CH. V.] REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94.
73
the meantime the field is kept clean by ploughing between the rows and weeding.
When about a foot high, the plants are earthed up by means of the plough.
When the crop is four months old, the males—called female by these raiyats—are
eradicated. This process goes on continuously as the males betray their
presence, but is never quite successful, as a certain amount of seed always sets.
The harvest begins in January and continues up to March, ripeness being indi-
cated by leaves and flower heads turning yellow and the former beginning to
drop. The crop is never cut on a damp or cloudy day.
Regular cultivation in the Kistna
district.
192. The other tract of cultivation is in the Kistna district; the only village
which has any considerable area is Daggupad, near
the borders of Nellore, and about fifteen miles from
the sea. It is a wide open plain, the soil being a stiff black loam with a consider-
able admixture of kankar. The lands devoted to hemp are sometimes near the
village, sometimes at a distance, but always reasonably accessible. The crop is
sometimes cultivated and handled by the raiyat himself, but more frequently he
supplies only the cattle labour, and the rest is done by others, chiefly Muhamma-
dans, of whom there are many in the village. The crop usually follows millets, dry
rice, coriander, tobacco, indigo, or chillies, but sometimes hemp is grown in suc-
cessive years. In the last case heavy manuring is necessary. This is supplied
by folding sheep upon the field or carrying cattle manure to it. The land is
ploughed about three times between July and October, and finally worked with
a three-tined grubber (gorra, or seed drill used without its seed hopper and
tubes). It is then marked off in two feet squares with a marker similar to the
gantaka, or scuttle worked without its share. At the angles of the squares four
or five plants are dibbled in with a stick, and watered to set them.
The nursery.
193. The seed-bed is usually made on the dam of a tank, and is about six feet
wide by sixty feet long. It is dug up with a crowbar,
reduced to a fine tilth, and levelled. In August the
seed is scattered upon it and covered up by hand, and the bed is hand-watered
as often as necessary for the next two months. When the plants are two feet
high they are topped off, and in a few days they put out numerous side branches,
and are then transplanted into the field. This takes place in October. A month
after planting the fields are hand-weeded, and about a fortnight later a plough
is run between the rows, and the plants are thereby slightly earthed up. Flower-
ing begins two months after planting out, and the male plants are removed.
Here, as in Bengal, the male plants are called female. These plants are cut down
at the root and thrown away, and the process goes on as long as male plants
are detected. The harvesting begins in February and goes on into March.
Nothing is said of the employment of professional parakhdars in either tract.
And in neither does irrigation appear to be practised beyond the extent above-
mentioned in the Kistna cultivation.
Irregular and homestead cultiva-
tion.
194. The evidence, as far as it relates to the regular cultivation of the tracts
described above, does not add anything to this in-
formation. But details more or less interesting and
some curious are furnished regarding the stray cultivation. Mr. Morgan,
Deputy Conservator of Forests, says of the surreptitious cultivation in forests that
the seed is scattered in old cattle kraals, and the plants thinned out to enable
them to branch, the males being extirpated. A Cuddapah witness (121) states
that the plants are moved from a seed-bed and planted out over the fields,
19