BULLETIN BY MR. C. BENSON, M.R.A.C.                              245

A month after planting the fields are hand-weeded, and about a fortnight later a plough is
run between the rows, and the plants are earthed up slightly. Two months after planting
out flowering begins, and then the removal of the male (here as elsewhere termed female) plants
begins. They are cut off near the roots and thrown away. This work goes on continuously
as long as male plants are found.

About February the plant begins to ripen and the harvest commences. It goes on till
the end of March. The plants are cut bodily with the sickle, and are laid out in the field,
where they grow for three days to dry in the sun. On the fourth day they are tied into small
bundles of about ten plants each, and then piled, head and tail, in the field. The
heaps are opened, and the bundles re-piled next day, the process being repeated over
several days. When the quantity to be dealt with is small and space allows, the bundles are
carried to the grower's house and there piled; but in all cases the crop is finally carried to the
house, and a month later the spikes are removed. Each spike is plucked off by hand and then
they are spread out on a hard floor in the open for one night in the dew to soften and become
pliable. In the morning the spikes are collected and stored in large gunny-bags, being packed
closely therein by a man treading them down into the bag. The produce is then ready for
sale, and may be kept for as much as two years.

In both localities it is stated that of late years the area planted with hemp has been reduc-
ed, the price offered for ganja having fallen with the restriction of the demand owing to the
introduction of the system of licensing retail vendors.

A few years ago, the crop was also grown to some extent in one village in the Palivendla
taluk, Cuddapah District, but its growth there has now been abandoned. It was then grown as
a garden crop, in rotation with garden korra (Setaria italica) or garden ragi (Eleusine coracana),
the plants being raised in seed-beds and then planted out. The method of manufacture adopt-
ed there appears to have resembled that still followed in Kistna.

                                                                                                                              62