the Director of Land Records and Agriculture, reports that he observed signs of the spontaneous growth where it was not plentiful being looked after with some degree of care. Talking of Bhagalpur and Purnea, he says : " As a rule the people of these districts could not distinguish between male and female plants, the leaves of both being used as a bhang ; but one man pointed out to me a plant which was a female, and said that this class of plants produced the best drug. It is not uncommon to see a few selected plants, mostly females, left on the ground ; these acquire a more bushy appearance not unlike that of the ganja-bearing plant. All this made me suspect that the people knew a great deal more about the bhang plant than they were willing to avow." This would lead to the belief that the secret cultivator not unfrequently succeeds in producing smokable ganja. An Excise Deputy Collector describes one method by which the plant is not only concealed from view, but which may result in effectually secluding the female plant. When the plant is a foot high, an inverted earthen pot is placed over it supported by pegs fixed in the ground. The confined growth takes the form of a cabbage-flower (sic), and would in all probability retain the resin in more than common quantity. A Burmese witness has described a similar method as being the regular practice in the Shan States. The Registrar of Calcutta (98), enquiring from fakirs and religious mendicants, learns that the wild plant is made to produce ganja for smoking by lightly rolling the flower spikes of the growing plants between the hands, thereby causing the component parts of the spike to stick together, and preventing the access of the pollen. " This treatment, repeated several times, converts the spikes into what is commonly called jata, which gives the matted appearance to the article." Witness (53) states that he has seen ganja plants cultivated illicitly from the twigs of which ganja as good in appearance as excise ganja can be prepared, but the flavour of it is alleged to be inferior. There is not in the evidence, however, any general confirmation of the supposition that the illicit cultivation produces the stronger form of the drug. The matter will be further examined in dealing with the preparation of the drugs.
There are not, however, sufficient grounds for supposing that the homestead cultivation or the fostering of the wild plant is carried on on any extensive scale. It is not often that either practice produces anything superior to bhang, and where there is an unlimited quantity of good bhang growing wild, there can be little inducement to illicit cultivation with its attendant risks. No information has been given of occupants ever being paid for allowing the bhang growing on their lands to be collected, and that incentive to fostering the plant appears to be wanting. It will be Been also that where the wild plant does not prevail, the licit consumption of ganja is comparatively small, and the consumers are therefore few.

167. The Tributary States of Orissa after the Ganja Mahal contain the most extensive and important cultivation in the Province of Bengal. This cultivation has never been made the subject of detailed enquiry and report, and the information now given in
answer to the Commission's questions is but scanty. It appears to be of the homestead sort, and limited to a few plants in each plot. The only suggestion offered that it is sometimes conducted on a larger scale comes from the Sub-divisional Officer of Jajpur in Cuttack (52), who says : " If the lands be small, the seeds are sown broadcast ; if the lands be large, the seeds are first sown in a nursery plot." Mr. Wylly, Government Agent at Keonjhar, states that the plant 'is grown in seed beds in April and May and transplanted, which may be regarded as some confirmation of the above witness. If this fact is accepted, the evidence shows that the plants are raised in three ways—either accidentally sown, sown broadcast, or transplanted. At the beginning of the rainy season—that is, in June-Julythe plants will be about a foot high, and standing in greater or less number in a plot near the homestead. The plant takes some five or six months to mature froM the time it has reached this stage. Mr. Taylor (36), an officer who has served in Orissa since 1866, says that the plants are hoed and weeded, and the roots loosened and dressed with vegetable mould or well-rotted cowdung. Rai Nand Kissore Das, District Officer of Angul, states that the plants are watered when necessary. There is no evidence that the male plants are extirpated. Witness (63) does not speak positively on the point, but it would appear from the evidence of Mr. Wylly that some distinction is made in the treatment of plants of different sex. " The male plant, " he says, doubt less meaning the female, " is emasculated by having its stem punctured or cut, and pieces of broken tile inserted in these cuts." That this process is in vogue is confirmed by Babu Manmohan Chakravarti, who does not, however, make any distinction of sex with reference to it. The plant is subjected to still another operation, which is mentioned by Rai Nand Kissore and Babu Manmohan Chakravarti, without any distinction of the sex of the plant, except that the female plant is indicated by the language used. The former says " nothing more than the twisting of the stem, for the production of ganja is done ; " the latter, " to prevent over-branching of the flower heads, they are roughly twisted. " There is no more information of the treatment of the plant till it ripens and is gathered in December-January. This appears to be the season of growth notwithstanding that Babu Kanti Bhushan Sen makes it synchronous with the Rajshahi season. It cannot be correct, as he states that the plant grows spontaneously from the previous year's seed towards the close of the rainy season, for this is contrary to the habits of the hemp plant in the plains of Northern India, and the fact that the natural conditions at the close of the south-west monsoon do not seem to be favourable to the spontaneous germination of any kind of seed.

168. The summary of the results of the inquiry made by Mr. Grimley in 1890, in the States of the Chota Nagpur Division gives a few details of the method of cultivation in that region. Unfortunately no question was directed to ascertaining the season of growth, and the information on this point is not, therefore, decisive. Sirguja reports that seeds are sown or plants grow during the rainy season. This agrees with the account from the Garhjat States as was to be expected. The practice of transplanting is mentioned from Udaipur. In the answers to the question whether the male plants are destroyed, the sexes are confounded, but it is clear that the general external differences are recognised. Bonai reports that those plants on which flowers grow are destroyed, and those on which the leaves become
intertwined are preserved. The latter description clearly indicates the clustered spike of the female plant. Gangpur reports that the male plants (really female) which produce flowers and fruit are not destroyed, which may well imply that the others are. It may be inferred generally that the practice is not well established or systematically carried out. It is probably in the empirical stage described by Dr. Prain (page i 2), and directed to the removal of a plant which is useless rather than mischievous ; for Bonai says : " No one can distinguish which is the male or female plant." The answers show also that the male plant is very generally preserved for use as bhang, while the one with intertwined leaves is kept for ganja.
The ground is ploughed and dressed, but not apparently treated in any special manner. The splitting of the stem with insertion of a potsherd and the twisting of the plants are practised ; but it would appear from the Udaipur answer that the twisting is merely the means of splitting the stem. It is reported from Gangpur that cross incisions are made in the stem with a knife, and " something like opium or other intoxicating thing is put into it, and the interstice is then closed up with earth to increase the power of intoxication." It may be concluded that the method of cultivation does not differ from that in vogue in the Garhjat States.

169. No description is furnished of the cultivation in Hill Tippera, but a well informed witness classes it with that of the Garhjat States. It is not likely that it is more skilful or elaborate.

170. There is no regular cultivation in Kuch Behar, and the homestead cultivation, if there is any, cannot be different from that of the surrounding British territory.

171. There is no regular cultivation in Assam, and the evidence gives no information about the processes employed in the illicit and hill cultivation. Mr. Anderson states that the Miris of Lakhimpur hedge in the wild growth ; Mr. Godfrey that the plant is weeded. The cultivators named are, besides the Miris of Lakhimpur, the Nagas of the Sibsagar frontier. Mr. Spicer mentions Kukis, Patnies, and a few coolies, and his evidence relates to the Cachar Valley. The hill tribes of the province and its frontiers may be included in the list, and the coolies generally. The drugs produced are bhang and very inferior ganja. The two things are practically the same.

172. There are three classes of cultivation in this province--that carried on in the Himalayas for fibre and seeds with charas as a bye-product, the recognised cultivation of bhang
in Farakhabad and Hardoi, and the desultory homestead cultivation which prevails to a greater or less extent everywhere in the plain country.

173. The first is well described by witness (49) and in the " Field and Garden Crops of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh " by Duthie and Fuller. Mr. Dharma Nand Joshi is Settlement Deputy Collector, Garhwal, and his account is probably based on personal inquiry and observation, and may therefore be quoted. The fields near houses are generally selected for hemp because they are better manured,
and the soil must be light. Early in June the field is cleaned of all rubbish which is burnt upon it. It is ploughed immediately after a good downfall of rain. In the beginning of July the seed is sown ; and this must be done on a fine day, for the seed will not grow if sown in the wet. Chaff is then scattered over the field to protect the seed from the birds. In eight days the seed germinates, and fifteen days afterwards the crop is carefully hoed so that the plants are not injured. After another fortnight the field is weeded a second time. No other operation is described till September (Bhado), when the plants have grown up, and some have begun to bear seed. These are called " sujango." or " kalango " (according to Duthie "gul bhang"), and are the female plants. Some do not bear seed, and are called " phulango " (according to Duthie " phul bhang "), and they are the male plants. These latter are plucked up and laid in the sun for a few days to dry, and are then manufactured into fibre. The fibre from the male plant is superior. The female plants have meantime been growing up to a height of some ten feet, of which the upper third is full of leat and seed. In (Kartik) November the female plants are cut down from the root, and spread in the sun for twenty-four hours to dry. The charas is then got from the plants by rubbing the heads between the hands. This description gives the female plant a life from germination to harvest of little more than four months. Duthie and Fuller put the sowing in May, and this gives a longer life, more nearly approaching the period of growth, about six or seven months, in the ganja tract of Bengal. The latter is probably the more correct.

174. Duthie and Fuller write that hemp growing is restricted to the lowest Class of cultivators, being considered beneath the dignity of the higher castes. So much is this the case that the phrase " May hemp be sown in thy house " is one of the commonest of abusive imprecations. Mr. Dharma Nand and other witnesses corroborate this account. The principal cultivators appear to be the Khasias or Tabhilas, a class of people above the Domes and below Rajputs in the social scale, who do not wear the sacred thread. If a Brahman or Rajput wishes to cultivate hemp, he engages a Khasia or Dome to work for him; but, after the crop is taken off, he has no prejudice against making charas or separating the fibres from the stalks. Dr. Prain (page 48) has traced the contempt in which the hemp cultivator is held to the original motive of the cultivation, vis., the production of fibre, and points out that the cultivators of other fibres, such as sane (Crotalaria), are similarly regarded. Mr. Cockburn (34) confirms this explanation, suggesting that the offensiveness of the operation of rotting the stalks is the origin of the dislike. Unfortunately Mr. Dharma Nand from direct knowledge contradicts this, which might have been a reasonable solution of the question ; for he says that the higher classes have no objection to this operation. The origin of the prejudice is probably to be sought in very early social institutions.
The seeds are, next after the fibre, the important part of the products of Himalayan cultivation. They are eaten, and yield oil. The seed of the uncultivated plant is very inferior in size, and is not therefore used for sowing.

175. There is very little information about the methods employed in the regular cultivation of bhang in the districts of Farakhabad and Hardoi. The crop must be grown in fairly large plots or fields, for it is capable of being measured, and the Agricultural Department apparently keeps a record of the area. The seed would seem to be sown at the same season as wheat and barley, and mixed in patches with these crops. It is harvested in May after the other crops have been taken off the ground. There is no evidence of the male plant being eradicated.

176. The homestead or desultory cultivation for the production of ganja seems to be carried on for the most part secretly. Mr. Bruce of Ghazipur, referring to his own district of course, states that the cultivation is not carried on openly, and it is therefore difficult to obtain any particulars about it ; that the seed is sown broadcast in good soil, and the plants. afterwards moved to some enclosed place, such as the courtyard of a house, and carefully tended ; and that the female plants are used for ganja. Regarding the practice of eradicating the male plant, the evidence is not decisive, and what there is refers sometimes to the tending of wild growth, and sometimes to the more methodical cultivation. Thus Mr. Ferrard, Magistrate and Collector of Banda, referring to the spontaneous growth on the Gumti river, says that, in spite of close police supervision, " the people continue to keep some plants and leaves, and prepare drugs from them. In such cases the male and female plants are kept separate." He may be talking in this place of the drugs and not the growing plants, for he says further that he has been told that " the male plants are cut down when young and dried, and its leaves form bhang. Ganja is made from the female flower and petals when almost ripe. The plants can grow together until the period of fertilisation." Witness (48) has been told that the male plants are extirpated. On the other hand, the drug contractor of Moradabad (248) had never heard of the male plant being extirpated.

177. The information regarding bygone cultivation throws some light on the knowledge of the people and the practice in respect of the removal of the male plant. Witness (6i) states that there was a good deal of cultivation formerly at Loohaisar, tahsil Fatehpur, in Barabanki, but it was forbidden. Witness (249), referring to the same cultivation, seems to say that it was grown in a tract called Mahadeva, and this must have yielded the ganja which other witnesses speak of as Mahadeva. Witness (61) gives some details of the methods then employed. The seed used to be sown with wheat and other crops, and when the plants had attained a little growth, the Kabariyas, and they only, were able to distinguish which were ganja and which bhang plants, i.e., female and male respectively. The ganja plants were then transplanted to some suitable spot. He mentions also the practice of twisting the leaves (sic) to make the plant produce ganja.

178. It is not worth while discussing the evidence of individual witnesses further. It may be inferred from the whole that the distinction between the male and female plants is pretty widely known ; that where the spontaneous growth is in small and manageable quantity, and where plants have been sown in suitable places, or transplanted into such places, the female plants often receive special care and have the males removed from among them ; and that for the more desultory sort of cultivation it is not very material whether the seed is taken from the cultivated or wild growth, from ganja or from bhang.

179. There is no information of any methods in vogue in the States of Tehri Garhwal and Rampur different from those of the province generally.

180. There is more or less evidence of cultivation of the hemp plant all over the Himalayan portion of the province, including the smaller Native States. The cultivation is in small patches. A report from Kulu in 1880 says : " Almost every house has a small patch near it, a long strip beside a hedge, or a small bed a few square yards long (sic) in area." The only other detail of cultivation furnished is that the season of growth is from April and May to October and November. It may be safely assumed that the method of cultivation does not materially differ from that practised in Kumaon, which has been fully described. Whether charas is produced to the same extent may be open to doubt, but the information on the point is defective.

181. Though the extent of cultivation in the Punjab plains is not great, the details of the methods employed in it, which can be gathered from the evidence and papers, may be noted.- A memorandum by Hari Chand, Assistant to the Commissioner of Excise, states that " people grow it in both harvests in the months of March and November. They cut plants for use in February and June." The latter named months appear to relate to the period within which the plant is gathered if it is sown with the late or rabbi crops. An account of the cultivation is furnished in the appendix of Mr. James Wilson's evidence as having been given him by his Excise Assistant, Mr. Kirthee Singh. The plant is reared for bhang only, never for ganja, and charas is not extracted except rarely for private consumption. The land is usually close to the village, and of the description called niain, the same as that described by Duthie and Fuller, when speaking of the Himalayan cultivation, which the daily offices of the villagers provide with a plentiful supply of manure. It is ploughed frequently in August and September, the seed is sown broadcast in the latter month, and the field is watered. The watering is repeated three or four times, and the crop is hoed now and then and kept clear of weeds. The crop is ready to cut in March and April. No distinction is made between male and female plants. The whole is cut and dried together, and the leaves, flowers, and small twigs are then shaken out and form bhang. The outturn is eight to ten maunds a bigha. A little charas is sometimes made by beating the flowering twigs over a piece of cloth laid on the ground. A greyish white powder falls on the cloth which is collected and dried.

182. This account gives only one season of cultivation, but there are witnesses to corroborate the Assistant to the Commissioner of cultivation. Excise as to the plants being grown with both the early and late crops, and other fragmentary information is furnished as to the processes employed. Witness (68) mentions the use of goat and sheep dung, and the advantage of sowing four or five seeds together when the plant is to be grown amongst tobacco or garden crops. This would be cold weather cultivation. He also mentions the broadcast sowing, and states that the product of the plants grown in sailaba lands is more intoxicating. Witness (26) states distinctly that there are two seasons for the cultivation, from Kartik to Chait (October-November to April-May), and Baisakh to Sawan (May to August); and he mentions two curious manures, the " excreta of a serpent " and " decayed swallow-wort." The cultivation is carried on in small plots, and only by the keepers of takyas and dharanzsalas, especially by Sikhs. Witness (74) states that transplanting is practised, and that the cultivators are the fakirs and keepers of dharamsalas and consumers generally. Witness (67) gives three seasons for cultivation, probably the times of sowing, October-November, February-March, and July-August, and states that the plant is sometimes manured after it has grown a foot or two high. Witness (19) gives the season of sowing as from October to January and the harvest time as March, and states that the crop is cultivated like other chahl-hatri crops on chahi, hatri, or sailaba lands. The crop is cut at night to prevent the loss of seed that would otherwise occur. But this witness has not seen the cultivation. Witness (36), Civil Surgeon of Jhang, a native gentleman, has made direct enquiries in his district. The male plant is, he says, extirpated in February and March, and the rest are gathered in April, the cultivators are of the ordinary class, but are in the employ of the fakir consumers, for whom they grow the drug. Witness (24), Excise Officer, states that the seed is sown in November at the same time as wheat. The field is well drained, cleaned, and manured. The bhang seed is soaked in cow's milk and water the night before sowing. It is sown broadcast. The crop is watered. In March-April the male plant called kera, which is smaller than the female and bears a flowery head, is eradicated. The female plants are cut with the wheat in May. The cultivators are for the most part fakirs, Hindus and Muhammadans, and the products are bhang and ganja. Mr. Dames (9), Deputy Commissioner of Dera Ghazi Khan, states that the land is well watered before sowing between the months of June and September. The seed is sown between October and January, and the crop gathered in March and the beginning of April. Frequent waterings are required, and the crop must be gathered in at night, or it looses much of its value. It may be concluded that the crop is generally grown in the rabbi season, though occasionally in the monsoon ; that it requires high tilth, including a liberal supply of manure and irrigation ; that transplantation and the extirpation of the male plant are sometimes practised ; that the cultivation is for the most part carried on by consumers, of whom a very large proportion are fakirs and religious characters.

183. The evidence from the Punjab States supplies nothing new regarding the cultivation. From Bahawalpur there is corroboration of Mr. Dames's statement that in the processes preceding the sowing of the seed the land is watered.

184. The cultivation of the Khandwa tahsil has been described by the Deputy Commissioner of Khandwa and the Excise Commis-sioner. These papers, with the Commission's notes, furnish materials for the following account.

185. The average rainfall of the tract in which ganja is cultivated is 33 inches.
The soils which are considered most suitable to the crop are—

Pandhar, or white soil—land near the village site which is largely mixed with ashes and sweepings from the village ;
Mand—a light yellow alluvium pervious to moisture ;
Kali—black soil or regur.

The first two are the best ; the last is too stiff if the season happens to be very wet. The seed is specially cultivated in fields apart from the ganja, and in this the practice differs from that of Bengal, where the seeds which fall from the ganja in the process of preparation are kept for sowing. The seed of Dhakalgaon, a village in Indore territory, is considered the best, and fetches double the price of other seed. It gives a stouter and more branching plant than the local seed. The same fields are used year after year for hemp cultivation, and it is thought sufficient to manure heavily once in three years. Here again the practice differs essentially from that of Bengal, where the land will only grow hemp every three years, and heavy manuring is required each time it is sown. The manure used in Khandwa consists of household refuse, cow-dung, and ashes, and is given to the land at the rate of sixteen to twenty cartloads per acre. The crop is sown about fifteen days after the first good fall of the south-west monsoon, i.e., in June or July. If the field is not under any crop, it is ploughed in January or February, and in any circumstances it is thoroughly worked up in April or May. The latter is the season for manuring if it is the turn of the field to be manured, and two ploughings and two applications of the bakhar—an instrument which serves the purpose of a harrow—are considered necessary between this time and the sowing. The seed is sown on a sunny day by means of a bamboo drill (sarta), which is used in combination with the bakhar. The seed germinates within a week, and in twenty days the plants have reached the height of about nine inches. The spaces between the furrows are then cleaned with the bullock hoe (kolpa), and between the plants in each row with the gardening hand-implement called khztrpi, the plants being thinned out at the same time, so that they shall stand six or nine inches apart. The weeding process goes on for a month, and during it the lower leaves of the plants are removed. There is no transplantation at any time.

186. About six weeks after sowing the examination (parakhai) for eradication of male plants begins. The first plant to be detected and uprooted is the pure male called naria or bhangra. The cultivators recognise a variety of the male plant which they call sheoria, and this is treated like the zzaria. The male plant, either bhangra or sheoria, occasionally bears some female flowers, and is then called adnaria, with the addition of bhangra or sheoria according as it is supposed to belong to either variety. Naria of course means male, and adnaria hall-male. It is to be noted that no mistake is made about the true sexes of the plant by the cultivators of Khandwa. So clearly do they understand the distinction that when asked the reason for removing the male plants, a cultivator replied by asking what would happen if a ram were let loose amongst a flock of ewes. The cultivators themselves undertake this eradication, and no specialist is required. But it is not done very perfectly, for when the Commission visited a ganja field on the 9th September male plants in full blossom were discovered without much difficulty. In September or October the field begins to be irrigated. It will be noted that the south-west monsoon has now nearly ceased, and that rain is henceforward harmful, as it washes off or otherwise dissipates the resin which has begun to accumulate in the female flower spikes. The crop ripens about the middle of November, maturity being indicated by a brownish appearance in the flower spikes.

187. The Commission inspected some fields in this month, and found that those in which the crop was pure ganja contained a number of plants which the cultivators called by the name of moria. These had generally at the ends of the branchlets composing the spikes one or two male blossoms. They are said to be deficient, though not wanting in resin. They are therefore regarded as inferior, but the Khandwa cultivator does not appear to recognise the mischief that they do in the ganja crop. He, however, attributes to them a specially noxious character in that their seed invariably produces plants of the same kind (moria). They are therefore ruthlessly eliminated from the seed field, while they are sometimes allowed to remain, as was seen, in the ganja field, and are in that case harvested with the good ganja (mal). These appear to be the plants referred to by Dr. Prain as those which " the poddar could not possibly have foretold," and which the Bengal cultivator roots out for himself after the poddar's visits have ceased. They do not appear to be, as Mr. Drake-Brockman supposes, the k hasia plant of Bengal, but it is possible that the latter is included in them. The khasia form of the plant is not recognised by the Khandwa cultivator.

188. The processes in cultivating the seed plant seem to be the same as those above described as regards preference of soil, manuring, and tilth. It may be mentioned, however, that irrigation is not invariably practised for either ganja or seed crops. In the case of the seed crop, plants bearing flowers of both sexes are as far as possible eliminated. The process is rational. The blameless female is the more likely to reproduce her own kind. The evidence gives no information of peculiar methods followed in the homestead cultivation. There is no special class of cultivators.

189. There is no information of the methods of cultivation, if any still exists, in the Tributary States.

190. Mr. Benson's bulletin describes in detail the methods of cultivation in the two regions where alone ganja is supposed to be regularly cultivated in the Madras Presidency. The methods differ, and it is necessary to deal with them separately.

191. In the Javadi Hills of the North Arcot district the cultivation is carried on by the Malayalis. These people "claim to alone possess the knowledge necessary for the manufacture of ganja, a practice which has been carried on, they state, in these hills from time immemorial." There being no considerable level areas, though the ground is to a certain extent terraced, the crop is sown in small plots. " The soil is free, friable, and open, derived directly from the rocks on which it rests, thoroughly well drained, and appears to be fairly fertile." It grows the ordinary dry food-grains of the country, and the hemp alternates with them. A heavy dressing of cattle dung is absolutely necessary, and this is given in May or June before the rains begin. When the ground has been sufficiently moistened to allow of ploughing, it is broken up, and the ploughing is repeated three or four times until July. The seed is then sown in furrows, opened with the plough three feet apart, and covered in with the feet. The seeds germinate in about a week, and are allowed to grow for three weeks, when they are thinned out. In the meantime the field is kept clean by ploughing between the rows and weeding. When about a foot high, the plants are earthed up by means of the plough. When the crop is four months old, the males—called female by these raiyats—are eradicated. This process goes on continuously as the males betray their presence, but is never quite successful, as a certain amount of seed always sets. The harvest begins in January and continues up to March, ripeness being indicated by leaves and flower heads turning yellow and the former beginning to drop. The crop is never cut on a damp or cloudy day.

192. The other tract of cultivation is in the Kistna district ; the only village which has any considerable area is Daggupad, near the borders of Nellore, and about fifteen miles from the sea. It is a wide open plain, the soil being a stiff black loam with a consider. able admixture of kankar. The lands devoted to hemp are sometimes near the village, sometimes at a distance, but always reasonably accessible. The crop is sometimes cultivated and handled by the raiyat himself, but more frequently he supplies only the cattle labour, and the rest is done by others, chiefly Muhammadans, of whom there are many in the village. The crop usually follows millets, dry rice, coriander, tobacco, indigo, or chillies, but sometimes hemp is grown in successive years. In the last case heavy manuring is necessary. This is supplied by folding sheep upon the field or carrying cattle manure to it. The land is ploughed about three times between July and October, and finally worked with a three-tined grubber (gorra, or seed drill used without its seed hopper and tubes). It is then marked off in two feet squares with a marker similar to the gantaka, or scuttle worked without its share. At the angles of the squares four or five plants are dibbled in with a stick, and watered to set them.

193. The seed-bed is usually made on the dam of a tank, and is about six feet wide by sixty feet long. It is dug up with a crowbar, reduced to a fine tilth, and levelled. In August the seed is scattered upon it and covered up by hand, and the bed is hand-watered as often as necessary for the next two months. When the plants are two feet high they are topped off, and in a few days they put out numerous side branches, and are then transplanted into the field. This takes place in October. A month after planting the fields are hand-weeded, and about a fortnight later a plough is run between the rows, and the plants are thereby slightly earthed up. Flowering begins two months after planting out, and the male plants are removed. Here, as in Bengal, the male plants are called female. These plants are cut down at the root and thrown away, and the process goes on as long as male plants are detected. The harvesting begins in February and goes on into March. Nothing is said of the employment of professional parakhdars in either tract. And in neither does irrigation appear to be practised beyond the extent above-mentioned in the Kistna cultivation.

194. The evidence, as far as it relates to the regular cultivation of the tracts described above, does not add anything to this information. But details more or less interesting and some curious are furnished regarding the stray cultivation. Mr. Morgan, Deputy Conservator of Forests, says of the surreptitious cultivation in forests that the seed is scattered in old cattle kraals, and the plants thinned out to enable them to branch, the males being extirpated. A Cuddapah witness (121) states that the plants are moved from a seed-bed and planted out over the fields, after which they are carefully tended, the big leaves being removed, the trunks twisted, and the plants themselves manured. Another witness from the same district (57) mentions watering and the extirpation of the males. And yet another (134) alleges that the best sorts of ganja are produced by planting the seed or seedling—it is not clear which—in the mouth of a dead dog which has been buried in a suitable position, and by splitting the stem and binding up opium or arsenic in the cleft. The practices of splitting the stem and inserting a potsherd and of twisting the stems are mentioned by so many witnesses that there can be little doubt they are more or less in vogue. The statement that opium is inserted in the stem is also not uncommon ; but the rare evidence that arsenic and assafcetida are so used must be classed with that relating to the dead dog, to the use as manure of fowls' and pigeons' dung, of serpents' heads, of debris of dead snakes, of Ptychotis fructus, and of water made dirty by washing fish, and the getting plants poisoned by cobras. These aids to cultivation are some of them not generally known and others not easily procurable, and do not deserve much attention. The point to be noted is that even in the desultory cultivation of the garden, the homestead, and the field, the practice of isolating the female plant is not uncommon, and results in the production of the stronger and more valuable form of the narcotic, viz., ganja. The evidence seems to show beyond doubt that the knowledge of this process is very widespread, extending over the whole Presidency from the hill tracts of Ganjam to the Wynaad. It may also be mentioned as affording facility for cultivation that in the climate of the Madras Presidency the plant requires but little artificial watering. When it has once taken root, the rainfall suffices for it ordinarily. The homestead cultivation is not carried on by any special class except in so far as religious devotees, Hindu and Muhammadan, very commonly engage in it, and it may be said that the cultivators are frequently consumers of the drugs.

195. There is no information about the mode of cultivation in the Madras States, except that from Travancore, regarding the stray (and clandestine) cultivation by the Kanikars or hillmen, mendicants and Musalmans. It is said that the seed either of the imported ganja or of locally grown plants is sown thickly in loose soil. The seedlings are in due time planted out six feet apart. " The chada ganja grows denser and shorter than the other variety," presumably the male. "It thrives best in rich loam or alluvial soil. It requires no special manure, but it is believed that the decomposed bodies of snakes, particularly of serpents, is the most efficacious manure. Some even go the length of thinking that there is a special advantage in dropping the seeds into the mouths of serpents killed and planting the thing whole. Excessive rain, it appears, is injurious to ganja. The plant flowers in about ten months from date of planting." The hillmen are those who engage in this cultivation most, but it does not seem to be common. The processes already described for the Presidency in the desultory cultivation are doubtless those employed for similar cultivation in the other States.

196. The cultivation, it has been seen, is almost wholly confined to the Central Division of the Bombay Presidency, and a few small Native States in the Deccan and Southern Maratha Country. The method of cultivation in this region has been described by many witnesses, and it proceeds on one system throughout. There is some discrepancy as to the nature of the soil which is most favourable to the crop. The preponderance of evidence is in favour of the lighter mixed soils, and not of the richest and heaviest black soil. Mr. Ebden, Collector of Ahmednagar, gives the following description of it : " When grown for ganja the plant requires a rich friable soil, and land near a village site is often selected on account of the manure with which native habits supply it. Irrigation being necessary in case of insufficient rain, bagait land is preferred. When the plant is grown for seed or for the manufacture of bhang only irrigation is not essential,- and in ordinary seasons any good jirait land will do." It is principally in Satara that the richest lands are said to be preferred, but in the ganja-growing tract of that district they are, probably not the adhesive clay which is the consistency of the best black soils in the Deccan. Rotation is necessary ; good crops of hemp cannot be got off the same land in successive years. The field is thoroughly worked up for some month or two before the south-west monsoon, and is heavily manured, sometimes by folding sheep upon it. In Khandesh the seed is sown in the very commencement of the rainy season, i.e., early in June, the munga nakshatra. Further south it is put in later, viz., in the Punarvasa and Pushya nakshatras, which correspond with July-August. The seed generally preferred is that from Ahmednagar.

197. The agricultural processes are the same everywhere. The seed is sown with a single drill, the other pipes of the ordinary triple drill being closed if that implement is used. The lines are from one-and-a-half to two feet apart. The seed springs up within a week, and the plants are allowed to grow till they are about one foot high, the field being kept scrupulously clean meanwhile by the cattle hoe and hand weeding. The rows are now thinned out where they are too crowded, and the lower branches are removed to force up the growth of the tops of the plants. The weeding with the cattle hoe earths up the rows in some degree. In about six weeks from the sowing the plants have reached a height of two feet: The parakhai or parakadar is then called in. Witness (47), Superintendent, Office of Survey Commissioner, and Director of Land Record and Agriculture, says that the ganja cultivators of the Poona district are skilled in distinguishing the male plants. Everywhere else the parakhai, or examination for male plant, is done by an expert, who is paid at the rate of Rs. 8 to Rs. 1o, or even more, a month. The plants are at the same time thinned out where necessary to allow of lateral growth. The witness just quoted also states that the female plants are bruised by giving them a half twist a few inches above the root to induce this lateral growth. This process is not described by any other witness. Mr. Ebden, however, furnishes the interesting information that it is part of the parakhai's business to search the country round if he finds symptoms of mischief caused by " pernicious plants. " He also says that in the seed field the parakhai is not required. But this may be doubted, for Mr. Kennedy (54), Superintendent of Police, has learnt that the female (sic) plant is eliminated from the seed field, from which it would appear that some extermination of plants is practised here also. Probably attention is directed, as in the seed field of K handwa, to the eradication of the bi-sexual plants of all kinds.

198. The educated witnesses who have supplied the information before the Commission understand clearly enough the broad distinction between the male and female plants and their functions, but the cultivators seem to be very hazy on the subject (Mr. Ebden). In spite of the fact that one or two of the names applied to the various undesirable plants which the parakhai casts out show a correct understanding of the reason why they are mischievous, these names without distinction are given by two witnesses as names of diseases, and it is probable that the plants indicated are popularly regarded as diseased plants. Yet it is difficult to believe that there should be so wide a gulf between this ignorance and the intelligence found in the Central Provinces among people of the same race and occupation, and not separated from the Bombay cultivators by any great distance as distances go in India. The forms of the plant, noxious from the point of view of the ganja grower, which have received special names, are given below, with the explanations of the witnesses regarding them in brief. These explanations are evidently gathered from informants, and are not based on the witnesses' own observations, except in the case of Mr. Ebden.

Andya (36), Andia (3o).—Indicated by the " pin-like white flowers" (36) ; by organic molecules formed in the top of the plants ; affects plants in the beginning of their growth, and lasts about a month (30).
Remark.—Apparently the simple male.
Bhangira (48), Dhatura (5).—Plant examined by Mr. Ebden, who says " Latter name identical with that of the common poisonous plant," and pronounced male.
Remark.—The simple male.
Shevarya (36), Sheora (3o), Shewara (5).—One of the branches grows higher, and bends down with a flower like jawari grain at the end of it (36). White flowers grow on the flower top (3o). Mr. Ebden has not seen specimen.
Remark.—A form of the male plant known by the same name at Khandwa...
Haldya (36), Haldia (3o).—Recognised by a yellow shoot at one of the knots of the plant (36). Affects the plant by producing a yellow colour in the tops, and lasts till the full growth of the plant (30).
Remark.—The yellow colour may be caused by deposit of pollen.
Kapshia (36), Kapsha (3o).—Recognised by a jawari like grain which gets transformed into a white or yellow flower (36). Whitens the plant (30).
Remark.—Witness (36) describes a male blossom ; witness (30) some sort of disease or the deposit of pollen.
Bundia (36), Sunda (3o).—Same description as that of Kapsha (36). The seed is formed in the flower head, which afterwards produces flower (3o).
Remark.—A bi-sexual form probably.
Mora (36), (30), Moral (5).—Recognised by the yellow flower on the top branch, which makes its appearance sometimes fifteen days before reaping of the crop, and has the effect of destroying the better quality of the ganja (36). Appears late, and causes breach (sic) of the flower spike (30). Female partly gone to seed ; is not exterminated ; is regarded with regret, its meaning being that the male has somehow got access and partly spoiled the crop. Examined (5).
Remark.—Probably the same as the moria of Khandwa, and the female with abnormal male blossom of Dr. Prain.
Charkluz (3o).—Makes the flower yellow, and lasts to the end (30). Remark.—Much the same as Kapsha.
Aradnar (30), Ardhanar (5).—From the stock to the top of the plants small buds are formed which give rise to white flowers (30). Not examined ; but must be, as its name implies, the bi-sexual plant (5).
Remark.—The same name, adnaria, is used in Khandwa for the ordinary male plant with some female blossoms.
Tik (5).—Examined and pronounced bi-sexual ; the ardhanar, which Mr. Ebden did not examine, was probably the same (5).
Remark.—Sounds like a short name for the rather clumsy one which goes .before.
Ropda (5).—Mentioned, but not seen by Mr. Ebden.

The fact that the plant in its sexual arrangements takes so many forms will probably be interesting to scientific readers, and the complete list is therefore given. And it is supplemented with such remarks as the information gathered in the course of the Commission's inquiry seems to justify. The Commission do not claim to have made any exact study of the subject, and have not even had an opportunity of personally examining the plant and its cultivation in the Bombay Presidency. As far as the cultivation is concerned, the enumeration of these forms of the plant is of interest as illustrating the fact that the extermination of the male requires considerable practical skill, and that the existence of the moria form, which develops its male blossoms with such delay and caution, is a special difficulty in the way of the complete seclusion of the female, and the production of the finest form of the drug.

The crop matures in about five months, and is therefore gathered in November or December in different localities according to the date of sowing. In Bijapur the cultivation is carried on by the ganja farmer, and the parakhai seems to supervise it up to harvest ; and it would appear that elsewhere his services are required for a longer period than they are in Bengal, and that he exercises a wider control over the cultivation generally. As a rule irrigation is only resorted to if the rainfall is insufficient or untimely ; but the crop is nearly always raised under the protection of a well. After the flower spikes are formed on the ganja plants rain does damage. The crop does not ripen till a month or two after the south-west monsoon has ceased, and during this period irrigation must often be required. Witness (27) describes what must be the simple garden cultivation, which, if it exists at all at the present day, is quite unimportant in this Presidency. The evidence shows a striking unanimity on the point that the heavy rainfall of the belt lying immediately to the east of the crest of the Western Ghats renders that part of the country unsuitable for the cultivation of hemp. There is a strong body of evidence that rich but light soil and only a moderate amount of rain are required. This has an important bearing on the subject of:the spontaneous growth.

199. About the cultivation in Gujarat the information is that loamy or sandy soils are suitable, and that black soil is not ; that the crop takes six or seven months to mature ; that it can be raised either as a monsoon crop or as a cold-weather crop ; that the former yields the stronger narcotic ; that the males are extirpated ; and that irrigation is not required. There is no information about the employment of the parakhai, and it is probable that in this cultivation for bhang the moderate skill possessed by the cultivators themselves answers all purposes. Both in the Deccan and Gujarat the cultivators are of the ordinary class; the industry is not confined to any caste or grade among them. The cultivators, in Ahmednagar are sometimes Brahmins.

200. The description of the cultivation given above applies to the Southern Maratha Country Agency and all the States in the Southern and Central Divisions where they have any cultivation at all. The following agencies have not any regular cultivation : Kathiawar, Cutch, Palanpur, Mahi Kantha, and Rewa Kantha. Such cultivation as there is consists in the rearing of a few plants which have often sprung up by accident by water-courses in gardens and in fields, generally irrigated fields, such as those where sugarcane is grown. There is no information as to whether the male plants are eradicated, or of any peculiar methods employed in the cultivation. The cultivators are either consumers, often fakirs and bairagis, or, if not, ordinary husbandmen who nurse a few plants to provide themselves with an article that will be an acceptable present to such people. The drugs appear to be very rarely sold.

201. There is no cultivation of any kind in Aden.

202. There appear to be two methods of cultivation in Sind, as stated by witness (5)—one by well irrigation, and the other by artificial inundation or flooding. In the latter case it would seem that the preliminary flooding has to suffice for the whole growth of the crop. The best descriptions are given by witnesses (2) and (14).

203. In cultivation by well the area is generally smaller than in the other process (2). This would be expected, for the former involves a greater amount of labour in the preparation of the land, systematic sowing in ridges, and periodical watering. Mr. Giles' account apparently describes the cultivation under wells, which he states to be the more general. High tilth and manunng are required, goats' dung being the manure preferred. The seed is sown even as late as the beginning of January. It is put in by pinches of five or six seeds at a time on ridges. The crop is gathered in April and May. The male plants are rooted up and thrown away as useless. When the crop is ripening, some of the flower-heads are cut off and preserved separately. These are called ghundyun, and are said to be more intoxicating than the rest of the plants. Small pieces of ghundyun, which fall off apparently in the drying of the rest of the crop, are called dodo or dodi, and are preserved with the ghundyun. Witness (14), in describing cultivation by periodical irrigation and not mere flooding, states that the seed is sown broadcast ; that after a preliminary soaking the ground has to be worked up, the seed sown, and the ground again turned over and levelled in one day. Manuring, says this witness, is generally deferred till the plants have made some growth for fear of a noxious worm which attacks the young plants. When the seedlings have appeared two or three inches above ground, weeding begins, and the plants are thinned out. When the plants are a foot high, they are dressed with manure, and this may be done more than once during the period of growth. When the crop reaches the height of about five feet, the male plants, which are distinguishable by their small pale-green flowers, are weeded out. The reasons assigned for this practice are that the female may have more room to grow, and that the male plant is held to cause giddiness when used.

204. This witness says nothing about the separate collection of certain of the flower spikes, but witness (26) does : " The big ghundis are separated and kept apart to be used as ganja." It may be that this account refers to selection made at the time of manufacture, and not to such a selection from the still standing crop as Mr. Giles seems to indicate. Broadcast sowing appears to be the more common practice, except where a few plants are grown for private consumption. In that case the sides of water-courses appear to be a favourite situation for the plant. The evidence does not show that the people understand the effect of removing the males in increasing the secretion of resin in the female flower spikes. It would seem that the produce of the female plant is preferred for consumption, and that the male is removed because it interferes with the growth of the superior plant. It is in fact treated as a weed. It cannot, however, be doubted that the practice of eradicating it is general. Witness (i o) mentions some curious practices intended to enhance the narcotic quality of the drugs, the like of which have been described elsewhere. Some people, says this witness, make an incision in the stem of the bhang plant and put opium into it, sometimes a dead snake is buried under the plant, or it is watered with dhatura-water or huka-water.

205. Hindus appear to be the chief growers of bhang, while the majority of ordinary cultivators are Muhammadans. Mr. Giles writes that " the actual sowing of the seed, the ploughing, weeding, and bird scaring, etc., is always carried out by Bania or Hindu cultivators, the Muhammadan cultivator supplying the bullocks which work the well and the zamindar giving the land. The Bania supplies the seed, but the manure is given in the same proportion as the produce is divided, i.e., one-fifth to the Bania and two-fifths each to the raiyat and the landholder. The landholder also gives takavi or advance in cash to the raiyat." This seems to describe a partnership of a kind which probably exists in the cultivation of other produce in the same country ; but there is other evidence to show that the Hindus preponderate in growing this particular crop. The habit or custom is not, however, sufficiently well marked to be regarded as a special feature of the industry.

206. The cultivation in Khairpur is not likely to differ from that of the rest of Sind. There is no detailed information about it.

207. In Berar, as elsewhere, the pandhri or white land near villages is preferred ; black soil is too stiff, and has to be made lighter with heavy manuring. The crop is grown in the south-west monsoon, sown in June, and gathered in November. It must be protected by a well in case of failure of timely rain. The official report says : " If the rains fall favourably, no irrigation is required till about October, when the plants are maturing, when apparently they always require to be watered." The cultivation of Berar does not differ materially from that of Khandwa, whence the seed seems to be imported. There is one curious practice which the Commission have not heard of elsewhere. The seed which is sown with the drill is a mixture of Cannabis and Hibiscus cannabinus. When the seedlings are a fortnight old, the Hibiscus plants are weeded out. One witness explains this practice as being due to the fact that hemp seed will not germinate by itself. The official explanation, which is probably correct, is that the hemp seed is by this means economised, the necessary space between the plants being secured at the expense of Hibiscus seed. The male plants (bhangra) are picked out after the crop has reached one-and-a-half feet in height. One witness (9) states that the malis who carry on the cultivation are able to distinguish the sexes, and one other (7) that the services of experts are required. The others are silent on the point. Witness (14) mentions the practice of opening the lower part of the stem, inserting opium, and binding the part up very tightly to increase the narcotic quality of the drug. The same witness moves on the date of sowing to the Punarvasu and Pusha nakshatras, July-August, which is the sowing time in the Bombay Deccan. Witness (II) states that under native rule the plant was cultivated by consumers in the yards of houses. It was watered, and when it had grown sufficiently to allow the sex to be discovered, the ganja smokers uprooted and threw away male plants. There is no particular class of cultivators, unless it be that the malis preponderate among them for the reason that their vocation is cultivation by means of well irrigation.

208. In Ajmere there is but a small amount of desultory cultivation by the Brahmins of Pushkar, malis, and sadhus. The plant may be occasionally tended with some care when it is grown in the garden of a mali or near the but of a sadhu ; but there is some evidence that it is generally allowed to take care of itself. Mr. White King's report of 1886 says : " Even in Pushkar, however, it is grown only in. small quantities on the edges of fields and along the banks of water-channels," and this seems to be the most considerable cultivation in the province. This report does not indicate any great care in the cultivation. The produce, according to the same report, is merely bhang. The evidence does not furnish any details whatever of the method of cultivation.

209. In Coorg the methods of desultory homestead cultivation may be employed by some low class coolies. A witness talks of the seeds being " sown broadcast in rich soil mixed with burnt clay, and afterwards transplanted in good rich soil ;" but it is not clear that this method is in vogue in Coorg. Some Madras witnesses gave information of the same kind.

210. There is no information from Baluchistan.

211. Mr. Bridges (3) and the ex-Sawbwa of Nyaungwe State (50) are the only witnesses who give any details of the cultivation in Burma. The Shans and the Danu people appear to rear the plant for the drug in their homestead land; the Kachins, Palaungs, and Lawas to cultivate for fibre in fields. Mr. Bridges is informed that in the former cultivation the male plant is exterminated. The ex-Sawbwa does not know of this practice. But he says that the stem of the plant is split when about the thickness of the finger and a month before maturity, and a piece of wood inserted. A light earthen chatty, or more often a basket, is placed over the flower-head, and allowed to rest upon it, to prevent the plant growing and make the head grow thick. In order to do this, the flower-bearing branches are gathered together and thrust into the vessel, which has a mouth of about a foot in diameter. This is the regular practice in cultivation for drugs. The chatty or basket is kept on the plant for about a month. These processes are not unknown in India. The splitting of the stem is frequently mentioned, but the use of the chatty in only two provinces. No account of the Kachin cultivation has been furnished.

212. A peculiar method of cultivation is described by the Special Assistant Excise Commissioner and the Excise Assistant Supervisor, Tumkur district : " The seeds are sown in a nursery at the beginning of the south-west monsoon. A month after sowing the seedlings are transplanted into pits, each one foot deep, and dug at intervals of three feet, and well manured. The young plants are watered daily for a month or so. The stem of the plant is twisted just above the ground, and the plant itself is bent horizontally to the level of the earth in order to induce the growth of side branches and prevent the vertical growth of the plants like a stick. Just after the appearance of blossoms on the female plants, male plants are destroyed, etc." Such is the latter officer's description. The last sentence is rather faulty, for the extermination of the male plant after the female was ready to receive its attentions would not be of much use. Mr. McDonnell describes a very similar, but even more remarkable, method, to judge by its results in the size of the plant :
When specially cultivated, a circular pit two or three feet in diameter and a foot or so deep is excavated, and well manured with cow-dung and ashes. The plants are made to form a circle round the edge of the pit, and the centre is heaped up with manure as required. The stems rise five to seven and often twelve feet high, each as thick as a man's wrist, and are supported by staves secured with ligatures from the aloe leaf. In other cases single plants are raised in each pit. The stern is then the thickness of a man's arm, five feet high, and as much in diameter. The stem is taken in both hands, and twisted at the• root just above the surface of the ground to stunt the growth   The male plant is profitless, and is uprooted and thrown away." It is by no means clear to what extent these methods are actually practised, and, for the practical purpose of producing ganja, the important operation of early eliminating the male plant has hardly sufficient prominence in their description. There appears to be a spice of imagination about them--an element in which the subject of cultivation as well as much else connected with the hemp plant is by no means wanting.

213. A fairly full description of the method of cultivation is given by the Director of Agriculture and Commerce of the Hyderabad State. The greater portion of the cultivation appears to lie in the north-west corner of the State bordering on the Bombay districts of Sholapur, Ahmednagar, Nasik, and Khandesh. The description does not show any important departure from the methods of the British districts. It may be noted, however, that " fresh seed every year from some distant village is unavoidably necessary." The names of " male and unhealthy kind of plant " which must be weeded out are—

In Telugu country-  Kotmir. Kokapoti (dog's tooth) Yongpota. Bougra.
In Aurungabad- Mathisar Ardnar. Morga. Bhagira.

The last three Aurungabad names can probably be identified with the similar names used in Satara and Ahmednagar. It is stated that the extirpation of these plants is a heavy item in the labour bill. The Director mentions having seen ganja plants grown by a fakir in the compound of his but in Warangal, which is in the eastern part of the territory, about seven to eight feet high, and each plant twelve to sixteen feet in circumference, the stem near the root eleven inches round. These were a few plants only. The cultivation is not confined to any particular class. The witnesses, however, lay stress on the fact that it requires special knowledge and skill, which are possessed by very few.

214. If there is any regular field cultivation in Rajputana in areas set apart for the crop exclusively, it is not very important, and the papers furnish no information of the methods employed in it. Some details are supplied of the desultory garden cultivation. It is carried on by those who possess gardens, who are generally malls, but may be Kunzbhars, Kachis, Ghanclzis, Sivris, or of any other caste. Bhang is rarely, if ever, grown as the principal crop. It is sown in the beds with poppy, tobacco, onion, or other vegetables in the month of January or February. Sometimes it is sown round these beds, which may contain in place of the crops mentioned above coriander, mustard, or rijka grass. It is gathered in June. It does not appear to receive any special care. Its growth is to a great extent haphazard, and often springs from accidental sowings. The practice of removing the male plant is not found in any State. In some places the saline character of the soil and the scantiness of water forbid the cultivation. The Commission have been informed that experiments to grow the plant in Erinpura failed.

215. Mr. Gunion's memorandum contains a description of the methods of cultivation for ganja and seed in the Indore and Dewas States. The same field is cultivated for bhang and seeds in•Indore, but in the Dewas State the male plant is removed from the bhang field. They do not materially differ from that of the Nimar district in the Central Provinces, and it may be doubted if the elimination of males in the Dewas bhang cultivation is a correct description of the selection which is made. It may be noted, however, that the Indore cultivator, unlike the Khandwa cultivator, does not trust himself to buy the seed or exterminate the male plant. Experts are employed for these purposes. In Mr. Gunion's account mention is made of " inferior and unhealthy plants " to be exterminated apart from the removal of males, and it would appear from this that the cultivator, or it may be the Indore reporter, had not such clear ideas of the various sexual forms of the plant as the Nimar cultivator was found to possess. In the Indore cultivation gaps caused by faulty sowings or failure of seed to germinate are filled up with new seed. The soil on which the plant is grown in Dewas is described as " dry, stony, elevated loam." In these States the cultivation is not carried on by any particular class, but it would appear that in Rewah the Kachis alone undertake the industry.
The Political Agent of Bhopawar gives the following description of the desultory kind of cultivation employed in that part of Central India : " Hemp seed is sown in poppy or maize fields. When the plant is above two-and-ahalf feet high, the main stem is split near the root and a piece of tile thrust in. This prevents the plant from setting seed freely and makes the tops fit for ganja. When particularly strong ganja is required, each hemp plant is watered once with half a tola of opium dissolved in water. The cultivators believe that by transplanting the young plant into the mouth of a dead venomous snake (cobra preferred) the ganja becomes unusually strong." The Commission have heard of the extirpation of male plants in the cultivation of the Gwalior State, and the same information is furnished by Mr. Gopal Ram in the appendix to the North-Western Provinces memorandum. The latter authority also mentions that the crop is irrigated, and that " some* cultivators sow wheat in the ganja fields in the months of October and November." The cultivation covers the season from July to December.

216. No details are furnished in the State report, but the cultivation is of very small extent, and it may be confidently assumed that its methods are the same as those of the Gujarat Division of Bombay, with which the greater part of the Baroda territory is intermingled.

217. The State report would show that there is no cultivation in Kashmir. Dr. Royle's " Fibrous Plants of India " and the references to the hemp plant in " Punjab Products" have been consulted without finding any definite statement to contradict this information. In the latter work both the bhang and " fibre " sent from Kashmir and Ladakh to the Punjab Exhibition are mentioned, but they may very well have been the produce of the wild growth. Dr. Watt refers in his " Hemp or Cannabis saliva " to cultivation of the plant in Kashmir, but without mentioning his authority. Dr. Royle's abstract of information at page 327 states : " All along the Himalayas, that is, in Nepal, in Kumaon, in Garhwal, and up to the newly acquired hills of the Punjab, at elevations of from 3,00o- and 4,000 to 7,000 feet hemp is cultivated by the hilimen." Beyond this point westward his information does not go. There is a curious statement by the Governor of Kashmir that " almost all wild hemp, whch is called talia in the Punjab, and is generally female plants in the above-mentioned tahsils, is used for the preparation of ganja locally known by name gard bhang (chura charas)." The meaning is not clear ; but the preponderance of the female plants, if it is the fact, indicates either some peculiarity in the environment of the plant in these regions or tending by man.

218. The answers to the Commission's questions furnished by the Nepal Darbar would lead to the belief that cultivation is very uncommon, and only carried on in a desultory way by consumers of the narcotics. But in Dr. Royle's " Fibrous Plants of India" will be found at page
323 a description by Mr. Hodgson of the cultivation for fibre. He states that the cultivation is peculiar to the northern districts of Nepal. These districts,. " popularly called Cachar, are nevertheless the prime seats of culture, and there alone is the plant manufactured into rope or cloth, though the edible extracts are sometimes prepared nearer to and around Katmandu." Regular cultivation for fibre is therefore confined to the northern districts. The season of sowing is from March to April. The season is earlier, but the course of cultivation is much the same as in "Kumaon. Mr. Hodgson states that " damp soils, comprising black earth, are fittest for this crop." This description does not agree with other information on the subject. The plants flower and fruit in July, and are in their full growth at the beginning of August. While yet succulent and in flower they are cut, with the exception of some seed plants, which are not to be reaped till October. It is the bark of the young but full grown July plants which is soft that is used for making cloth. That of the old or October plants is hard and not suitable for manufacture. Mr. Hodgson says nothing in the extract made by Dr. Royle, if there is anything to be said, of the processes adopted for developing the narcotic in the growing plant. The fibre cultivator of Kumaon does not apparently do anything with this special object, and yet his female plant yields charas. It is probable that the early removal of the males may have the tendency in both places.

219. The Darbar answers say nothing about the fibre cultivation, but they contain some information regarding the scattered cultivation for narcotics. The following morsels may be quoted : " When the plants put forth fine down, the tip of the plants is cut off, and the big leaves are plucked off, and the plant is shaken from time to time so that the down may fall off. This causes a large number of branches and fine leaves to be produced, and the latter, getting twisted and stuck together, are called in Nepalese lata." " The plant which produces much seed is no good ; that which produces little seed is good." " Some persons in the hills plant a few trees which are to be had growing wild." " By slitting the stem of the plant and inserting a piece of opium or clove or blziroza wood and tying up the part with a string the ganja becomes somewhat more intoxicating. This is done by those who know about it, and is not the work of any particular class." " The male plant of the ganja is solid ; the female one is hollow. The male plant is more intoxicating than the female. When the plant has attained a height of two or two-and-a-half feet, it is slightly slit, and ascertained whether it is a male or female."
From these extracts it may be gathered that the wild seedlings are transported and planted in suitable places, and that every endeavour is then made to encourage the secretion of the resin in the female (called male) plants. Probably the cultivators know the effect of exterminating the male plant, and follow the practice, though this is not expressly stated.