86 REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. [CH. VI.
while, and covered up.
Work is resumed at 10 A.M. The heap is unstacked and
the bundles are carefully
handled to remove leaf. They are then laid out in rows
and trodden. During this
process they are turned over, and at intervals the sun
is allowed to play upon
them. They are then handled again and gently beaten,
and spread out more
completely than before. Those that have retained an
undue
quantity of leaf are stood
up in the sun. The last process is to press the twigs
individually with the feet
in the way already described. The manufacture is now
complete. The flower spikes
have been pressed into flat masses, and the
leaf and seeds have been as
far as possible removed. In the larger specimens the
branches stand out from the
stem and one another, the whole being quite
flattened. The twigs are
gathered into bundles of two standard sizes—a certain
quantity of large twigs in
the one and of small twigs in the other. This is
called
flat or chapta
ganja.
Manufacture of round ganja.
222. The manufacture of
round ganja is not completed till the fourth day after
the plants are cut. The
plants are gathered some-
what later in the day and laid out under the open
sky for the night. The
sorting is done the next morning, a great deal more of
the woody portion being
rejected than in the case of flat ganja. The twigs are
laid out in the sun till
noon, when the men return to the chator and rolling
is
begun. A horizontal bar is
lashed on to uprights about four feet from the ground,
and mats are placed on the
ground on each side of it. Bundles of twigs, either
tied together by the stem
ends or not, according to the skill of the treader,
are
set out on the mats. The men
range themselves on each side of the bar, and,
holding on to it for
support, proceed to roll the bundles with their feet. One
foot
is used to hold the bundle
and the other to roll it, working down from the stems
to the flower heads. This
process goes on for about ten minutes, and during it
the bundles are taken up and
shaken from time to time to get rid of leaf. The
bundles are then broken up
and the twigs exposed to the sun. A second but
shorter course of rolling by
foot follows, and then the twigs are hand-pressed,
four or five together. After
this the twigs are opened up and exposed to the
sun again. Towards evening
the twigs are made into bundles of about one
hundred, and placed on mats
and covered up for the night.
The next morning the
bundles are untied and the twigs again exposed to
the sun. If they are sufficiently dry by midday, they only require
a little hand-
ling and rolling to complete the manufacture. If they are not dry
enough, the
first course of rolling has to be repeated, after which the useless
leaves fall off
with a very little manipulation. The twigs are next sorted
according to length
and tied into bundles of three descriptions—short, medium, and long. In this
process all useless twigs and sticks are eliminated. The bundles
are placed in
rows under a mat which is kept down by a bamboo, and left for the
night. The
manufacture is completed the next day by exposing the bundles to
the sun, heads
upwards, till the afternoon, and then searching them with hands and
bits of stick
for any leaves that may have remained in them. These are shaken
out, and with
them pieces of the compressed flower heads, which have been
accidentally broken
off, fall on to the mats.
The Bengal manufacture
spe-
cially elaborate.
223. Babu Hem Chunder
Kerr writes that when the preparation of the round
ganja is carried out by the
dealer who has bought the
standing crop, much more care is taken to reject stick
and inferior flower head
than when the cultivator is the manufacturer. The round