CH. V.] REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94.
61
cultivation about Naogaon. The ganja plant is reared in a seed bed or nursery
and planted out into the field. The field is selected between January and
the middle of March, and must be one which has lain fallow, or has borne nothing
but light crops, such as pulses or mustard, during the two previous years. It
must not be overshadowed by trees. It is first ploughed to remove weeds
and stubble as thoroughly as the cultivators' means will allow. In April and
May the field is liberally dressed with fresh surface earth from surrounding
lands, the quantity used depending on the quality of the field. The turf and
weeds on the sides of the field are next dug up in clods and thrown on to the
field, the holes thus made being filled up with earth from the ditches. The field
is thus cleaned to its extreme boundaries, and the weeds utilised as dressing
for the land. In this process a small bank about nine inches high is raised
round the field. The fresh earth added to the field becomes desiccated in a
week or so, and then cow-dung manure is added and the field well ploughed
again. From this time till September ploughing, followed by harrowing with the
bamboo ladder, is carried out from time to time, the belief being, as Babu Hem
Chunder Kerr says, that the oftener the land is ploughed the better is the crop.
A channel is made to keep the field well drained.
The nursery conditions requisite
to the germination of seed and
growth of seedlings.
157. The details given by Babu Hem Chunder Kerr regarding the selection
of the seed bed have special interest in connection
with the subject of the spontaneous growth. He
writes: "A plot of land near the homestead of the
cultivator is generally made available for a nursery, and the people in order to
make themselves sure of its dryness always make a point of using those lands only
in which a tuberous-rooted, grass-like vegetable called matha (Cyperus rotundus,
L.) grows. The growth of matha is, in their opinion, a sure sign of the land
being quite dry." In another place Babu Hem Chunder Kerr says: "The
nursery or seed bed consists of a plot of high, light, sandy loam." The selection
of this plot is made in May, and as soon as one or two showers have fallen it is
ploughed. The ploughing is repeated three or four times each month till August.
The object is complete pulverisation of the soil, and, if necessary, the bamboo
ladder in addition to the plough is passed over the land for this purpose. Manure
is not used, and the land must be quite free of shade of any kind. The seeds
are sown broadcast on a fine day after a ploughing, and the sowing is followed
by harrowing to cover the seed. The bed is carefully drained. The following
remarks from Babu Hem Chunder Kerr's report are quoted to show certain
idiosyncrasies of the plant for the same reason that the previous verbatim extracts
were made: "Seeds are not sown on either a rainy or even a cloudy day when rain
is apprehended, as the wet ground rots them. Even if it rains three or four days
after the seeds have been sown, most of the seeds are destroyed, as the earth gets
hardened into a cake after the rain, and the germs cannot force their way through
it. In such a case fresh seed has to be sown in another nursery again…………
Nor is the grass weeded out at any time after the sowing of the seeds. They
are also never irrigated. The cultivators are of opinion that the growth of grass
in the seed beds is beneficial to the young plants, inasmuch as it protects the
latter from the action of the wind.".
Transplanting.
158. Towards the end of August or beginning of September the field is again
dressed with cow-dung, refuse, and house-sweepings.
About a week or ten days after this comes the day
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