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 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 or not.
 * ^5, 488,7 73.

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