159
(b) No charas.
(c) There is no cultivation of bhang, but the
growth is fostered in some cases.
The cultivation is resorted to primarily with
the object of growing ganja; if it fails, the leaves
are used as bhang. Bhang grows spontaneously
all over Bengal, and its cultivation is rare.
Illicit cultivation is generally decreasing through
the vigilance of Excise and Police officers.
(d) It is not cultivated solely for its fibre or
seeds.
The formation of seed cannot entirely be
prevented by the destruction of the male plants,
as there are seeds in the Rajshahi ganja exported,
and the seeds of the Rajshahi ganja are used for
the cultivation of ganja plants in the ganja mahal.
The wild hemp grows wild from the seeds of the
wild hemp. Ganja plants are illicitly reared from
the seeds of the Rajshahi ganja.
8. The area of the ganja mahal is not decreas-
ing, as the following figures will show:—
(Figures from 1854 to 1876 will be found in Babu Hem
Chandra Ker's report.)
Year.
No. of
applications.
Area for
which licen-
ses issued.
Area actually
cultivated.
Total
outturn.
Average
outturn per
bigha.
Quantity
exported in
maunds.
REMARKS.
Bgs.
Cottas. Bgs. Cottas.
Mds. Srs.
Mds. Srs.
1883-84
1,973
2,072
1
2,014
0
7,076 28
3 20
8,260
1884-85
1,525
1,394
6
1,361
0
3,887 32
2 34
7,014
1885-86
1,036
2,296 13
2,169
0
7,926 13
3 24
7,060
1886-87
1,618
1,918 12
1,780
0
7,821 8
4 15
7,881
1887-88
1,283
2,489 5
2,433 0
8,266 24
3 15
8,224
1888-89
1,531
2,434 5
2,408
0
8,021 37
3 13
7,982
1889-90
1,678
2,861 10
2,669
0
6,681 29
2 20
7,583
1890-91
1,623
2,464 2
1,315
0
6,040 6
4 231/2
7,490
1891-92
1,928
3,748
8
3,644 10
7,575 5
2
31/2
6,952
1892-93
1,579
3,336 16
I could not get figures for these columns.
In 1856, 2,608 bighas and 10 cottas of land
were under cultivation, but in 1891-92 the figure
was no less than 3,644 bighas and 10 cottas (the
maximum). In 1892-93 licenses were issued for
the cultivation of 3,336 bighas and 16 cottas.
The outturn in 1856 was 20,868 maunds and 19
seers, but the outturn in 1891-92 was 7,575
maunds and 5 seers, or nearly one-third of what
it was in 1856.
The plants for the manufacture of bhang and
charas are not cultivated in Bengal.
9. The plant is grown on the same high land
as that which is required in the same district
(Rajshahi) for the mulberry cultivation. Seeds
preserved from the previous crop are sown to¬
wards the end of August in a carefully prepared
plot of light, dry, sandy loam, which had been
ploughed about once every week from the middle
of May. When the hemp plant grows, earth,
ashes, and cowdung are thrown at their root as
manure with the view of promoting their growth
for the production of ganja. The methods of
cultivation are the same as those given in Babu
Hem Chandra Ker's report.
The ganja crop is a highly exhausting one;
consequently, the ganja plots have to lie for two
years after carrying a hemp crop either fallow or
under a rotation of pulses, mustard, and such like
lighter crops. Roughly, therefore, of the high
lands on which ganja grows, only about a third
throughout the ganja mahal can be under hemp
in any given year. There is a tendency on the part
of the cultivators to grow other crops in place of
ganja. The cultivation of sugarcane and mul¬
berry is suited for these high lands, which the
cultivators find nearly as remunerative and much
less troublesome both in itself and from the
absence of the fiscal restrictions that necessarily
accompany ganja-growing.
10. The persons who cultivate the ganja plants
(hemp) do not form a separate class. They culti¬
vate paddy, ganja, pulses, sugarcane, etc. They
are of the same class as the other agricultural
cultivators. Trained men are, however, required
for the cultivation of ganja, as the ganja doctor
who eradicates the male plants.
11. With the seed of the wild hemp ganja is
not cultivated. I have made no experiment
whether the plants cultivated for the production of
ganja can ever be raised from the seeds of the
wild hemp. In almost all the districts in which
cases of illicit cultivation have been detected the
plants had been grown from the seeds of the Raj.
shahi ganja. Seeds of the Rajshahi ganja are used
for the illicit cultivation of the ganja plant in the
mufassal.
12. The so-called wild hemp is specially culti¬
vated for the production of ganja in the Gurjat
States in Orissa and in Hill Tippera, but not in
Bengal. Only one kind (flat) of ganja is manu¬
factured. Ganja is grown in almost all the Gur¬
jat States bordering on the districts of Cuttack,
Puri, and Balasore, and in the tracts in Hill
Tippera bordering on the Tippera District. In
the Gurjat States as well as in Hill Tippera it is
clearly cultivated in every case, and apparently
the male plant is eradicated, but not so early or so
completely as in North Bengal.
Wild bhang is not cultivated for the produc¬
tion of ganja in Bengal, and the male plants are
not extirpated, because the people are ignorant of
the distinction between the male and the female
plants. In the ganja-producing tracts this is
done by experts.
The quality of the ganja manufactured in the
Gurjats and in Hill Tippera is decidedly inferior
to that of the Rajshahi ganja, and smokers do not
like it for smoking. In the manufacture drying
is not so carefully attended to, and a fermentation
process that occurs gives these ganjas usually a
heavy, rancid, and disagreeable odour. The leaves,
too, are less completely removed, and the ganja as
a commercial article is so inferior that in Puri,
where the two kinds of ganja are sold, Rajshahi
ganja is sold at six annas a tola, whereas the
Gurjat ganja sells at two annas for the same
quantity.
13. (a) Cultivation of the hemp plant for ganja
is restricted in Bengal to the districts of Bogra
Dinajpur, and Rajshahi.