BENGAL. The
plant
is
305
successfully cultivated in the large Gangetic tract which
extends from the borders of
Oudh
to
Agra on the
The manufacture
Bhagalpur on the east
west,
and
to the
on at two separate agencies, that of Benares in the North-Western Provinces, of which the head station is at Ghazipur ; and that of Behar, with its head station at Patna. Annual engagements are entered into by the District of
—
is
carried
under a system of advances from Government, to sow a poppy ; the whole produce in the form of
cultivators,
certain quantity of land with
opium leave
delivered to
is
Government
at a fixed rate.
It is
a principle to
optional with every cultivator to enter into such an engagement
it
The
poppy cultivation in the Behar agency, situated amounted in 1881-82 to 143,730 acres; in the Benares agency, to 139,922 acres, total, 283,652 acres. The number of chests of opium sold at the Government sales in Calcutta in 1881-82 was 56,400, the amount realized was ;^7,465,3i3, and the net revenue, The annual sales of Bengal opium vary from 6 to
- ^5, 488,7 73.
or not.
area under
entirely within Bengal,
—
millions sterling, gross.
Cinchona
.
— The
cultivation
of the cinchona plant in Bengal was
introduced as an experiment about 1862, in a valley of the Himalayas in Darjiling District ; and the enterprise has already attained great
In 1877, the total number of cinchona plants, cuttings, and seedlings was 3,817,192, which by 1882 had increased to upwards of five millions. The entire produce of the plantation in 1881-82 was success.
341,570 lbs. of dry bark. The quantity of the drug disposed of was The 10,876 lbs., of which 4680 lbs. was sold to the public. total revenue of the Government plantations in 1881-82 amounted to
- ^27,22i
(inclusive
of ;^5982 realized from sales in
London
in
1880-81), against an expenditure of ^14,188, leaving a net profit of order to properly estimate the value of these plantations
Government, however, it is necessary to note that in addition to this amount was saved by the substitution of this febrifuge for imports of quinine in hospitals and dispensaries. Besides the two Government plantations at Mangpu and Sittong in Darjiling, there is a neighbouring garden belonging to a private company. For further particulars, see Darjiling District. Forests A scientific system of forest conservancy in Bengal was only started a few years ago, but remarkable progress has been already made by the Forest Department, both in putting a stop to the indiscriminate destruction of timber, and in an increase to the revenue. The area of Government ‘reserved’ forests, which in 1872-73 was only 156 square miles, had increased by 1881-82 to 4236 square miles; the surplus revenue of receipts over charges rose from ;^54i3 Besides reserved forest, there to ^23,912 in the same period. were also 2325 square miles of ‘protected,’ and 5x08 square miles to
profit a large
.
VOL.
II.
—
u
