CH. IV.] REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. 37
nourishing and promoting the growth of hemp plants. There was ample evid-
ence of nourishment, such as soil properly prepared, watering, manuring, and
otherwise taking care of, but in no case was there any evidence of cultivation.
I, however, suspected that it was cultivated in a few cases. In Gaya I found
plants grown in a field and being taken care of just as other crops. Generally
the ganja smokers grew it in places hidden from the public view. Inside house
compounds a few only are grown. The largest (sic) I saw was a field in Gaya,
may be 20 or 25."
The divisions where clandestine
cultivation appears to be most com-
mon.
94. The Bhagalpur, Patna, Dacca, and Rajshahi Divisions appear to be those
in which this illicit rearing is most prevalent, and the
districts of Jessore, Cuttack, and Midnapur are
also mentioned, but by only one witness in each
case. It will be seen that this distribution agrees pretty closely with the
prevalence of the wild growth. The quality of some of the evidence may be
judged from that of a zamindar who wrote that "hemp (ganja) is said to be
cultivated in certain parts of the Mymensingh district bordering the river Jamuna."
The Board of Revenue ordered the Collector of Mymensingh to report on this
allegation, with the result that the babu could not specify the villages in question,
and that he was clearly, in the Collector's opinion, labouring under some mis-
apprehension. The witness's statement indicated cultivation of a far more sys-
tematic kind than really existed, but it is unlikely that his information was
entirely mistaken, and there is evidence in corroboration of the desultory kind of
cultivation in Mymensingh. The evidence as a whole does not justify the belief
that the wild plant is systematically cultivated or fostered to the extent sus-
pected by Mr. Lyall even in the Bhagalpur and Monghyr districts, but it does
show that the secret and desultory kind of cultivation is not uncommon in
the divisions above named, and is rare in other parts of the province.
Kuch Behar.
95. Cultivation of the hemp plant is prohibited in the State of Kuch Behar,
and it is probable that secret cultivation is only
carried on to the same extent as in the surrounding
British territory.
Tributary States of Orissa.
The extent and character of the
cultivation.
96. It is notorious that a considerable amount of ganja and bhang is produc-
ed in the Garhjat. It is largely consumed in the Bri-
tish districts of Orissa, being either smuggled in or
imported under pass. At one time the cultivation
of the plant was prohibited within three miles of the British frontier, but that
restriction has been removed, and it is now entirely uncontrolled. It is difficult
to gauge the extent of the practice. In the collection of correspondence
on this subject, the Commissioner is quoted as reporting that there were 1,000
consumers in the Angul State alone, and that they all grew ganja, selling only
the surplus above their own wants. Babu Abhilas Chandra Mukharji holds the
opinion that the outturn is very considerable, and capable of supplying the wants
of all Orissa. One witness describes a spontaneous growth appearing in fertile
places and never abundant; evidently the sort of growth which commonly
springs up on rubbish heaps in the neighbourhood of habitations. He states
that there is no cultivation, but in saying this he must be referring to regular field
culture, for he states that people grow the plant for their own wants and sometimes
sell it, the total production in his State being about twenty maunds a year. The
District Officer of Angul (34) describes the same sort of cultivation, and says
10