CH. V.] REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94.
65
The female plants are twisted
or mutilated.
the subject of detailed enquiry and report, and the information now given in
answer to the Commission's questions is but scanty. It appears to be of the home-
stead sort, and limited to a few plants in each plot. The only suggestion offered
that it is sometimes conducted on a larger scale comes from the Sub-divisional
Officer of Jajpur in Cuttack (52), who says: "If the lands be small, the seeds are
sown broadcast; if the lands be large, the seeds are first sown in a nursery plot."
Mr. Wylly, Government Agent at Keonjhar, states that the plant is grown
in seed beds in April and May and transplanted, which may be regarded as some
confirmation of the above witness. If this fact is accepted, the evidence shows
that the plants are raised in three ways—either accidentally sown, sown broadcast,
or transplanted. At the beginning of the rainy season—that is, in June-July—
the plants will be about a foot high, and standing in greater or less number in
a plot near the homestead. The plant takes some five or six months to mature from
the time it has reached this stage. Mr. Taylor (36), an officer who has served
in Orissa since 1866, says that the plants are hoed and weeded, and the roots
loosened and dressed with vegetable mould or well-rotted cowdung. Rai Nand
Kissore Das, District Officer of Angul, states that the plants are watered when
necessary. There is no evidence that the male plants are extirpated. Witness
(63) does not speak positively on the point, but it would appear from the evid-
ence of Mr. Wylly that some distinction is made in the treatment of plants
of different sex. "The male plant," he says, doubt-
less meaning the female, "is emasculated by hav-
ing its stem punctured or cut, and pieces of broken tile inserted in these cuts."
That this process is in vogue is confirmed by Babu Manmohan Chakravarti, who
does not, however, make any distinction of sex with reference to it. The plant is
subjected to still another operation, which is mentioned by Rai Nand Kissore and
Babu Manmohan Chakravarti, without any distinction of the sex of the plant,
except that the female plant is indicated by the language used. The former
says "nothing more than the twisting of the stem for the production of ganja is
done;" the latter, "to prevent over-branching of the flower heads, they are
roughly twisted." There is no more information of the treatment of the plant
till it ripens and is gathered in December-January. This appears to be the
season of growth notwithstanding that Babu Kanti Bhushan Sen makes it
synchronous with the Rajshahi season. It cannot be correct, as he states that
the plant grows spontaneously from the previous year's seed towards the close
of the rainy season, for this is contrary to the habits of the hemp plant in the
plains of Northern India, and the fact that the natural conditions at the close
of the south-west monsoon do not seem to be favourable to the spontaneous
germination of any kind of seed.
Political States, Chota Nagpur.
Information derived from an in-
quiry made in 1890.
168. The summary of the results of the inquiry made by Mr. Grimley in 1890
in the States of the Chota Nagpur Division gives
a few details of the method of cultivation in that
region. Unfortunately no question was directed to ascertaining the season of
growth, and the information on this point is not, therefore, decisive. Sirguja
reports that seeds are sown or plants grow during the rainy season. This agrees
with the account from the Garhjat States as was to be expected. The practice
of transplanting is mentioned from Udaipur. In the answers to the question
whether the male plants are destroyed, the sexes are confounded, but it is clear
that the general external differences are recognised. Bonai reports that those
17