CHAPTER IV.
EXTENT OF CULTIVATION, AND ITS TENDENCY TO INCREASE OR
DECREASE.
Bengal.
Cultivation confined to a limited
tract.
89. In Bengal the law (section 5 of Bengal Act VII of 1878) forbids the culti-
vation without a license from the Collector of plants
from which intoxicating drugs are produced. The
cultivation of the hemp plant is accordingly confined to a compact tract having
a radius of about sixteen miles, and lying in the three districts of Dinajpur, Raj-
shahi, and Bogra. The reasons why this tract was selected are not authorita-
tively stated. Cultivation was formerly carried on in the Jessore district also, but
that was suppressed in 1875. The present ganja tract was probably found to
be most suitable to the cultivation of the drug, and it was obviously an advantage
to the excise administration to have the production confined to one area where
economical and efficient arrangements could be made for supervising it.
There is no unlicensed cultivation
in the tract, and the tract is being
reduced in area.
90. There is practically no clandestine cultivation within this tract. The Ex-
cise Commissioner writes that "owing to the area in
which cultivation is permitted being extremely limit-
ed, and to the close supervision there, there is every reason to believe that un-
licensed cultivation has been all but suppressed." The ganja tract appears to
have a tendency to further concentration. The 1st Assistant Supervisor of
ganja cultivation states that it is now included within a radius of about fourteen
miles, having been reduced from a radius of twenty miles since 1866, and he
gives the following explanation of the change: "The gradual reduction in the
extent of the tract was due to the fact that by the removal of jungles in the
villages not far off Naogaon more land became generally available for cultivation,
and more ganja was produced. Purchasers having ganja near Naogaon do not
naturally like to go to distant villages for their supplies." The remote villages
in the north, south, and east of the tract have accordingly given up the cultiva-
tion.
The area cultivated.
91. The area cultivated in 1892-93 was 3,540 bighas, an area far larger than
the crop has occupied for twenty years past. But in
the year 1891-92 the cultivation was the least in
the same period, and doubtless the short outturn had to be made up in the fol-
lowing season. The cultivation of the two years together is not remarkably
high. The following explanation by the Excise Commissioner must be read with
the statistics of cultivation: "It will be observed that, except in the past year,
there has been no material increase in the area under ganja cultivation during the
last twenty years. The column shows the quantity of land in which the crop
finally matured, excluding such land as was cultivated, but in which the plants
failed altogether; and therefore, although it would appear that cultivation was
greatly curtailed during the years 1875-76, 1878-79, 1879-80, 1885-86, and
1891-92, this was not really the case in all the years excepting 1885-86, as the
plants in large areas under cultivation were destroyed in these years by heavy
floods, and such lands were not taken into account. The decrease in the area
cultivated in 1885-86 was due to the smaller profits of the cultivators in the pre-
ceding two years. The high price which the drug had realised in 1891-92
owing to wholesale failure of the crop in the previous year caused by inundation