CULTIVATION
Area &
Production.
Total area.
44
Extracted from the Dictionary of
PAPA VER
Area & Production.
somniferum.
opium, the latter had similarly increased and the doom of the opium trade
seemed then not far off. The less productive districts, and those which
yielded inferior opium, were once again barred from cultivation. Affairs
were wound up in Hazaribagh, Lohardugga, Rungpore, Dinajpur,
Meerut, Allahabad, Jalaun, Etawah, Mainpuri, and Banda. But at the
close of the Chinese war in 1842 prospects once more revived, but it was
then resolved to extend cultivation within existing districts and not again to
open up those lately abandoned. The Behar Agency, with the exception of
the discontinuance in 1848 of Purneah and the re-introduction of the poppy
into Chutia Nagpur in 1869-70 and its re-abandonment in 1877-78, has
remained stationary since 1840. It is thus quite incorrect to say (as in the
Pharm acographia Indica) that the eastern limits of opium production of
the present day is Dinajpur and its southern Hazaribagh.
In the Benares Agency changes have been more frequent and the ex-
pansion larger. From 1840 to 1861 the only addition was the recultivation
of the poppy in Mainpuri and in Banda. But after the disturbances of
1857 and the annexation of Oudh, opium-producing districts had either to
be permitted to continue as they had been doing during Native rule or be
prohibited. The conditions and necessities of the country were vastly
changed and opium cultivation was accordingly permitted (in 1860 to 1864 )
in many new districts or restored in others, such as Saharanpur, Dehra
Dun, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Aligarh, Bulandshahr, Muttra, Agra,
Budaun, Moradabad. Bareillv, Fyzabad, Bara Banki, Unao, Lucknow,
Gonda, Bahraich, Hardoi, Sitapur, Sultanpur, Partabgarh, and Rae
Bareli. But as it became impossible to exercise proper supervision and con-
trol over the opium production and consumption, Meerut, Agra. Muttra,
Muzaffarnagar, Bulandshahr, and Aligarh were given up and Etah added
in 1864-65 to the North-West opium-growing tract. Moradabad, Dehra
Dun, and Saharanpur were abandoned, while Kheri and Shahjahanpur
were added in 1871-73. In 1881-82 a fresh re-arrangement and slight
expansion of the area took place, but not such as to materially increase the
total of all India, and, indeed, some contraction has since taken place in the
North-West area. The changes that have occurred were governed by many
considerations, chief among which appear to have been the administrative
necessities of the country and the discovery that one locality produced a
better quality of the drug than another.
In concluding this brief review, of the opium-producing area of
India, it is perhaps safe to say that it does not now and has never under
British domination in India materially exceeded 1,000,000 acres. The total
annual production of opium might, therefore, be put at about 1,50,000
maunds. This statement assumes an average yield of 10 seers the acre.
Duthie & Fuller in their Field&Garden Crops think, that, while the
average yield recorded at Ghazipur, for the North-West Provinces, during
16 years prior to their estimate was 9 seers, the well-known fact that the
consumption of Government opium in poppy-growing, is much lower than
in non-poppy growing districts, proves, these authors contend, that the culti-
vators always retain a portion of the produce. On that account they
regard a yield of 10 seers as more nearly correct. In most parts of the
Behar Agency the yield is considerably less than in the North-West Prov-
inces, but in Malwa it is greater, so that a yield of 10 seers is very probably
not far from the average production for all India. The figure arrived at
by such an estimate corresponds to the actual returns plus an allowance
for illicit consumption. In conclusion, it may be said that the number of
licensed cultivators in the Government Agencies is, as a rule, a little over
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