(12)
ploughing with small ploughs and harrowing with a narrow ladder between the
ridges; this course immediately follows the trimming and is itself followed by a
second course of manuring with powdered cowdung and oil-cake, after which
the ridges are again rebuilt.
About this time the first visit of the gánjá doctor—the poddar—takes place,
and as soon as his inspection is over—for he does not himself remove but only
breaks-over the plants he rejects—the cultivator trims the field again and fills
the blanks due to the poddar's visits by fresh transplantation from the nursery.
After this visit also the field is irrigated for the first time ; the water is taken
for the most part from wells sunk in the ditches round the field, though some-
times it can be brought from a neighbouring tank or bheel. Enough water is
put on the field to soak the ridges well, but not so much as to leave water stand-
ing in the furrows ; the operation is repeated from three to six times according
to circumstances ; the poddar's visits, too, may be repeated twice or three times
in the intervals between the irrigations. Between the first and second irriga-
tions the ridges are hoed and the field manured a third time.
In the beginning of January the hemp begins to flower, and from this
time onward the cultivator is on the outlook for those abnormal male flowers on
his female plants which the poddar could not possibly have foretold. Harvest-
ing begins to be general about the middle of February and is all over by the
middle of March.
From this account it is evident that the utmost attention is given to the
hemp, which is grown rather after the manner of a garden than of a field crop.
The high cultivation, alike as regards tilth, manuring, and irrigation, united as
these are to careful prevention of fertilization, force the plant into production
of the narcotic principle to an abnormal extent. The attention given to
the plant itself in the trimming of the lower branches from time to time still
further concentrates the determination of the resin to the flowering-tops and
ensures that these shall not be soiled by mud.
The effect of fertilisation has been already discussed ; the origin of the
practice of eliminating the males to prevent it may be appropriately considered
here. It is true that the people know exactly how the practice affects their
crop ; as, however, they assign the wrong sex to either plant, it is evident that
they have no idea why the result is attained. The practice, then, is not the
result of reasoning, but a purely empirical one. It has been already pointed
out that the Himalayan male apparently does not give any charas, and it has
been shown that, in spite of the official recognition of the male as a source of
bhang as on the same footing with the female, there is good reason for believing
that the male is not very powerful and for thinking that from the best bhang
male leaves are excluded. From this position to that of throwing out the male
plants altogether from the patch in which bhang was being grown is but one
step; this step would lead to the observation that the plants left had fewer seeds
and more resin. The discovery that the earlier in the season the male plants
were rejected, the more resin the others formed, would naturally follow. And
finally, the practice of throwing out the males because they are in themselves
worthless would reach the stage which it has attained in the gánj ám a h a l s , w h e r e
their discovery even before they have flowered, and their complete elimination
because of their effect on the other sex, has become an art.
As might be expected, the crop is a highly exhausting one ; consequently
the gánjá plots have to lie for two years after carrying a hemp crop either fallow
or under a rotation of pulses, mustard, and such like lighter crops. Roughly,
therefore, of the high land on which gánjá grows, only about a third throughout
the gánjá mahals can be under hemp in any given year. Indeed, the area should
be less than one-third, since villages and homesteads are always built on the same
kind of high land ;1 t h e
g á n j á
l a n d n o t u n d e r h e m p t h e r e f o r e m u s t e x c e e d b y
rather more than two to one, the area under hemp cultivation in any given
season.
1
Quite recently an idea arose that the area under gánjá must be greatly in excess of that shown
in the annual returns made to Government on the subject, an extraordinary thing to imagine when the
elaborate precautions taken by the Board of Revenue to prevent this possibility are taken into account.
On being looked into it was discovered that the idea originated in gánjá land having been mistaken
for land under gánjá ; indeed, the amin whose survey and report formed the basis of the opinion had com-
mitted the further mistake of classing the high ground on which villages and homesteads stand with gánjá
land.