18 REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. [CH. II.
is described as a process
so difficult and laborious that very little of it is
prepared.
It may be noted that selected flower heads from the bhang
cultivation of Sind are
used as ganja (ghundi), though it is of inferior quality.
The production of charas
is not mentioned; but from the account of the cultivation for ganja
in Bombay and
Gwalior, it would appear that the production of that form of the
drug (charas)
depends on the quantity of resin secreted in the flower head and
the economy of
extracting it rather than on any quality inherent in the
resin.
Dr. Watt's impression
that Cannabis is cultivated for hemp in the Godavari
districts seems to arise out of the confusion which has always
existed in Madras
reports on the subject of the hemp drugs, and from which the
subject is not yet
quite clear in that Presidency. Other fibre plants, such as
Crotalaria juncea and
Hibiscus cannabinus, whose products go under the name of
hemp, have been con-
founded with the true hemp. It is now definitely stated in
paragraph 7 of the
letter from the Board of Revenue, Madras, to the Commission, No.
1839, dated
1st May 1894, on the authority of the Deputy Director, Agricultural
Branch of the
Board of Revenue, that "Cannabis sativa is never grown in
this Presidency for
fibre." Attention may in this connection be drawn to pages 3 to 5
of Dr. Royle's
work on the "Fibrous Plants of India." He explains the effect of
the Indian
method of cultivating hemp and flax, involving free exposure of the
individual plants
to light, heat, and air, in causing the fibre to become woody and
brittle instead of flex-
ible and strong. He contrasts the European method of cultivation by
thick sowing,
which, with a temperate climate inducing slow growth, conduces to
height and
suppleness in the plant and its fibres. He admits that the Indian
climate with
its comparatively short seasons, great alternations of dryness and
of moisture,
and considerable extremes of temperature is not the best suited to
the production
of good flax and hemp. But he suggests that it might be possible by
modifica-
tions of culture and the selection of suitable sites to grow both
these plants
within the limits of India so as to yield useful fibre. In the
Himalayas only are
to be found climate and mode of cultivation of the hemp plant
resembling those
of Europe.