Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 10 (2nd edition).pdf/391



NORTH-ILESTER V PROVINCES AND OUDI. 379 an active demand carried off the whole crop at remunerative prices. Since then the demand for Central Asia has entirely ceased; but it is hoped that this collapse may be only temporary. Kashmir offers a promising opening. Tibet, the nearest and niost natural market, is entirely closed by the avarice of the local officials, who make a large profit on the imports from China. Indian tea hardly commands half the price of Chinese for the Central Asian market. But it is noteworthy that while the former remains steady at about £6 per mannd, the price of the latter has fallen from £15 in 1878 to £u per maund in 1882. The difference still existing as to the price is probably due to a prejudice, which may disappear in time. There is also some trade in black tea with Calcutta, but this too shows signs of falling off. Tobacco.-The dried leaves of Nicotiana tabacum and Nicotiana rustica ought, perhaps, to be included under raw products, but the drying process of the ordinary peasant is a species of manufacture, and the product may fairly be regarded as a manufactured staple. The crop is generally cultivated in small patches of highly manured land in the neighbourhood of towns and villages. The aggregate of these patches in the whole of the Provinces amounts to less than 100,000 acres, of which total about two-thirds are in Oudh. The curing is generally a simple process. The leaves are cut and allowed to dry on the ground for a while. They are then arranged in heaps with their apices towards the centre and the stalks outwards. Brackish water is sprinkled over them and fermentation ensues. This goes on for a period varying from three days to a month, after which the leaves, being found pliable, are made up into ropes and coils and dried for sale. The tobacco factory at Ghazipur, established in 1881 by a European firm, is worked on land rented at an advantageous rate from the Government. An effort is being made to grow superior kinds of tobacco, and to work up the produce after the American system of curing, which has already met with a fair degree of success. The total out-turn in 1881 was 326,000 lbs., or an average of 675 lbs. per cultivated acre. Opium.--The inspissated juice of the poppy (Papaver somniferum) is a Government monopoly in these Provinces as well as in Bengal. The cultivation is confined to certain Districts, none being grown in the Doáb north of Aligarh, or in Rohilkhand north of Moradábád. In Shahjahanpur, Farukhábád, Etawah, and Mainpuri, and in the Districts of the Benares Division, it is extensively grown, as also in Oudh. The total provincial area amounts to about 250,000 acres, or 6 per cent of the whole cultivated area, and 1'3 per cent of that portion of it under spring crops. Cultivation is carried on upon a system of advances, and commends itself to the cultivators by the ease with which these are