CH. III.] REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. 23
about Manipur; but the prevalence of the spontaneous growth in the hills
bordering the State on the Assam side, which is taken to be proved, justifies
the inference that the growth must also be common in the State itself.
North-Western Provinces.
The official account of the wild
growth.
*1. Dera Dun.
8. Pilibhit.
2. Saharanpur.
9. Gorakhpur.
3. Muzaffarna- 10. Terai.
gar.
11. Naini
Tal
4. Bijnor.
(Kumaon).
5. Budaon.
12. Kheri.
6. Moradabad. 13. Bahraich.
7. Bareilly.
14. Gonda.
† Farakhabad, Garhwal, and Hardoi.
41. The Government of the North-Western Provinces caused enquiry to be
made about the growth of bhang in the year 1883.
The Excise Commissioner then reported as fol-
lows: " The hemp plant grows wild, and is made
into bhang in the fourteen districts marginally* noted.
The hemp plant is cultivated, and the cultivated
hemp is made into bhang in the three districts mar-
ginally† noted."
In the memorandum furnished to the Commission by the present Excise Com-
missioner, Mr. Stoker, the districts of Muzaffarnagar and Budaon are omitted
from the list of districts in which the wild growth is found, and Basti and
Garhwal take their place. It is stated, however, that the produce is consi-
derable in Muzaffarnagar, Shahjahanpur, and Meerut. In connection with the
cultivation in Hardoi and Fatehgarh, the Excise Commissioner remarks: "It is
supplemented to some extent by self-grown plants produced about wells or
houses and on small waste patches and head lands." Mr. Stoker then refers to
the accidental growth in other parts of the province in these words: "Beyond
these districts the hemp plant flourishes widely, though it is not produced in suffi-
cient quantities to render it of any commercial importance. I would not venture
to assert that it is always of purely indigenous growth, though its wide diffusion
leads me to believe that this is the case. It may be seen growing about wells and
temples, and in such places it is, no doubt, the produce of seeds scattered by
travellers and fakirs who use hemp drugs. It is also found in and about houses
and in gardens, where it is either introduced in the same way or deliberately sown.
In all these cases I think the plants, if not the result of cultivation, are knowingly
permitted to grow, and are subsequently used by the people who live in those places.
The plant may also be seen springing up in a scattered way in waste places and low
lands." It has been shown in the previous chapter that there is no purely indigen-
ous growth of hemp, and that this description cannot be correctly applied either to
the plant in the area of wild growth or to that in the tracts with which Mr. Stoker
is dealing when he uses the expression. But the distinction must not be lost
sight of between the area in which the plant is so prevalent as to deserve the
character of wild and the reputation of propagating itself, and that in which it
is more scantily distributed and springs from seed sown accidentally by man.
The former area comprises the Himalayan regions and the districts lying imme-
diately below the mountains. The following observations of Mr. Stoker include
the latter area: "In some districts the amount produced by these forms of
sporadic growth is considerable, and the constant source of complaint by the drug
contractors who have the monopoly of the vend. These conditions obtain, broadly
speaking, to a greater or less extent in all parts of the province lying north and
east of the Jumna."
The Excise Commissioner then describes an area of very scanty spon-
taneous growth: "In Bundelkhand and most of Mirzapur—in fact, in all the
country in and adjoining the hill system of Central India—the plant is much
more rarely found. But that it can be grown, and with some perfection, in this
tract also is shown by the occasional presence of plants and by the existence of