74
REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. [CH. V.
after which they are carefully tended, the big leaves being removed, the trunks
twisted, and the plants themselves manured. Another witness from the same dis-
trict (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 seed-
ling—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
assafœtida 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 desul-
tory 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 water-
ing.
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.
Madras States.
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 clue time planted out six feet apart. "The chad a 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 pro-
cesses already described for the Presidency in the desultory cultivation are
doubtless those employed for similar cultivation in the other States.
Bombay.
Soil preferred, and season of
sowing.
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 through-