REPORT BY DR. GEORGE WATT, M.B., C.M., C.I.E., &c., REPORTER ON ECONOMIC PRODUCTS TO THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA.

In reply to your letter No. ti9w6?, dated 23rd April, and your unofficial reminder to hand, I have the honour to say that I had not intended to contribute anything towards the present enquiry into the subject of Indian hemp, because I have little to add that would likely be of any great value further than what is contained in my previous publications on that subject. Indeed, what I might be induced to say as to the botany of Cannabis saliva might fairly well be characterised as pure speculation, since I have had no opportunity of personally confirming the impressions obtained from casual observation. Since, however, it seems to be the wish of the Government that I should offer some remarks, I may point out that while the forms of the plant met with in India are botanically only states of Cannabis saliva, I believe that, as with all other cultivated plants, there are recognisable races of that species. It would indeed be contrary to experience in other fields of study were it otherwise. The external differences between these forms are however very slight and such as the botanist is by universal usage permitted to disregard. In the herbarium they are indeed hardly distinguishable, though, from the cultivator's point of view, these slight differences may be indicative of widely dissimilar properties. Few botanists would venture to isolate aus, aman, boro, and rowa races of Oryza ;diva; yet the rice cultivator of Bengal would have no difficulty in distinguishing these and many others; nor in fixing the period at which each should, be sown and the nature of the soil on which its cultivation would be most successful. This, in my opinion, is an exactly parallel case, and I might mention many such to the wonderful problem of the production of so widely different products as bhang, ganja, charas, and hemp fibre from botanically one and the same plant. Some of the racial characteristics that exist may be mainly due to climate and soil ; but it should not be forgotten that there are generally very potent influences in the production of races of cultivated plants. It would accordingly be most unwise to set on one side the possibility of differences, on the ground of these being mainly, or even exclusively, due to climatic and other such influences.

I hold, therefore, that the study of the living plants on the part of a botanist might very possibly result in the isolation of the fibre-yielding plant of Cannabis sativa as possessing certain structural peculiarities more or less constantly associated with that physiological property, just as I believe that a similar isolation might be possible in the bhang, ganja, and charas-yielding states of the plant.

2. The practical bearings of this purely botanical contention might be very extensive and valuable. So far as I am aware, no botanist has as yet explained the formation of the narcotic in certain forma of Cannabis, and not (or practically not) in others. We may, in fact, be said to be ignorant of the precise use of that substance in the economy of the plant. Its discharge from the stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits seems to a large extent mechanical and to be dependent, on some external disturbance, more especially an interruption to the sexual functions of the individual. It may indeed be said to be uncertain whether the formation of the narcotic should be regarded as an excretary substance normally deposited within receptacles, or be viewed, in its early stage at least, as a substance intimately connected with the metabolism of the plant, but which becomes a useless bye-product of life under certain conditions. But of course such excreta are only useless to plant life, in so far that they are not concerned in the further nutritive processes which accompany growth. This is important in its bearing on the probable chemical history of the narcotic. The solid and liquid contents of the latieiferous vessels, for example, of the poppy or of the India rubber plant are very different from the deposits found within glands. The former bear a distinct analogy to the blood in the veins of animals, while the latter might not inaptly be characterised as refuse matter. The contents of the laticiferous vessels may, however' be said to be of two chief kinds—(a) those which are constantly being used up in the growth of tissues, such as the proteids, carbo-hydrates, fats, and ferments ; and (b) the secretions and excretions ultimately- thrown down within these vessels or their vesicular modifications, such as the resins, gums, alkaloids, etc. Through the action of ferments many of the 'latter subsequently become available for the future growth of the plant, so that they are more properly stores of food than excreta. But the purely excretary matter stored up by plants in their variously formed receptacles may be here mentioned, such as granules of calcium oxulate ; resins and ethereal oils combined usually into balsam, mucus, various kinds of gums; and lastly tannins (some tannins are, however, reserve-materials). These and such like are the excretary deposits, and they are made normally within individual cells dispersed through the tissue or into cells arranged in rows forming vesicles between the vascular bundles. Sometimes also the receptacles of secretion are intercellular spaces of various shapes and sizes filled by the discharges from the abutting cells A well-marked modification of this night be mentioned in the resin and gum passages which are formed by the separation of rows of cells, thus producing intercellular chambers of considerable length. A point of importance that may be here specially mentioned is the fact that excretary deposits of the nature here discussed are made from the very earliest period of individual life ; in other words, anterior to the formation of even vascular tissue and consequently long before the stage at which flowers and fruits are formed.

But there are further purely epidermal receptacles of secretion quite distinct from those discussed above. To this class belongs, according to the commonly accepted views, the deposits of the narcotic in the hemp plant. Epidermal receptacles are generally designated as glands, but in the vast majority of cases these contain only ethereal oils with resins dissolved in them. And there are two classes of glands—those located just below the epidermis and those above it ; the latter are mostly hairs or stings. The viscid condition of the surface of many leaves is due to epidermal glands, and in some cases the fluid contents of such glands possess a characteristic odour peceliar to the species. The formation of glands and the nature of their contents are essentially different from the corresponding features detailed above regarding the laticiferous system and its excretary deposits, and this distinction is of vital importance. Glands originate from a single mother-cell which undergoes division until a rounded mass of tissue is produced, the cells of which are smaller than those of the closely-fitting surrounding tissue, and they contain a peculiar form of protoplasm. Later on the central cells of this special structure become absorbed, thus forming a cavity which contains the solution of the cells and their contents, the secretionary product of glands. It is thus doubtful how far the contents of glands can be called excretary deposits. They are more frequently specific secretions formed for a definite purpose in the life history of the plant. Such, while discussing the glands of the hop, "says the so-called Hashish arises sitnilarly in the long-stalked many-celled capitate hairs of the female plant of the Indian hemp." But I suspect that in the plant as met with in India there is something more than this, and that microscopical investigations are likely to reveal special developments by which the resinous narcotic has assumed the character of an excretary discharge. At all events the formation of the narcotic is not, so far as my observation goes, confined to the female plant. But I have already qualified my opinions as those based on casual observation, and I need therefore only add that the above review of the most recently published theory of the depoSition, permanently or temporarily, of various chemical .substanees within the tissues of plants has been given with the object of showing the possibility of there existing in Cannabis some structural modifications by which the narcotic is deposited wiain the leaves of one form (the bhang-yielding plant) ; appears on the surface of the female flowering-tops (especially if fecundation be prevented) of another, the ganja plant ; and exudes from the surface of the leaves, stems and fruits of still a third—the charas plant. And I would even venture to go further and suggest that when the chemistry of the substance is fully worked out it will be found to vary quite as greatly in these three forms of Cannabis saliva as does the inspissated laticiferous fluid (opium) of the various cultivated races of Papaver somnifernm. Such variation might account for the reputed different properties of bhang, ganja and charas. In concluding this section of my remarks, therefore, I would only add, by way of recapitulation, that if the narcotic of Indian hemp (as currently believed) be purely and simply a glandular secretion, it differs as widely from opium botanically as it does chemically. It must in that Pease be a substance unconnected with the metabolism of the growing plant, and its reputed formation in association with imperfect fecundity might be characterised as very possibly a pure hallucination of ignorant cultivators.

3. Accepting the main contention here advanced that, as in the case of all other Indian crops, so with Cannabis saliva, there are cultivated races, we obtain at once a solution of the remarkable fact of one and the same plant botanically yielding in one part of India one product, in another a widely different article. We are enabled also to understand why it should alike luxuriate on the tropical plains and on the Alpine slopes. But this view of the case urges as of primary importance, that early attention be given to the systematic study of ;he various forms, so that we may be saved from the error of arousing false expectations or of doing injury to one cultivator because, perchance, of the pernicious nature of the product of another's labours. When Dr. Stocks wrote in 184,8 that "the plant grows well in Sind, and if it ever should be found advantageous (politically or financially) to grow hemp for its fibre, then Sind would be a very proper climate," be was reasoning very possibly from insufficient data. Because Cannabis saliva (in one of its charas-yielding states), flourishes in Sind, it by no means follows that accordingly the fibre-yielding plant may be substituted. On the contrary, we now know that by far the major portion of the narcotic-yielding races of the plant form no marketable fibre in their stems, and further that it is but rarely the case that both series of races (narcotic and fibre) can be grown in the same locality. So far as works published in Europe are -concerned, it may in all fairness be said that the error has been very frequently made of regarding the Garhwal and Kumaon regions of fibre production as the total areas of Indian hemp cultivation in this country (e.g., Cyclopedia of India and the Encyclopeedia Britannica), or on the other hand of mistaking the extensive areas of narcotic production as possible regions of the supply of a fibre which is sometimes spoken of as at present being allowed to run to waste. Errors of this nature would, as I take it, be quite as serious, if not more so, than the omission to demarcate the tracts of country over which each peculiar form of the narcotic-yielding plant is found. Without therefore entering on the subject of the deleterious nature or otherwise of the drug, I may safely say that, in my opinion, it would be undesirable to impose restrictions of equal severity on tracts of country where fibre is produced or where bhang only can be grown, as on regions of ganja or charas production. It would be quite as justifiable to prosecute occupants of houses where the wild plant occurred within a fixed radius. Legislature might rather proceed on the lines of the scientific limitations of the forms of the plants possible of cultivation and the character of the narcotic produced.

4. Before concluding I may add that, in spite of all that has been written to the contrary, I still believe that India may one day come forward as a valued country in the production of hemp fibre. With the gradual extension of railway communications the valleys of the Himalaya will sooner or later be tapped, when hemp production may then be expected to assume considerable importance. But there are very possibly tracts of the central tableland of India similar to the Godavery district (where hemp fibre is a regular article of trade) which could easily grow the fibre-yielding forms of the plant and thus give to India a new source of wealth. lt is therefore, in my opinion, a matter of considerable moment that this feature of Cannabis saliva cultivation should not be lost sight of amid the conflicting mass or opinion likely to be recorded regarding the hemp narcotics.

Note added by Secretary, Revenue and zigricultural Department.

An illustration of Dr. Watt's argument may be suggested by the case of the flax plant Lie um usitatissimum, which supplies fibre in Ireland and Europe and only oil-seeds in India. Attempts to grow flax for fibre in India have failed, and attempts to grow it for oil-seeds in Europe would probably fail also.

If for any reason flax (fibre) were condemned as an injurious article, it would be very hard to prevent the natives of India from cultivating it for oil-seeds. Or if the oil-seeds were condemned as an intoxicating food for cattle, would the growing of flax for textile purposes be forbidden in Europe ?