24 REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. [CH. III.
considerable cultivation in Gwalior and in some of the Bundelkhand Native
States which interlace with British territory." Thus the belt of hilly country
along the south of the province is still less favourable to the spontaneous growth
than the plain north and east of the Jumna.
The evidence corroborates the official account.
1. Bulandshahr.
9. Fatehpur.
2. Mathra.
10. Hamirpur.
3. Agra.
11. Allahabad.
4. Mainpuri.
12. Jhansi.
5. Etawa.
13. Benares.
6. Etah.
14. Azamgarh.
7. Budaon.
15. Unao.
8. Cawnpore.
16. Rai Bareli.
42. The evidence tendered to the Commission confirms this description gen-
erally; but it may be noted that not a
single witness speaks to spontaneous
growth in the districts named in the mar-
gin, all of which, except Jhansi and
Hamirpur, lie north and east of the
Jumna. This absence of mention does
not prove that the spontaneous growth does not exist, but it justifies the con-
clusion that in the central belt it is certainly not such as to deserve the character
of wild, and that Mr. Stoker's description gives it as much of that character as
it deserves. This central belt is approximately bounded on the north by a line
drawn through Muzaffarnagar, Moradabad, Bareilly, Shahjahanpur, and Sitapur
to Bahramghat on the Gogra, and thence following the course of that river.
Throughout the country lying beyond this line, including the mountains, the
spontaneous growth is abundant. It is bounded on the south and south-west by
the Jumna river, beyond which the spontaneous growth is rare.
Garhwal Tehri.
43. The State of Garhwal Tehri comprises the Himalayan region west from
British Garhwal, and there is no reason to suppose
that its circumstances as regards the spontaneous
growth of the hemp plant differ in any way from the latter district. The Diwan
of Tehri gives 2,500 to 4,000 feet as the elevation at which the plant flourishes.
Other evidence shows that it grows freely beyond these limits.
Rampur.
44. The Rampur State stretches south from below the Terai district. The
Revenue Member of the Council of Agency writes
that the spontaneous growth is found in the north
and north-eastern part of the State. There is nothing to differentiate Rampur
from the British districts lying east and west of it in respect to this growth.
Punjab.
Wild growth in the Himalayas
and Terai.
45. The hemp plant grows spontaneously throughout the Himalayas, and in
a broad belt along the foot of the mountains. The
growth is so free and vigorous that it may without
impropriety be called wild, and it does not appear to differ in extent and charac-
ter from that of the similar region in the North-Western Provinces. Its preva-
lence seems to be most notorious in the districts of Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, and
Jullundur, because the bhang contractors draw their supplies from, these dis-
tricts; but witnesses, many of them of high authority, such as the Commis-
sioner of Rawalpindi, speak to its existence in greater or less profusion through-
out the submontane districts from Peshawar to Umballa. Contradiction may
occasionally be found regarding the density and abundance of the growth, but
about its frequent occurrence in this stretch of country there can be no doubt.
It has been seen that in other provinces it is the habit of the plant, when it finds
itself established in a suitable home like the Terai, to grow very densely and in
patches of considerable size, and the Commission are inclined to accept the
evidence of those whose statements are in agreement with this knowledge.