THE OPIUM FARMER. He Remains Poor with Wealth Within his Grasp.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 228, 12 November 1887, Page 6

THE OPIUM FARMER. He Remains Poor with Wealth Within his Grasp.

"There is nothing the soil can produce that can be cultivated with more profit to the husbandman than the poppy, if it is cultivated in the right country," said the head of a large drug-importing house, *' and yet there are no farmers in the world who are so universally and perpetually poverty-stricken as the growers of the poppy. The many thousands of people who are engaged in the production of opium in India— and I speak from personal knowledge obtained on extended visits to the provinces of Benares, Bahar, and MalW ah — live year after year from hand to mouth, when they might reap fortunes by a very little energy and extra exertions. The opium farmer of India lives and labours with but three objects in view. These are — first, to decorate his wife profusely with ornaments, to eat off a brass plate, and to be in a position to make a great display when his oldest son is married. As far as the wife's jewellery is concerned, that is a matter of religious duty, tho Hindoo religion demanding that cevtain ornaments must be worn by married women, and the real wealth, if wealth it may be called, of the native landowner is in his wife's jewels, and whatever a husbandman may gain by his poppy culture he immediately invests in jewellery, the same as the Yankee farmer places his money in bond and mortgage. If the Indian farmer on marrying cannot do any better in the way of jewellery, he musl give the • bride he obtains lead ornaments. This keeps the religious form ; but the very first year he has been energetic enough to raise a good opium crop, the lead jewellery gives place to silver or gold. On the marriage of his oldest son, the Indian farmer will waste in a week's jollification the entire savings of years of privation. "It is a strange sight to see the Hindoo women at work in tho fields, gathering poppy juice or picking weeds, decked out with huge gold ringjs, bracelets, anklets and chains, and wearing but a single short petticoat and a gay-coloured wrap of light texture. The wants of the Indian raiat, as the farmer is called, are very few and simple. A thatched roof, covering four confined mud walls, shelters him," and there are families who have lived for hundreds of years, generation after generation, in the

same ho\el-liko homestead. The farmer's suit of every-day working clothes is a very scant cloth fastened about his loins. His " dress-up " suit is a big cotton sheet folded about him. His on the family, from himself down to the small child ho owns, who is not too small to crawl about among the poppy plants and know the difference between a weed and a poppy, share in the toil of the field. The small children are clothed just as they came into the world, and appear comfortable, no matter how hob the sun shines or how low the temperature may fall — and in November, December, Januaiy and February, when the bulk of the field work is done, the weather is quite cold enough for at least summer clothing. " These happy-go-lucky tillers of the soil depend enthely on the Government to keep them going year after year in the matter of farming. Thus the Government advances the poppy seed that is to be .sown, lends the money by which the land is irrigated and the' bullock purchased to carry on the work. The culcivator will not till more of his land than he can manage without other help than his own immediate family, and consequently a patch leased to any one fanner that is half an acre in extent is an exceptionally large holding. The one-twentieth of an acie, called a bigka, is the favouiite quantity of land for o fanner to seed down a\ ith poppies, but ho ill put in a tenth or a sixth on a pinch. There aic untold advantages in the growing ot opium for extended enteiprise, but the raiat will not expend the smallest Indian com to acquire these advantages, and -with it gieat gain, for the pi otit in opium production is large, owing to the policy of the Government in paying largo pi ices for the pi oduct as a means of pi colliding illicit iiaffic in it. "The farmei-i themselves have no direct hitei course with the Government. Each village of opium growers select some native as their representative or agent with the authoiitics. Ho is called the lambardax. It i^ his business to give estimates to the Government agents as to the probable yield of the farms ho represents, on which the loans and advances may be based. He manages cvciy transaction between the Government and the farmers, and for his fcei \ ices he gets a commission on all the opium he causes to lie delivered to what) arc known as the weighing stations, points where the product of certain districts is cariicd by 'he gioucis and turned over to the agents. " The opium-Gathering begins in January or February. The poppy flowers have thei* given way to the .seed pods-, which are lanced in the afternoon. The thiekgum, the opium, exudes fiom the cut made in the pod, and at daylight the next morning tha cnthe family ot a raial aiear-tir in the fields sci aping the opium fiom the pods, the' incisions being carefully closed again by rubbing the finger slnuply up and down on the cut's w Inch glues them shut. If carefully treated, the podb liberally respond to six lancing?. The opium is at first placed in brass vessels, and the dew that may adhere to it is drained ofi. Then it is kneaded like dough until it is at thepioper consistency, when it is packed in new etuthern jars and is ready to be cairied to the weighing stations. " The oidcr to fet< hin the yeai 's crop of opium is genciallv/ o'nen eaily in April, and that is the most interesting season of the year to the raiat and his family. Each fainiur is notified that on a cci rain day he must be at the weighing station of his distiietfr.r the testing and weighing. An entire village, men. v\omen, and children, join in joyous procession v\ hen this notice i-> received, and laden with the jais of opium, start for the destination. They travel only at night, as the heat of the sua i-> >-o great at this sea&on of the year thab the journey would be unendurable. All day they lounge in the groves and shady lanes, feastins and joining in various lecieatir.n-. These wayside camps of the opium villages are pictiuesque sights to the traveller through these provinces. When n group an ive at the weighing station they aic ranged in long lines before the examiner, who examines the opium of each one and marks the quality and weight; of each jar with a piece of chalk on the side* of the jai . The examiners are experts and can tell by the feeling whether a sample of: opium is unadulterated, but they put it to chemical tests as well. After the opium is all weighed and tested the different farmers icceiv c the amount their yield entitles them to, less the Government advances, and the o t iy piocession takes up irs march for home. The opium is forwarded to Calcutta in boxes known as opium chests, and the insidious drug is ready to be sent on its minion of blessing to many and of misery to many more."