36 REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. [CH. IV.
induced a large number of raiyats to take up lands for cultivation during the
following year. Some raiyats are regular growers of ganja, and annually set apart
a portion of their holdings for the purpose; others are induced to take to ganja
cultivation by the high profits of one year to abandon it again when prices
fall." The evidence furnishes no better account of the fluctuations than this. A
bigha is about one-third of an acre in Bengal. The cultivation of 1892-93,
therefore, amounted to 1,180 acres, and the average of the last five years from
1888-89 to 1892-93 is 824 acres.
Clandestine cultivation: not on a
large scale.
92. Leaving the ganja tract, the evidence gives reason to suppose that there
is a certain amount of rearing of scattered plants.
This is, of course, carried on secretly, and in the
places where the wild or spontaneous growth flourishes detection is more difficult.
The Hon'ble Mr. Lyall thinks that the quantity of bhang that is now exported
from the Bhagalpur Division shows that there must be cultivation to a consider-
able extent in that part of the country. He means that the bhang which is
exported as wild must often be fostered, and perhaps to some extent sown
and tended, by the occupants of the lands on which, or in the neighbourhood of
which, it grows. Mr. Westmacott holds similar views because he has never
found the wild plant in the jungle at a distance from habitations, but he does not
indicate the localities to which his remarks apply. On the other hand, the Assist-
ant to the Director of Land Records and Agriculture, who made special
enquiries in the region referred to by Mr. Lyall, reports: "I could find no evid-
ence of the hemp plant being actually cultivated in any part of Purnea and
Bhagalpur. Everywhere it came up as a weed. In some places, however,
where the plants did not grow in abundance, and would therefore seem to be an
object of considerable value to bhang drinkers, I observed signs of its having
been looked after with some degree of care."
He then describes the signs
of the plants having been attended to, and proceeds: "All this made me
suspect that the people knew a great deal more about the bhang plant than they
were willing to avow." This evidence is a partial corroboration of the high
authorities named above, but it points rather to the surreptitious production of
ganja in small quantity than to the cultivation on a large scale of the plant which
the contractors carry away as bhang. And all the other evidence of the cultiva-
tion of the wild plant and of unlicensed cultivation generally refers more or
less distinctly to the rearing of a few plants near houses, or in enclosures, or in
the midst of crops, and not to operations of a more extensive kind.
The character of the clandestine
cultivation.
93. This desultory cultivation, either from ganja seed or by rearing plants
which have sprung up of themselves, occurs every-
where, though the evidence does not give the impres-
sion that it is common anywhere. It is stated in Mr. Gupta's memorandum that
there were 86 arrests and 71 convictions on this account in the year 1892-93.
Arrests were made in 25 districts, "but all the cases were for growing a few plants
(very often a single plant) in the courtyards of houses." Babu Abhilas Chandra
Mukharji says that "in almost all the districts in which cases of illicit culti-
vation have been detected, the plants had been grown from the seeds of the
Rajshahi ganja." But Mr. Basu's report and such evidence as the first part
of the following extract point rather to the nurture of self-sown plants. Babu
Pran Kumar Das (43) states: "I prosecuted and also tried some cases of