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CTITXERE HE:MP.
Growing for seed at Staten Island, New York.
hemp
(Cannabis saliva)
A PKAOTICAL TKEATISE OX
THE CULTEKE OE HEMP FOR SEED AND FIBER
WITH A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY
AND NATURE OF THE HEMP PLANT
i^v
S. S. KOVCE
ailusttatcD
NEW YORK
ORANOF. .lUDD COMPANY
1900
(^OPVKIGHT, 1900
By orange ,1UI)D COMPANY
i
I
WELtCOMi INSTITUTE
LIBRARY
Coll,
welMOmec
Call
No.
JBount fiJIcagant CDnntcrp
J. Horace McFarland Company
Harrisburgf, Pa.
PREFACE
There sliould be no necessity for an apology
or an excuse for preparing a work upon lieinp cul-
ture at this time. The hemp i)lant is the most
widely diversified and, commercially and industrially,
the most important plant in cultivation in Europe.
It was among the first introduced into America,
and one of the most extensive in cultivation among
the colonists; and there is no good reason existing
why it should not, but every reason why it should,
today be among the first as the basis of another
great and grand national indnstiw, employing
hundreds of millions of capital and hundreds of
thousands of work-people.
Hemp fiber is acknoAvledged to be the standard
fiber of the world ; and, properly manipulated, it is
adapted to a much wider and more diversified use
than any other fiber known. The hemp plant is the
most simple and the most widely adapted to culti-
vation in all climates, the most susceptible to the
manipulations of chemical and mechanical processes,
and the most universally adapted to the production
of fine, strong fibers for the widest character of
products, from coarse, strong cordage to threads and
VI
PREFACE
yarns for the finest linens, lawns, and laces, and
the culture and handling of the plant should long
ago have become as familiar as household words to
the American people in all its details.
But the industry, once flourishing and prosperous,
has, by neglect and an over -competition from other
less valuable but more easily manipulated materials,
become a lost art to the most ready, most keenly
alive people upon the globe, and some effort is
necessary, and some pains of labor and expense, if
it is to have a new existence at an early day, while
the congestion of other industries, textile and agri-
enltnral, suggests that the time is opportune for an
investigation into the nature of the plant, and its
adaptability to the wide indnsti’ial uses to which it
seems applicable.
The writer has given many years of study to a
close, careful investigation of the hemp plant in its
adaptability to cultivation in the soils and climatic
conditions of the United States, its liabits and con-
duct under various styles of cultivation, and also to
the manipulation of the plant for obtaining a fiber
best ada])ted to fine spinning, as well as to the
condnet of the fiber in the processes of spinning
and weaving. He speaks froin a ]iersonal knowledge
of all the facts and particulars, from his point of
view, when he says that of all the fiber-bearing
plants known to agriculture and commerce, hemp is
most universally adapted to the production of fine,
prp:pace
Vll
soft, silky fibers, and to the establishment of one of
the most important industries of the American peoi)le.
Of all the industries of which the world Inas for
centuries been conversant, that of hemp, and the
spinning and weaving of its fibers into fine linen
fabrics, is the last to obtain place among the Ameri-
can people, and it is still waiting the revivifying
intinences of modern industrial practices to take its
place in the lead of their grand endeavors.
As in other American efforts to develop new in-
dustries, hemp and linen have long rested under the
shadow of a persistent opposition from foreign in-
fluences, and with the continued sneers of ’'yon
can’t, yon can’t, yon can’t,” dinning perpetually,
there has long been a feeling, and a want of confi-
dence, as of some stupefying incubus which it seems
hard to shake off, that only Russia, Austria, Italy,
and Fi-ance could raise hemp, and only England
and Germany could manufacture it.
If this little work shall have the effect to call
out the experience of others, and thus furnish a
literature upon the subject of hemp culture to
which the farmer may refer, the reward for the task
will be sutficient. There is at present no record
of experiments or of practical work of any definite
value upon the subject extant. Quite the reverse,
all old methods have been proved inadequate to the
production of fine hemp fiber, while most of the
directions for practice are diametrically antagonistic
Vlll
PREFACE
to wliat is found best at eveiy successive step of
the iiidustiy. No complete determination of the
nature, habit or needs of tlie hemp plant, in its
twofold office of bearing seed and bearing- fiber,
has been made. No coiiperation of the farmer and
the manufacturei-, through the inventor and chemist,
for the production of a i)erfect fiber, is recorded ;
but the grower of hemp is left to grope in the dark
as to what is required.
The tenor of this work may seem over-sanguine
or over-enthusiastic, but no success ever attended
any industry without the championing of some one
who believed it ])raeticable. The directions herein
contained are in the interest of no individuals or
])atents, but are so plain that he who runs may
read and inexpensive!}" practice until he has proved
the truth or falsity of all statements and claims
made. The writer will welcome criticisms from what-
ever source, and receive and worship any other god,
if shown to be more benignant toward the farmer’s
welfare.
S. 8. BOYCE.
Tottenville, N. Y., 1900.
CONTENTJS
CHAPTER PAGE
Preface v
I. History of the Hemp Plant . 1
H. Botany and Chemical Comi)Osition of Hemp Plant . 10
III. Culture of Hemp in Europe 21
IV. Early Cultivation of Hemp in America 35
Y, Why the Hemp Industry Languished in America. 44
VI. Hemp versus Flax 53
VII. yoil and Climate Adaj)tetl to the Culture of Hemp. 58
VIII. Growing Hemp for Seed 67
IX. The Cultivation of Hemp for Fiber 74
X. Irrigating the Hemp Field 82
XI. Harvesting Hemp for Fiber 87
XII. Retting and Preparing the Hemp Fiber 91
XIII. Machinery for Handling Hemp 105
L’Envoy 109
Index Ill
(ix)
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIGUKK
1. Chinese Hem]) Frontispiece .
2. (Chinese Ifenii) tor Seed and Fiber (3
3. Chinese Hemp, Male and Female Plants 11
4. Stake Retting Pitt 31
5. Stone Retting Pitt 32
G. Retting Hemp on the Ground in Kentucky .... 39
7. Slat Hand Break 41
8. Section of a China Hemp Plot Grown for Fiber . G5
9. Reap Hooks, for Cutting Hemp by Hand 73
10. Irrigating Hemp by Water Furrows 84
11. Hemp-Breaking Machine 97
12. Single Tank for Retting Hemp 99
13. Hemp Scutching Machine
107
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HEMP
CHAPTER I
muTORY Ob' THE HEMP PLANT
Hemp, Cannabis saliva, is the most important
plant, commercially, and the one the most widely
cultivated, in Europe. Adapted to cultivation in all
climates, from the equator to a latitude of 00°,
we find some variety of the plant coexistent with
the progress of humanity from the earliest dawn
of civilization in the far East, six thousand years
ago, and still accompanying man through all the
vicissitudes, incidents and exigencies of his march
around the world
Whether the several varieties of the hemp plant
now found growing wild or in cultivation in all parts
of the world are all the children of one common
mother- type, originating in the valleys of the Him-
alaya mountains, in Asia, the original characteristics
of which are now lost to agriculture, or there was
one variety or species indigenous to this early home
of the Aryan people in central Asia, or another with
the Touranians or Celts in central Europe, and
from which the varieties have sprung and commin-
gled, intermarried and their children scattered to
the four winds of the earth, cannot now be deter-
A
( 1 )
o
II E 1\I P
mined. A coarse hempen cloth has been found
anion‘s the remains of the Cave-Dwellers and
earliest inhabitants of Enroi)e, by whom it nmy
have been made at a time as remote as when the
Pharaohs were layiii”- the foundation stones of the
pyramids, six thousand years a^o. Herodotus states
that the Scythians cultivated hemp in the valley of.
the Vol^a four thousand years a<^o.
Whether the seed from the one wild parent •
plant has been modified by the soils and climatic
(joiiditions of centuries of existence, under varviim
circumstances, irrc{>'ular, uncertain, often unfriendly,
and become a more or less tractable, more or less
useful plant, its habit changed to one of shorter
growth, earlier and more prolific of seed, as found
ill the higher latitudes, or to the plant of tall,
slender and graceful character, as found in the
warmer and more moist climates, cannot be ascer-
tained. Certain it is that some variety of the iilant
has accompanied humanity in its migrations, and
found lodging place in the highways and byways
of man’s industries, ministering to his wants in
response to, and aecordingl}’’ as, his care has been
friendly and considerate.
The origin of the English word hemp is as
obscure as that of the plant itself. The earliest
name for the plant is the Sanscrit Sana, a hollow
reed-like plant or cane. Corresponding to this is the
Persian canna and I'annap, hence the Arabian word
cannal), a small reed or cane. Greek I'anna, a reed
and anything made from it ; also liannahis and
liannahos. Latin cannahis, from canna, a reed or
cane ; also a tube or small vessel. Italian cannapa;
also canna, a reed, caiie, jiipe, hollow tube or uieas-
HISTORY OF THE HEMF FLAXT
3
iiring stick. French cluilu're, caiieraa, lieinp and a
doth made from hemp ; also canne, a eane or reed,
lienee cantare, a voice throu'^h the reeds; and the
many words of similar derivation. In French, as
is (jnite common, the c and k become ch.
We find no exactly corresponding^ word in An^do-
Saxon, or the German or Celtic tonj^iics. There
seems to have been a division of names by those
cnltivatiny: the plant, in the niif^rations from the
far East, one branch passing? to the south of the
Black Sea and the other to the north, and with
the chaiif^^es in the sounds of letters and the word
formation common to the language, the Greek k be-
coming c in Latin, ch in French, and to the north
of the Black Sea the k and c becoming h. The words
Juuiapiis and hanaperium in Old Latin, Juuiap in Old
French, and Jianaf in Old High German, a vase,
bowl or basket, correspond to the English hamper
and hanaper, and which are the same in Swedish,
a hempen bag or wicker basket, while Latin ha-
riindo is also a reed or cane, taller than cannabis.
The word for hemp in Anglo-Saxon is lienep,
Dutch hennep or kennep, Old High German hanaf,
and Swedish hampa ; Polish honopj, and Russian
konopUa. The word for canvas is the same as for
hemp in Latin, Greek, Italian and French, while
in all English canvas meant a cloth for strain-
ing. The word cannabis is the Latin for the wild
hemp plant, while Cannabis saliva is the plant
in cultivation. Pott’s "Etymologische Forschun-
gen,” and Winning’s "Comparative Philology’’ give
the word hemp as of Slavonic origin.
Beyond the cultivation of hemp for its fiber for
making garments and household linens by a large
4
HEMP
part of the people of northern Europe and Asia,
the Arabians cultivated a variety of the wild plant,
j^rowin^ but three to live feet, for the resinous
gum, hashish, or hhamj or hanque, an intoxicating
drug. ^Eschylus also states that it was burned and
nsed for vapor baths, while Herodotus says the
Scythians were intoxicated by inhaling the fumes
of the burning seed. The leaf, when dried and
smoked, is also said to alleviate pain, producing a
narcotic, intoxicating effect, increasing the appetite,
and giving rise to mental cheerfulness. When the
resinous gum which exudes from the plant is taken
internally in small doses it produces hilarity, and
the patient soon becomes insensible ; but when
recovering ])erceives no apparent ill effects to mind
or body. Gunjah is an East Indian word for the
dried hemp folinge, which was smoked for its intoxi-
cating effects. The seed is used to feed birds and
fowls, and to make oil for paints and for making
soap.
The name hemp is also given to the commercial
fibers of a great number of plants, especially to
those of the agave or century i)lant, Aqave Ameri-
cana, the sisal of commerce, and growing in Central
America. Also to the fiber of the wild plantain,
or musa (Manila hemp), growing in the Philip-
pines, neither of which are true fibers, nor are
they capable of subdivision for spinning into fine
numbers. Jute, corchorus, was once called India
hemp. There is also a Sunn hemp, the Crotalaria
juncea. A species of hibiscus, H. cannahinus, grow-
ing in India, is also called hemp, but the fiber is
inferior even to jute. New Zealand flax, Fhor-
mium tenax, is often called hemp, as are a great
HISTORY OF THE HEMP PLANT
5
number of other plants of less importance ; but,
aside from the true hemp, cannabis, flax, Unum, and
ramie, Ba’lnneria, there are no true vegetable fibers
adapted to fine spinning at present known to com-
nieree.
The variet}' of hemp best adapted to the ]iro-
duetion of a fine, soft fiber, and that growing the
tallest, the most rapidl\', and the longest between
leaf joints, comes from the wild Iiido-China plant.
Cannabis Indica and C. sericeus, also called C. (ji-
(jantea. It is later in maturing seed, however, and,
bearing but little seed, is liable to be crowded out
by the more prolific earlier varieties (Fig. 2). With
favorable conditions of soil and moisture, the Indo-
China variety grows to a hight of fifteen to seven-
teen feet in a latitude of 40° in the United States,
and up to twenty to twenty -five feet farther south,
in from ninety to one hundred days, according to
mean temperature and time of planting.
A variety long known in Turkey as Smyrna
hem]), and in Italy as Italian hem]!, canna})a, the
seed of which is also imported into France for
growing the taller French varieties, is earlier, more
inclined to branching and more prolific of seed,
and rarely grows aliove thirteen feet in hight, even
under the most favorable conditions of soil and
climate.
Another variety also found in Italy and called
Cannapa pirola, or small hemi), grows four to six
feet, while the common hemp cultivated in Europe
grows five to seven feet tall, and seems to be a cross
or degenerate from the former varieties, and i)erlia]>s
from mixing with the Ifnngarian and Knssian
varieties.
Fir.. 2. CiiiNKsK IIf.mp.
St.ilks of IJenip grown for fiber in tlie center.
HISTORY OP THE HEMP PLANT
7
This lower-growing variety is often planted nincli
thicker, and furnishes a ])lant in character and habit
intermediate in size and appearance between flax
and hemp.
The wild Hungarian and Ixussian varieties seem
quite a distinct type, differing consideralfly in gen-
eral appearance, in cultivation, from the others, and
also partaking somewhat of all the other European
varieties, being quite irregular in habit and in
bight of stalk, and with a coarser, not so readily
manipulated, fibrous material.
The hemp plant is found growing wild, as if
indigenous to all parts of the world, es])ecially in
the northern portions of Europe and Asia, and, in
the different latitudes, partaking to a considerable
extent of the nature of the plant in cultivation
near by, as if the wild iflant had cscapial from culti-
vation or the cultivateil ])laut had Ihhmi reco\eied
from its wild state and, by cultivation, made to
assume a character more in keeping with the wants
of the cultivator. In its struggles for existence
the wild plant iiresents many differing characteris-
tics of more or less intei'cst to the botanist.
The general effect of cultivation upon hemp, as
of all other iflants, is to restore it from the irregu-
larity of unfriendly conditions of soil and the over-
crowding of its own or other foliage, and to give
it a tendency to a higher iiroduction of seed, instead
of a large proportion of weed or stalk. This result
is apparent in almost all farm crops, where the
purpose is to seed thinly and to keej) out weeds,
so that the production of fruit may be as great as
possible, instead of a tall stalk or shoot. In cotton
the aim is especially to prepare the soil in a way
8
HEMP
that the tap-root may early strike hard-pan, and
thus force the plant up to fruit, while fertilizers
are applied with special reference to fruit rather
than to a tall -growing plant. With sugar cane,
which does not flower in semi-tropical climates,
the purpose is the reverse: to grow as tall and large
a cane as possible. The same object is desired with
hemp, by the application of nitrogen to produce a
tall stalk, but with a thick seeding of the ground
to prevent the growing of large stalks.
Hemp is the king of fiber-bearing plants, — the
standard by which all other fibers are measured;
while none but silk is of a finer character, and none
other is so universally adapted to a wide soil and cli-
matic conditions and the rude arts of the semi -bar-
barous husbandman, and the primitive methods and
practices attending the preparation of its fiber; yet
none is more amenable to the care of exact culture,
nor better rew'ards the skill of fine -art methods of
fiber -manipulation. No plant is more susceptible
to the processes of producing a fine, white, soft and
silky fiber, and there is not one to take its place in
the wide and diversified area of its culture and
manufacture.
Besides its adaptability to cultivation in all cli-
mates, it may be grown continuously upon the same
soil with but a minimum application of manures,
provided the refuse is returned to the land. Accord-
ing to the methods of manipulation to obtain the
fiber, it may be used for the strongest and coarsest
cordages or to produce the finest linens. In the
colder latitudes, while the fiber is coarser, the
medicinal qualities are milder, less pronounced, and
less effective. The hot, moist climate of the tropics
HISTORY OP THE HEMP PLANT
9
is exceedingly well adapted to the rapid growth so
favorable to the production of an abundance of fine
fiber, while the plant yields substances said to be
very powerful in their narcotic and intoxicating
effects.
CHAPTER II
nOTAXY AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF THE
HEMP PLANT
Hemp is uii exogenous, liardy aiinnal plant,
capable of withstanding a freezing teinperatni-e
without damage. It grows luxuriantly in proportion
to fertility, warmth and moisture, from a hight
of three to live and seven to eight feet, according
to variety, in latitudes of 50° to G0°, increasing in
hight some two to five feet for each ten degrees
of latitude, up to a hight of twenty to twenty-five
feet for the Indo-China variety in the trojucs.
Hemp may be ])lanted at the same time as oats,
spring wheat or rye, as soon as the ground can be
made readv, and south of a latitude of 35° at anv
time during the year.
In latitudes south of 40°, with care, two crops
a year of the eai*ly varieties may l)c readily grown;
or a crop of hemp and a crop of peas to keep up
the fertility. of the soil. Under favorable conditions,
the growTh of hem]i is very ra])id, from two to three
feet the first thirty days, and three to ten feet the
next thirty, according to variety, climate, character
of fertilizers, condition of soil, and supply of
moisture, being ready to harvest for fiber in eight}"
to ninety days, the seed ripening in forty to fifty
days thereafter, according to variety. With an
abundance of moisture, humus, and nitrogen from
BOTANY AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
11
decaying animal matter in the soil, seed-hemp of
the Indo- China variety has been seen growing in
Florida twelve mouths from the time of sowing the
seed, twenty -five feet tall and six inches in diameter
six inches from the ground.
Fig. 3. Chinese Hemp. l\Iale and female plants.
Remp is dioecious, the male and female stalks
being essentially different in habit and in the
peouliarity of fiber- production. Remp belongs to
the family Uriicaccm (Nettles), and the tribe Cun-
nuhinecv. A male plant is seen to the left in Fig.
3, and a female plant to the right.
Ijike flax and ramie, the two other true fiber-
bearing plants, hemp has its fiber in a heavy bark
12
H E ]\i r
or rind, firinh' massed and bound together by a
resinous gum of great consistency, not soluble in
boiling water, but readily yielding to putrefactive
fermentation and to alkaline and saponaceous sol-
vents, yielding a soft, white, silky fiber adapted to
the production of the finest threads, linens, lawns
and cambrics. Like the i)ure fiber of all i)lants,
its natural color is white, and it is onh' discolored
by the imperfect i)ractices used in cleansing it from
its gum and extraneous suri’onndings
In cultivation hemp has a long, white, fibrous,
tapered root, deeply penetrating the soil, when made
mellow by deep tillage, in search of the special plant-
food and the large amount of moisture it requires.
Hemp absorbs a large amount of nitrogen from the
soil, and if dry the roots penetrate to a great dei)th ;
while if an over- abundance of moisture is given, it
spreads out numerous roots near the surface, ac-
commodating itself to existing conditions with great
facility and regularity.
The hemp stalk is straight and ramified, holloAv
at times, according to the presence of jAcculiar
manures which force a rapid growth, oi- nearly solid
in hard and impoA-erished soils, and bears long
branches at short, regularly spaced intervals AAdien
groAving isolated, but only leaves at the joints ten to
fifteen inches apart if the ground is rich and the
plant groAving rapidly. When soaa'ii thickly and
the plant is groAving fast, these leaA'es fall early
as the groAA’th proceeds, and the lieaAw top foliage
shades the plants, i)rodueing a smooth, slender
stalk of great beauty, and AA'ith a cortex condi-
tioned to furnish a smooth, soft, silky fiber for
fine spinning.
BOTANY AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
13
A part of tlie fibers, startiiif^ from the root, end
at eaeli suceessive leaf-joint, lienee the ainonnt of
fiber «tom’S less towards the top ; thus the advan-
ta*je of thick -seeding and of having the plant grow
rapidly, so as to make the leaf-joints as far aj)art
as possible. The leaves and branches grow opposite
each other, the digitate leaves consisting of seven
to nine, sometimes eleven lanceolate, coarsely ser-
rated leaflets.
In male hem]) the (lowers are panicled, axillary
and terminate. They have five nearly equal sepals,
five drooping stamens, and oblong, tetragonal an-
thers disposed, ordinarily, in light green clusters.
When mature, in some ten days to two weeks from
time of blossoming, these turn yellow and, if not
harvested, the plant dies and rapidly loses its
"nature.”
Female hemp has sessile axillary flowers, too
small to be noticed excejiting by close observation.
The calyx is elongated and extended on but one
side. The crowns are ovary -bearing, with two styles
and their stigmas. A small, round capsule with two
valves contains one little grain of seed, at first white,
and then the covering green, turning to brown.
The seeds are gray -striped in some varieties, while
in others they are of a dull color, and when rijie
sometimes nearly black.
The finest fiber known to the manufacturer’s art
is that of the best water -retted hemp frequently
cleansed bv being carefully "boiled off,” to free it
from the resinous, gummy matters which unite the
fibers, and after it has been broken and the woody
matter shnken out. In all manufactures of hemp
and flax the yarns or fabrics are boiled off in alka-
14
HEMP
Hue solutions, to free them from the gmui and
other extraneous matters, if the fiber itself has
not been previously so treated. When so cleansed
and subdivided, a mass of fine, soft JihrUhv is
presented almost rivaling silk in luster and spiii-
iiiug qualities.
The chemical composition of hemp presents some
features peculiar to the plant. Grown for fiber,
fhere is nothing in the product removed from the
hemp of much special value, compared with plants
grown for seed. In cotton and corn and other
grains the seeds carry away very large quantities
of plant -food. Plants which do not produce or
ripen seed, like hemp and sugar cane, require dif-
ferent elements, and for that reason there is no
analysis of hemp on record by which to make an
exact comparison with the plant as grown for fiber.
The tendency of all cultivation is to produce fruit
at the expense of
weed. For fibers the
reverse is
the aim.
With the seed
and plant complete, an analysis
of the hemp and
flax plants gives the
following
composition :
Hemp
Flax
Carbon ....
38.94
38.72
Hydrogen . . .
6.06
7.33
Nitrogen . . .
1.74
.56
Oxygen ....
48.72
48.39
Ashes
4.54
5.00
Total . .
100.00
100.00
The ashes of the hemp and flax plants give the
following per cents :
BOTANY AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
15
Potash
Soda
Liiuo
Chloride of sodium
Magnesia ....
Alumina ....
Oxide of iron . .
Silica
Phosphoric acid .
Sulphuric acid . .
Chlorine ....
Carbonic acid . .
Total . . .
Hemp
Flax
7.48
20.32
.72
2.07
42.05
19.88
9.27
4.88
4.05
.O /
2.83
G.75
12.80
3.22
10.24
1.10
7.13
1.53
31.90
10 72
100.00
99.31
Tliese iuehule botli seed and stalk. The ashes of
the hemp -seed and flax-seed show:
Potash
Soda
Lime
Magnesia ....
Peroxyde of iron
Phosphoric acid .
Sulphate of lime
Chlorine ....
Chloride of sodium
Silicic acid . . .
Silica
Carbon
Total . . .
Ueinp-seed Flaxseed
20.81
25.90
.04
1.30
25.57
20.00
.90
.20
.74
3.70
35.52
40.10
.18
1.00
.90
.09
....
13.48
.90
0.19
—
104.18
100.00
The leaves of the hemp plant contain:
Carbon 40.50
Hydrogen 5.98
Nitrogen 1.82
Oxygen *. 29.70
Ashes 22.00
Total 100.00
IG
HEMP
The fibers of both these plants contain but very-
little of plant-food. Where grown for fiber, as is
hemp, and the refuse returned to the soil, it liter-
ally takes nothing away from the land ; while in
fact it furnishes sufficient plant -food to keep the
soil in nearly i)erfect condition. The following will
show comparative demands for plant -foods :
Nitrogen
Potash
Lime
Phos. Acid
Hemp plant .
. . . 1.74
.34
1.90
.15
Hemp-seed .
. . . 2.61
.97
....
1.75
Flax i)lant . .
. . . .59
.49
.61
.55
Flax-seed . .
. . . 3.28
1.04
....
1.30
Cotton plant .
. . . 1.90
1.50
1.60
.30
Cotton -seed .
. . . 3.00
1.20
.20
1.00
Pea -vines . .
. . . 2.07
1.45
1.50
.52
Cowpeas . .
. . . 3.97
1.48
....
.94
The amount of fertilizing elements required to
produce the plants for one hundred pounds of cot-
ton lint, and of fiax and heinj) fibers, is given by
the Year Book of the U. S. Dept, of Agriculture
1897, as
follows :
Weight of plant {in
pounds) for 100
pounds of fiber
FERTiniZING ELEMENTS
Nitrogen Potash Phos. Acid
Cotton .
. . 747
20.71
13.06
8.17
Flax . .
. . 687
19.37
7.29
6.76
Hemp .
. . 597
6.27
10.13
3.32
This shows that hemp requires less than one -third
of the nitrogen and less than one -half of the
phosphoric acid that does cotton, which requires
41.94 pounds of fertilizers, flax 33.42 pounds, and
hemp but 19.72 pounds.
As an acre of cotton should give a yield of 500
pounds of lint, the yield of dry stalks, with bolls
complete, should be 3,735 pounds, and the amount
BOTANY AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
17
of nitrogen used, 103.55 pounds, with G5.30 pounds
of potash and 40.85 pounds of phosphoric acid. An
acre of flax should yield 350 pounds of fiber, and
the whole weight of growth should be 2,405 pounds,
requiring G7.79 pounds of nitrogen, 25.51 pounds of
potash, and 23. GG pounds of phosphoric acid. The
average yield of hemp fiber ])er acre under similar
conditions would be 1,500 pounds, giving a yield of
8,955 pounds of growth, and the nitrogen used would
be 94.05 pounds, potash 151.95 pounds, and phos-
phoric acid 49.80 pounds. The value of the product
of an acre of each of these three plants would be,
at present prices, cotton $30 (seed and lint $45),
flax $35 (seed and fiber $45), and hemp $105. The
cost of the culture of each crop would not mate-
rially differ. The cost of the chemical fertilizers,
if they had to be purchased, would be, cotton $25,
flax $14, and hemp $24 ; but as a large part of
these plants may be returned to the soil, it is only
necessary to see that the soil upon which the crops
are to be grown is at first fully supi)lied with these
plant-foods. The lint of cotton and fibers of hemp
and flax practically carry away nothing from the
soil. The seeds of these plants, however, represent
a certain eash outlay for manures. The analysis of
100 pounds of cotton-seed, flax-seed and hemp -seed
show:
Nitrogen Potash Phos. Acid
Cotton-seed 3.00 1.20 1.00
Fax-seed 3.28 1.04 1.30
Ilemp-seed 2.G1 .97 1.75
This shows 100 pounds of cotton -seed to be worth
50 cents as manure for these plant-foods alone ; 100
pounds of flax-seed to be worth G8 cents, and 100
B
18
HEMP
pounds of hemp -seed to be worth 50 cents. So that
at the present prices of these seeds, the cotton -seed
should be used as a fertilizer, and the flax- and
hemp -seeds sold.
A comi)arative analysis of the ashes
of hemp-.
tiax- and cotton -seed show:
llemp-seed Flax seed
Cottonseed
Potash
. 21. G7
25.90
37.45
Lime
. 2G.63
2G.00
4.44
Phos. acid
. 34. 9G
40 10
34.90
Silex
. 14.04
.90
4.35
The hemp plant is not grown for both seed and
fiber, so the fertilizers of
the seed are saved: while
if cotton -seed is returned to the soil
its fertility
would be preserved.
Analyses of the steep-
water,
ill which hemp and
flax have been retted, showed
the following com-
parisoii :
Hemp-steep
Flax-steep
Carbon
. 55. G6
53.93
Hydrof^eii
. 8.21
7.31
Nitrogen
. G.45
3.8G
Oxygen
. 29. C8
35.90
Total
. 100.00
100.00
The ashes of hemp -steep
were
49.20 per cent, and
of flax 42.01 per cent. As this steeping process,
or any other dissolving of the resinous matters
from the fiber, takes away almost everything which
the i)laiit takes from the soil, it is easil}" seen how
valuable a fertilizer is the refuse of these plants.
After the hemp stalk has been peeled and the
fibrous material removed, an analysis of the stalk
alone showed ;
BOTANY AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
19
Carbon
Hydrogen
Nitrogen
Oxygen
Ashes .
50.80
0.48
.43
34.52
1.77
Total
100.00
The ashes contaiu but a trace of alkali, and the
nitrog-eii is in very small (luantity ; lienee the burn-
ing; of the woody matter as fuel to run the
maehinery neeessitates but a trilling; loss.
Ill all these analyses, however, the fact remains
that, on account of the lack of exact botanical
determination, a g'reat deal still remains as an
exceeding;ly interesting study for the chemist. An
analysis of hemp must differ from cotton in the
fact that when g;rowing- hemp for fiber, a tall stalk,
and no seed product, is reipiired, while with cotton,
as with most other plants but sug-ar cane, a short
stalk, with much fruiting- or seeding-, is necessary;
hence the determination of what special plant -foods
are necessary to jiroduce hemp plants with seed,
does not equally apply to the growth of a hemp
plant without seed. In this connection, the results
of some experiments now making show that where
the soil contains a large ainonnt of humus and de-
caying animal foods, furnishing an abundance of
nitrogen, the hemp plant grows very inueli faster
and taller. If two crops a year are to be grown, a
different mannrial condition wonld be required than
if the whole season were to be given to the produc-
tion of one crop. With an abundance of nitrogen
and moisture, the nitrogen dominates the growth,
and the hemp stalk is far more hollow, the growth
20
HEMP
more rapid, and tlie distance between leaf -joints
inneli greater. In 18G3 Congress appointed a com-
mission to investigate the cultivation of hemp and
flax, but its' labors Avere confined to the study of
what practices were already in existence ; and while
it found that the product of hemp in the United
States in 18G0 was over 87,000 tons, the Avork Avas
irregular, and the report too- incomplete to be of
value to the hemp grower. Numerous publications
have since been issued by the Department detailing
foreign practices, but in a manner too superficial to
materially aid the farmer.
CHAPTER III
CULTURE OF HEMP IN EUROPE
Few of the i)rimitive ]iractices, remnants of
okltinio methods, still o))tainiii" with the proprie-
tors of small plots of land, who still grow hemp
as a braneh of their family employment in the Old
World, present examples for eopying, or by whieh
to profit, in the more extensive praetiees in Amer-
ica, wher(^ ranches s((nare miles in extent take the
])laee of s<inare acres in Europe, and labor-saving
appliances that of hand labor. France, situated in
the center of European indnstry, is a highly tense
and concentrated indnstiaal country, with a teri-itory
one- fifth less in extent than the state of Texas.
She, nevertheless, has taken the lead in all the arts,
coarse and fine, of agricultural j)rodnction, and in
textile design and industrial advancement; but in a
space so confined there has not lieen the oppor-
tunity to work ont upon an extended scale the les-
sons she has so exactly learned.
Three -fourths of the agricultural acreage of
France is divided np into small holdings, averaging
less than six acres each, and upon these small tracts
of land, adjoining the dwellings, the hemp industry
of France first came into jirominence, dating back
to the lieginning of the seventeenth century, when
the people cultivated the hemp, pn'pared the fiber,
and by hand labor spun and wove it into cloth for
(21)
22
HEMP
canvas, or for garments, and into linens for house-
hold use. At the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
the King of France sent out to the rest of the
world the prolific seed of the world’s intelligence, —
liberty and industrial progress, and the culture and
manufacture of hemp was one of the best. In a
few instances more modern methods have prevailed,
and from these some knowledge may l)e gleaned hy
which to verify the claims for better methods in
American practice, and to suggest further improve-
ments. The E)irijcIope(lie CJiimiqne, Paris, 1890,
gives some account of the later ])ractices, with in-
structions for hemp cultivation and for the prepa-
ration of hemp fiber as at pre.sent practiced in
Europe, from which we make selections.
Researches among the remains of the semi-
barbarous people first inhabiting France show that
the production of hemp was among the earliest of
the arts, and furnished the materials for garments
and household linens continually. Hemp was of the
simplest of cultivation, and its fiber product most
easily adapted to the necessities of the peoi)le in
their everyday tasks. As early as the beginning
of the seventeenth century we find the industry
systematical^' established among the small farmers,
who possessed small idots of land adjoining their
dwellings, where they sowed their hemp every year,
after having given the utmost care and attention to
the fertilization, deep tillage and careful prepara-
tion of the soil for that purpose.
The ingenuity and close application of the peo]>le
of that country early gave a high character to the
fibei's and household linens ])rodueed, and bolh the
production and finality have steadily increased, until
CULTURE OF HEMP IN EUROPE
23
France annually produces over 70,000 tons of raw
hemp fiber, and annually adds some 25,000 tons
more by importation to supply her manufactories.
Over 250 mills ai‘e engaged in its manufacture. i\I.
Charpentier asserts that, contrary to most plants,
hemp may l)e grown continually upon the same soil
without any material deterioration, and the plant
and fiber are always fine when the cultivation is
carried on with care and intelligence. This culti-
vation of hemp in the small household hem]) fields,
and in which the cultivator spared nothing, served
as a grand school for the exact culture and ])repa-
ration of hemp fiber by making known and ai>i)re-
ciated the richness of the fiber of this textile ])lant
and its wide adaptation to the })roduction of fine
fabrics for garments and household use. Besides
this cultivation adapted to the small households,
many parts of France now cultivate liemi) upon a
large scale, with a systematic rotation of crops, and
with great care in the preparation of the fiber.
Up to the end of the eighteenth century, and
l)efore the invention of machine-spinning by Ray,
in 1826 (Ray was a French manufacturer at that
time), the hemp ])roduced in Picardy and Alsace
was chiefly used for coarse products of cordage aud
fish-uets, while that of Dauphiiie aud Limoges served
))artly to supply the hand-s])inners aud weavers of
the mountains of the Tsere and Puy de Dome, who.so
fine fabrics so long had a , great reputation in the
south of France. The plains of Grenolde produced
hemp of a remarkalde fineness, Avhich supplied the
numerous si)iiiners of Dauiihine, whose ])roducts
contributed so much to the great n'putation of the
fine linens of Voiron. Today these ])lains, so well
24
H E M P
adapted and so well situated in the shelter of the
Alps, enjoying a damp and warm climate, possess-
ing all the natural elements for producing a fine
hemp plant, still produce good hemp, Limoges,
which unites with the natural elements of a climate
warm and moist during the time of the growth of
the hemp plant a rich, deep soil, easily cultivated,
has been particularly favored in the culture of hemp.
Carried on intelligently, hemp culture is one of
the most productive industries known. With care
one can easily obtain 1,000 to 1,200 pounds per
acre of a fine fiber, ready to spin, besides twenty
bushels of oleaginous seed. The parts of France
where hemp now gives the best returns are Anjou,
Sarthe, Picardj^, Touraine, Maine and Normandy.
The writer in the Encydopedie Chimique gives
directions for the cultivation of hemp, and states
that the plant is now the most widespread and
important commercial plant of Europe. This is
consequent not only upon the simplicity of its cul-
tivation and the possibility of replanting indefinitely
upon the same land, but also and especially upon a
principle of oldtime husbandry which led the culti-
vator of the soil to produce all he consumed.
Thanks to its short period of growth, hemp can be
cultivated in all latitudes on the continent of
Europe, from the neighborhood of Archangel to the
plains of Granada.
As a complete crop in European farming, how-
ever, we would like to see generally adopted the
improved process of retting, by which there would
be a more systematic cleansing and preparation of
the fiber, and a complete return to the soil of the
great amount of nitrogenous and mineral matters
CULTURE OF HEMP IN EUROPE
25
contained in the stalks and leaves of the plants,
whieh ai*e now lost in the steep- water. The fibers
of hemp are stronger, but by the present imperfect
methods of retting not so easily subdivided, as
flax. This the new and imin-oved methods of
retting should rectifv.
The art of producing a fine hemp fiber consists,
first, in a careful noting of the proper time of sow-
ing the seed, and that the soil be fertile and deej)!}”^
tilled, that the hemp may grow rapidi}’. The seed
should bo perfect, so that it may all sprout at once,
and sown in sufficient quantity that thd stalks be
near enough together to prevent branching, and
that the stalks do not grow too large, and also to
perfectly shade the ground.
Hemp having a long tap-root, the soil must be
deeply tilled and made mellow, to give it free access
to the humus and to obtain moisture, and to absorb
its proper plant-foods during its period of growth.
Deep fall plowing is also desirable and advan-
tageous, to turn up the hard earth and expose it to
the action of the frost and snows of winter, making
the soil more permeable to the atmospheric influ-
ences. Earl}" spring plowing is also recommended,
to prevent the soil from hardening before the final
stirring at the time of seeding, and because the
soil cannot be too thoroughly pulverized and pre-
Iiared for the free feeding of the fine rootlets of the
plant. To see that the soil is mellow and friable
is one of the most important rules to be observed.
The amount of manures should be liberal, and
be spread upon the ground as early in winter as
])ossible, that the I’ains may soak the nutritive mat-
ters into the soil. If we wish to use poudrette or
2G
HEMP
guano, these should be applied after the last plowing,
only a short time before planting. These fertilizers
produce a more immediate effect and insure a more
rapid and uniform germinating of the seed.
The seed is a very important element in obtain-
ing fine plants of even bight, and should be
selected with great care. To be good, the seed
should be gray in color, bright, plum)) and heavy.
Wlien the kernels are crushed between the teeth
they should leave a loronounced nutty taste. The
seeds which remain white are abortive, and will not
germinate, while those of a greenish color are unri))o
and germinate slowly, the plants from them lack-
ing strength, and are smothered by those of more
vigorous growth. The black seeds have undergone
fermentation, have a rancid taste, and their presence
indicates want of care in drying at the time of
harvesting, or a fraudulent mixture of old seed.
In Anjou the farmers usually purchase their seed
from cultivators in Touraine, w^io make a specialty
of raising seed. These latter generally obtain their
seed from the valley of Carmagnola and Piedmont,
Italy. This seed produces, the first year of sowing,
a new seed which is called in commerce fiJs de
Piemont (sons of Piedmont). The ))roduct from
this last seed is designated by the name of "grand-
sons of Piedmont," and from this last seed the best
fiber is thought to be obtained.
The time of sowing should vary with climate,
soil and conditions of the season. Seed should be
sown broadcast, and, if possible, just after a rain,
toward the end of April in the latitude of Paris.*
*Paris is wanner than the s-ainc latitude in the United States, and eor-
responds in mean tempei'atnre to New York city, Indianapolis and Omaha.
CULTURE OF HEMP IN EUROPE
27
When we wish to obtain an espeeially fine, higli-
lirieed fiber, the seed is sown more thiekly upon a
warm, moist and fertile soil, so that the plants will
grow in one long shoot with few leaf-joints, and if
there has been eare in all the work of preparation
the hemp plants will all grow of the same uniform
size and hight, so that the interlacing leaves Avill
shut ont the sunlight and the air from the stalks
and their fibrous coverings. This protection to the
stalks of the plant, seconded by a vigorous growth,
is one of the most powerful elements in prodmdng
a fiber bast rich in soft, fine, silky fibers, fit to
spin into fine, strong yarns, and espeeially adapted
to the ])rodnetion of fine linen, laces or other tex-
tile fabrics for garments and household uses.
The wind and the sudden changes of hot and
cold atmospheric currents have a remarkable influ-
ence upon textile plants in effecting changes in
their fibrous nutrients, hardening the gum resin
which binds the fil)crs together, and rendering them
coarse and "harsky.” It is, therefore, easily seen
that wdien growth takes 'i)lace under the natural
shelter of the leaves, as if in the mild, soft atmos-
phere of a eonservatoiy, the vegetation is protected
against the ill effect of any sudden changes of tem-
perature, while the mellowed air which surrounds
the stalks ])reservcs their warmth and moisture in a
inanncr and condition very essential to the produc-
tion of soft, silky fibers. If the soil is fertile, warm
and moist, the plants will spring np quickly and
uniformly, and if all the direetious here given have
been ol)served, the product will be a highly satis-
faetoiy one.
Weeding hemp is not necessary. The plant is
28
E M P
not injured by weeds, excepting the tie -vine or wild
morning-glory, a weed which should be exter-
minated from every plantation, no matter with what
trouble.
We have said that hemp can be raised for many
years ni)on the same land, because the fertilizers
ai)plied easily restore in most part the elements
which hem]) takes from the soil. However, there
usually comes a time when, fi-om neglect to com-
pletely recuperate the conditions of the soil by
rotation and the ai)plication of manures, the con-
dition becomes inimical to a luxuriant growth of
hemp. The soil has become exhausted, and a para-
sitic plant of the genus Orohanche, chokewecd
or broom -rape, fastens upon the root of the hemp
plant in such a mauner and in such numbers as to
sap its vitality. By the presence of this weed we
know that the soil is becoming "hemp sick,” or
exhausted of the special characteristics from a too
long and a too steady drain in the cultivation of
hemp, with a neglect of rotation or of a proper
restoration; and the field must be turned to other
crops.
Insects rarely attack the hemp ; in fact, it is in
its nature, peculiar odor and medicinal composition
a preservation against the attacks of insects upon
other plants growing near it. The larva of the
death’s- head moth, Acherontia atropos, at times
bores the hemp stalk for a home.
In harvesting hemp, if we wish a very fine,
high-priced fiber, the harvesting is done before the
seed is ripe. If the hemp is left growing too long
the male stalks languish, while the fiber upon the
female, or seed- bearing stalks, becomes coarse and
CULTUUE OF HEMP IN EUROPE
2!)
hard ; wliile if the hemp is harvested too early, and
before the male has blossomed, the fiber will be
veiy fine, but too soft.
In cultivation upon a small scale, the hemp is
j^enerally harvested in two parts. The male is
pulled Avheu it has shed its pollen, and the female
after the seed has ripened. lu this way the male
^ives a fine fiber, while that of the female is harder
and only adapted to coarser work, but the seed is
saved.
In Alsace the henii) is all pulled at one time,
just as the seed is forming’; but it is allowed to
ripen afterwards in the sun. In this way the fiber
becomes coarser and only ada[)tcd to cordage, but
some seed is saved. lu Picardy there is also Imt
one harvesting, after the seed is formed. In most
other places the hemp is gathered early and while
the male is in full blossom, and no attention is
paid to saving the seed, while a finer and softer
and more valuable fiber is thus obtained, worth
more than both seed and fiber as obtained by the
other methods.
Ill whatever way the hemp is harvested, it is at
once l)ound up in small sheaves when pulled, and
stood 111) to dry, and then shocked. The seed is
beaten out, the tops and roots ent off, to even it
in length, by a sharp cutter. Or after the roots are
cat off the hemp is stood up, bundle by bundle,
and the taller stalks pulled out; or the bundles are
laid upon the floor, butts to the wall, and weighted,
and the long stalks pulled out. To save the seed,
care is taken to see that it is perfectly dry, that it
may not heat and ferment.
In very much of the hemp industry in France,
30
H li: ]\i p
still (ioiilined to small acreages, the work is irregu-
lar ill many respects. Full advantage cannot be
taken ot‘ labor-saving appliances or the more eco-
nomical modern processes, as when conducted upon
an extended scale, nor can any attempt be made at
classification, as the small producer must dispose of
his product to the middleman for classification, fin-
ishing and marketing, thus losing a very large per-
centage of the profits which would be his under the
circumstances of working an extended acreage.
A considerable i)art of the hemp grown in
France is still retted by tli-e antiquated method of
spreading it upon the ground for the destructive
action of the elements, and the product is a very
coarse, dark-colored fiber, almost worthless for any
modern methods of manufacture. When not thus
spread upon the ground the retting is largely done
in pools of stagnant water, either natural or artifi-
cially constructed by being dug in the ground at
any convenient place, of an extent large enough to
accommodate the one to fiv^e acres of hemp grown.
For this a pool of a size to hold two to ten or
twelve tons of hemp will be required, although
these pools are usually four or five feet deep, ten to
twelve feet long, and five to eight feet wide. The
sheaves of hemp are packed with the butts alter-
nately one way and the other, until the pit is full,
or all the hemp is used up. It is then weighted
down by stones and the pit filled with water. The
same water may be used over several times, until
all the hemp is steeped. The method is wasteful,
the steep -water not being utilized, while the stench
at the retting season of many of these stagnant
pits is something unbearable. Nor is the product
culturp: OF’ hf:mp in Europe
31
of muoh greater value tliau by the more primitive
method of spreading the hemp upon the ground.
The best results are obtained when hemp is
grown upon a large seale and the hemp retted by
being steeped in running water. Quite often the
hemp is plaeed in crates holding a ton or more of
stalks, and then weights of stones plaeed upon them
to hold the hemi) under water for live to eight
days, aeeording to the temperature of the water.
F’ig. -1. Stake Retting Pit.
Part of the more modern jiraetice is to dig pools
five to seven feet deep, which will hold ten to
twenty-live tons of hemp, and into which, if the
pits are so situated, a small stream of water may
be conducted and the overflow allowed to run out
upon the land as a fertilizer. The illustration,
Fig. 4, shows a pit made of ujiright posts and
cross bars for holding down the hemp, and in Fig.
5 is seen a pit in which stones are used to weight
and hold down the stalks when in place.
A later practice is to place the hemp in the
32
HEMP
water for four to five days and then take it
out and dry it, returning it again to the retting-
or stee})iiig- place for from four to six days more.
This gives a better fiber, of a creamy white color,
and a more evenly retted product. Or, after first
being in the water for five to six days the hemp is
dried, and when afterwards broken and the hurds
or shives shaken out the hemp is ” boiled olf,” as is
done with silk or in wool -scouring, or as is done
Fig. 5. Stonk Retting Pit.
with yarns and fabrics after they are mannfae-
tmred, to completely remove the hemp -gum and
the other extraneous matters. Much of the prepa-
ration of hemp is now done by the manufacturer,
and conducted by secret methods, not easy to learn.
Another process of retting consists in placing the
hemp in tanks of convenient size, holding five to
ten tons of stalks, which are filled with water first
impregnated with acid, and then emptied and refilled
with water containing alkaline preparations, or vice
versa. In some instances the hemp is first broken
CULTURE OF HEMP IN EUROPE
33
or decorticated and the fibrous material ouly sub-
jected to steeping. This requires much less space,
and after steeping the fiber can be hung up
to dry.
One method of "boiling off” the fiber. before
spiuiiiug consists in first passing the partly water-
retted hemp through a softening machine consist-
ing of sixteen sets of tinted rollers, set in a circu-
lar manner and made to move with a forward and
back, or reciprocal motion. The fiber is then
macerated in a nearly boiling solution of carbonate
of soda and soap, then washed, first in cold water
and then in water containing a small amount of
muriatic acid, and again steeped in water contain-
ing soda without soap, to remove the acid ; it is
then placed in a solution of one part of acetic acid
and one part of water and afterward in water alone,
and dried and again softened. The process is too
long, but is well rewarded in producing an exceed-
ingly fine, soft, valuable fiber, highly adapted to the
manufacture of fine linen, lawns and laces.
The finest Italian hemps are produced by those
growing small plots upon soil very deeply tilled,
often eighteen inches to two feet, and most extrava-
gantly manured ; the hemp being retted in artifi-
cial ponds, usually for five or six days, and then
dried and again steeped.
It is not easy to reconcile much of the informa-
tion given as to hemp culture and the preparation
of the fiber in Europe with what has been found
most practicable and advantageous in the cultiva-
tion in the United States, — especially that of the
heavy seeding of one and a -half to two bushels per
acre, where seven -eighths to a bushel properly sown
C
34
11 E M P
is found ample in the practice in America ; but
only an experience of years in the actual work of
<^’rowin<^ hemp can fully determine the correctness
of the methods employed.
(’IIai’Ti:k IV
EARLY VULTURE OE HEME IX AMERICA
llKMi* was one of the first i)laiits under eultiva-
tion anion<^ the early colonists of America, and one
of which most strenuous efforts were made to extend
the production. There is no ]-ecord of the sources
from whence the seed was obtained, and only sur-
mises can be made as to varieties iii cultivation by
colonists from different parts of Europe, who settled
at different points from New England to Georgia.
It is quite likelj^ that the varieties were nearly the
same and of the common European character, grow-
ing quite irregularly four to seven feet in New
England, and five to ten feet in Virginia and
southward.
Hemp was cultivated in New England as early
as 1629, while in 1662 Virginia awarded bounties
for hemp - culture and manufacture, and imposed
penalties upon those who did not produce it. Up
to 1847-50 the clothing of every black woman in
the South was made up of "one piece," fitting from
the neck downward to the calf of the leg, with
sleeves to the elbow, and held bv a belt around the
waist; while every black man’s clothing was of two
pieces, both made of a stout hempen cloth of light
color, largely made upon the plantations, but more
generally by the other colonists of the more north-
ern states, Virginia, jMaryland, Pennsylvania and
( 35 )
3G
II EMP
New Jersey. The establisliiiient of a cotton mill
at Augusta, Georgia, in 1848, commenced the weav-
ing of cotton into "standard” sheeting and shirting
to take the place of hemp and linen for garments
and household uses. The "relics” of this industry
for a long time held place in the garrets and lumber
rooms of the palatial mansions, and are still occa-
sionally met with in the mountain hamlets. In
1792, 3,000 bolts of light hem]) canvas were made
by one firm in Boston, worth $13 per bolt. In 1790,
2,729 families in Virginia produced 315,000 yards
of hemp fabrics. The product of hemp and flax
manufactures ' in the United States in 1810 was
over 21,000,000 yards.
In 1765 Edmund Quincy, of Boston, prepared a
work upon hemp -culture, which was published by
order of the Massachusetts Assembly, for the pur-
pose of impressing upon the minds of the colonial
farmers the necessity for an extension of the hemp
industry.*
In this work Mr. Quincy describes the male
hemp as "lighter, smaller and more delicate, with
fewer branches and a more hollow stem than the
female,” and states that the male comes to maturity
some weeks before the female, yielding a much finer
fiber, capable of being spun "into the finest threads
most fit for linens of various sorts.” Also, that
among the Dutch, hemp has been used for the
manufacture of canvas and sail cloth; in France
"linens for sheeting and shirting of the very finest
sorts ” were made from it, and in Flanders the
finest lawns, showing how important it was that
♦Edmuiul Qiiiney was a brother of Josi.ah Quincy, grandfather of the
president of Harvard. He died in 1785.
EARIA' CULTURE OP HEMP IN AMERICA
37
much care should be given to groM'iug the hemp
plant. The finest fabrics were made from the fiber
of the male, or "finible hemp.”
The best soils for hemp culture, according to
Mr. Quincy, are the "intervales,” dark, loam}' soils
composed of sand and pure molds. In Penns 3 'lvania
the farmers have for many years raised hemp to
advantage upon their well-drained lowlands. Hemp
does much better in poor, warm land than upon a
rich but cold soil. Experiments made by the set-
tlers upon the bottom lands of the larger New
England rivers showed that these "intervales” are
equal to the Nile lands in Egypt, from which the
cities of the Turkish empire and Italy receive a
greater part of their fine hemp cloths.
Mr. Quincy’s directions for the culture of hemp
were to sow it as early as the land could be made
ready, as "the earlier jilanted gave a heavier fiber
coat, and to sow one and a-half to two and a-half
bushels per acre, covering half an inch deep.”
From Mr. Quincy’s directions it seems that the
hemp was sown in rows two feet wide and two feet
between, for convenience in getting to the male,
which was pulled out after blossoming, and the
female left to ripen its seed, as both seeds and fiber
were saved. The yield was 700 to 1,000 pounds of
fiber and ten to twelve bushels of seed per acre.
From this and other incidental remarks it
appears that it was the early varieties of the coin-
mom European hemp that was raised, as it grew
four to seven feet tall and was very irregular in
character. "If a tall-growing variety, and sown
two and a-half bushels per acre ui>on rich ground,
half the hemp would be smothered.”
38
H E ]\I P
For retting, or " ratting,” there is no mention of
any other method than that of steeping or water-
ing, and because steeping in the rivers killed the
fish, artificial steep-pools were constructed. "After
steeping for five or six days a bundle should be
lifted out and rinsed to see if the leaves come off
easily and the coat or bark readily opens and sep-
arates from the ‘ bunn ’ (boon),”
In breaking the hemp Mr. Quincy gives an illus-
tration of a fixed, grooved base and a grooved head,
to be raised by canes or a crank and let to fall
upon the hemp. He also recommends the use of
fluted rollers run by water power.
Several letters from hemp growers are published.
Joseph Blaney and Samuel Barton, of Salem, Jan-
uaiy, 17G5, state that they had planted ten acres
the year previous, nine acres in rows and one sown
broadcast, which grew four to seven feet. It was
planted April 14 to May 2G, one and a-half and
two and a-half bushels of seed per acre, with a
yield of 700 to 1,000 pounds of fiber per acre.
They remark that when soil is well tilled hemp beai’s
drouth better than Indian corn, and is not so
likely to be killed by frost.
Mr. John Stevens* recommends sowing broad-
cast, and when pulling, to pull out paths two feet
wide of both male and female, having as wide sec-
tions as can be reached into to pull out the male
stalks first. He remarks that hemp is much injured
by letting it stand out in the sun and dew.
At this time there was a British enactment in
force, prohibiting the manufacture of hemp in the
*Mr. Stevens est.ablished the Stevens mills at Webster, Mass., the only
mills in the United States now spinning and weaving linen.
Fig. G. Spreading Hemp on the Groend in Kentt'Cky.
40
II E M P
colonies, and Great Britiau was offering a bounty of
$40 per ton for raw hemp exported to England. A
notice to this effect appears in the South Carolina
Gazette of that date.
The coming of cotton lint, with its greater
facility in spinning, turned the attention from hemp
to the heavy standard cotton products, which served,
many purposes of coarse garments and household
uses, while the appearance of jute, a cheaper and
much more easily spun fiber, took the place of hemp
for bagging and gunny sacks, crowding it still
further, while the use of steam instead of sails
lessened the demand for canvas, and lastly the sub-
stitution of steel wire ropes and those of sisal and
manila in cordage generally, rendered the com-
petition too severe ; nor have the efforts to develop
a better system of cleansing the hemp fiber of its
resinous matter been as successful as the main* other
methods of substituting less costly and more easily
manipulated materials.
Hemp was grown in New York state up to the
last decade, while the industry still exists in the
blue grass regions of Kentucky in all the pristine
glory and primitive practices of its establishment a
hundred years ago. The same antiquated methods
of hand -sickles or scythes to harvest the hemp ;
spreading it upon the ground for the destructive
action of the elements to ret it ; and lastly, breaking
it by hand, still prevail, as shown in Figs. 6 and 7.
From the eastern states the culture of hemp
moved to the Mississippi valley, which at one time
led in the production of a cheap, coarse fabric. In
1864 Missouri produced 28,000 tons. In 1892 the
Empire Cordage Company, of Champaign, 111., had
EARLY CULTURE OF HEMP IN AMERICA
41
Fig. 7. Sgat Hanp-Rreak in Operation.
ashes of tlie boon, or Imrcls, burned as fuel to run
tlie inacliinery.
Here was the first successful application of har-
vesting machinery to cutting hemp, and of the nse
of the modern hemp -break for obtaining the fiber.
The general changing of the climate to an irregu-
larity in the rainfall, and the more rapid drying of
the soil, compelled the search for more favorable
a hemp ranch of over 8,000 acres in cultivation,
while several other ranches of 500 to 2,000 acres
were in existence. Hemp was then grown upon the
same land for thirty years in succession without
fertilizers beyond the return of the foliage and the
42
HEMP
soil -conditions, a part of the hemp-growers going
to the Platte river bottoms in Nebraska, a part to
California, to use irrigation in the cultivation, and
a part to Mississippi. Daring the past ten j'ears
hemp has been planted experimentally in all the
states, in the southern especially. Wherever the
conditions of fertility and moisture have been
present, the result has been all that can be desired.
A small plat planted at the Sugar Experiment
Station, near New Orleans, in 1893, and each year
since, has shown that a grand future awaits the
hemp industry in the semi-tropical latitudes, pro-
vided an abundance of moisture can be regularly
supplied. Of the result at New Orleans, Dr. W. H.
Stubbs, Director of the station, says:
"This station has not systematically conducted
any experiments agriculturally with fiber plants. In
its anxiety to find a machine that will successfully
decorticate I'amie, we have iilanted the various kinds
of fiber plants — ramie, two varieties of jute, Ameri-
can Sunn hemi)s, and several varieties of fiax. No
particular control has been exercised over these
experiments other than to ])lant them and harvest
them for use in the trial machines. In the use of
American hemp, we had a varied experience; seed
obtained from New York was old, and gave a poor
yield and poor crop; seed obtained from some visi-
tors, who wdtnessed some of our trials, was a great
success, giving us large, strong, health}' ])lants,
wdiich were easily decorticated upon one or two
of our ramie machines. * * * * There is no
question in my mind about the practicability of
growing hemp upon these soils when a machine is
discovered which will handle it. My idea is to
EARLY CULTTRE OP HEMP IN AMERICA
clean the fiber on the mill machinery, so that there
will be little left of gummy matter and other sub-
stances that cannot be easily removed in the labora-
tory. We have no trouble in removing the gums
after we can obtain a machine that will success-
fully deliver the ribbons. However, we are not
after a hemp machine; onr object is to get a ramie
machine, and hemp is tried only incidcntall}'. We
have tested ui)on ramie machines the fiber from
hemp, jute, ramie, cotton, okra, etc., and we find
that with a machine that will successfully give
us ribbons, these ribbons can be successfully treated
in the laboratory and be brought into excellent
fiber.”
There is no record or means of ascertaining
the variety or varieties in cultivation by the early
American inhabitants beyond surmise. The small
importations of seed from China, India, Japan, and
dilferent i)arts of Europe, have been lost in the
association and cultivation with the common Apier-
ican hemp plant. No systematical selection or
preservation of any i>articular variety or strain has
been atteni])ted, nor effort to determine the effects of
hybridizing or of climatic conditions. This inter-
esting Vvmrk remains for the botanist and chemist
to elaborate and determine — a very important work,
which is now in the hands of the special divisions
of botany and chemistry of the United States De-
partment of Agriculture, and from which full re-
ports may be expected in due time.
CHAPTER V
WHY THE IlEMr IXDUSTKY LANGUISHED IN
AMERICA
As liouseliold industries, hemp and flax were
successfully grown, the fiber prepared and spun
and woven in the United States np to 1825 to
1850; but from this time these industries languished
and gave place to a cheaper, coarser but more
readily manipulated product. The cotton-gin, and
the greater facility and more ready adaptation of
cotton to modern inventions, and improvements of
spinning machinery left the older industry of hemp-
growing and manufacture far behind in the race.
Cotton is an almost pure lint, requiring but little
manipulation to prepare it for the spinner, while
hemp is more obstinate, less flexible, and chemical
processes and perfectly adapted mechanical appli-
ances have been slow in coming to the spinners’
assistance in taking the place of hand labor.
Beyond this, the efforts to establish the manufac-
ture of hemp and linen have been but a series of
struggles against adverse circumstances from the
very earliest times. No sooner had the American
colonists made the effort toward the establishment
of their home industries than the parent country
placed her heavy foot upon their tender npspring-
ing, and especially in hemp and flax was this
o])position pronounced and continued with a deter-
( 44 )
WHY THE INDUSTRY LANGUISHED IN AMERICA 45
miiuitioii which finally brought on the war of the
American lievolntioii; but even after its successful
termination, Great Britain continued to do by
"diplomacy” and money in bounties and premiums
what she could not do by force of arms and enact-
ments, i. €., control and destroy America’s new
industries.
Up to the beginning of the eighteenth century
Great Britain had made no progress in the culture
of hemp and flax, two plants very intimately con-
nected in their manipulations, and of a nature so
nearly alike as to be interchangeable in all branches
of manufacture, and undistinguishable in product
by the most experienced eye. But at the beginning
of the century, after having by unfriendl}^ enact-
ments destroyed the Irish woolen industry, the
British Parliament sought by bounties and pre-
miums to establish the culture and manufacture of
hemp and flax in Ireland.
In 1711 a "Board of Trustees of the Linen and
Hempen Manufacturers of Ireland ” was created by
Parliament, and a system of bounties and premiums
provided to strangle the industry in America and
to increase the cultivation and manufacture in
Ireland, and the export of the products of manu-
facture to America.
In 1710 Ireland produced but 1,668,574 j’ards
of coarse linen cloth. In 1768 her product was
18,490,195 yards. In 1756 England made 26,000,-
000 yards, and Scotland about 12,000,000.*
Earh' in the eighteenth century England forbade
the American colonists to manufacture hemp and
*No hemp or liueii munufaeturo now exists in England or Scotland.
4G
H E M P
linen, and ordered that the raw material be sent to
England. Great Britain also offered a bounty of
$40 per ton for hemp fiber so exported. In 1728
Great Britain established a system of bounties to
be paid for the export of hemp and flax manufac-
tures to America, at the rate of one cent per yard
for cloth worth less than ten cents a yard, two
cents per yard for that worth ten to twelve cents,
and three and a -half cents per yard upon all cloth
worth over twelve cents per yard, which should be
exported. These bounties were continued for over
one hundred years, rendering the competition too
great for any rapid progress of the hemp industry
in America. In 1824 these bounties amounted to
over $1,480,000, one -seventh of the value of the
goods so exported.
Besides these export bounties, the premiums paid
to the Irish hemp and linen industries were over
$100,000 per year. The items for 1821 were:
To encourage the growth of hemp and flax £9,250
To encourage the manufacture in the south of Ireland . 2,000
To be applied as the Board of Trustees deem best . . 10,350
Total £21,600
or something over $105,000. At a meeting of the
manufacturers in 1822 it was resolved "That it is
the decided conviction of this meeting, founded upon
long practical experience, that the bounty which has
now for over seventy years been granted upon
the exportation of British and Irish linens is of
the most vital importance to the preservation of
that branch of trade, and that without that bounty
it would be quite impossible for the British and
Irish hemp and flax manufacturers to compete in
WHY THE INDUSTRY LANGUISHED IN AMERICA 47
foreig'ii markets Avitli the linen fabries of the con-
tinent, where the jiriee of the raw material, as well
as of labor, is at all times extremely low.”
At the (lissolntion of the "Board of Trustees of
the Hempen and Jjiiien Mannfaetnrers,” in 1828, and
the refusal of the English Parliament to g:rant fur-
ther preminms, the industry declined ; and with the
repeal of the bounty law in 1832, the industry found
it impossible to continne in oldtime channels. The
acreage in hemp and flax declined from over 182,000
acres in 1824 to less than 50,000 acres in 1848.
Up to the Revolution, the enactments against the
mannfaetnre in the American colonies had become
more and more stringent, with the exercise of a
system of espionage upon the part of British agents
and spies and colonial governors, until it was a
wonder that the colonists conld possibl}' so far have
established the indnstiy as to have produced over
21,000,000 yards of hemp and flax mannfactnres
in their households in 1810.
Nor was this unnatural competition the only dif-
ficulty with which hemp has had to contend. Cot-
ton conld be produced cheaper than linen, and the
aim of most industries has not been to produce
the finest and best, but something which could the
most readily be sold at a profit. There has been
no " fatherly ” supervision of industrial affairs in
America, as has always been the case by "patron-
age” or bounties upon the part of England and
France ; but in America industries have had to
fight their battles single-handed and alone, and the
history of each large industry of the country can
today be traced l)y its milestone skeletons of disas-
ters all along down the passing decades.
48
H E M P
From the imperfect processes of cleansing and
purifying the fibrous material in the bark or rind
of the hemp plant from its gummy matter, hemp
fiber is less tractable, more rebellions and difficult
of mampiilation to prepare it for the spinning
frames, while more power and more labor are re-
quired in attendance. The inventive genius of the
textile world is late in being directed to the neces-
sities of this noble fiber. The industry still waits
for the intelligent labor of the scientific agricul-
turist, the chemist, and the designer of textile ap-
pliances.
For instance, the cost of establishing a cotton
mill, with all buildings and motive power, is about
$10 per spindle, for wool $12, and for hemp $30.
While the horse -power required for spinning a
given weight of raw material will move 120 cotton
spindles, or 140 woolen spindles, it will move but
50 hemp spindles, while the proportion of labor
required is in cotton five persons per 1,000 spindles
and in hemp 25 persons per 1,000 spindles. The
cost of the raw material does not greatly differ,
but the cost of spinning was much greater, while
those growing hemp upon a small scale were not
able to enter upon the expensive experiments and
investigations necessary for the desired improve-
ments.
Worked by hand, hemp furnishes a thread of
extreme fineness almost equaling silk, much finer
than cotton, and much finer than can be produced
by the present imperfect mechanical methods, ex-
cepting as manipulated upon "spun-silk,” or on
mohair machinery. Lace threads are spun from
hemp by hand to the fineness of COO miles for each
WHY THE INDUSTRY LANGUISHED IN AMERICA 49
two and one -half pounds of hemp liber, while the
present hemp macliineiy cannot spin beyond one-
half of that. Cotton and wool machinery nearly
efinal handwork, but do not exceed 350 miles to
each two and one half pounds of material.
The solution of the jiroblem of a perfect produc-
tion and i)reparation of the fiber and of the adap-
tation of processes and mechanical appliances to
its rapid and economical manipulation, is one of the
most important rpiestions, as it is one of the most
j)romising of an ample reward, at the j)resent time.
The question has been time after time urged by
manufacturers and others interested for the last
half century, but still awaits a perfect solution.
The jury of the International Exhibition at London
in 1862 most earnestly called attention to the neces-
sities for an earnest effort to overcome the difficulty.
They say:
"We notice, in the first place, that thongli flax
is a material most easily adapted for spinning
yarns, being produced by hand labor quite equal to
silk in fineness, and though the raw material of
flax in the state of fiber is about the same price as
the better kinds of cotton, the yarns produced from
flax by machinery, taken in equal length for the
same weight of fiber, appear to cost the most of
all. We must also acknowledge that it is with the
greatest difficulty that flax -spinners have been able
to produce by machinery yarns of an extreme fine-
ness, though still inferior in this respect to the fine-
ness of the cotton yarns. As a principle, the funda-
mental operations for the spinning, except perhaps
the preparation of the raw material, are the same
for all fibrous substances. The combing or carding,
D
50
II E ]\I p
the drawing and spinning, constitute, without any
ini})ortant distinctions, these various operations; still
such will cost much more for some one of these
materials than for others, even though this material
may not possess a nature deficient in spinning
qualities.
"The cause of this ditference is that the more
costly fabric is produced from material which is
worked with greater practical difficulty, and requires
more etfort to coni])lete; this is especially the case
with the fiax, the machinery for which must be
decidedly stronger than that used for cotton, and
the whole flax -spinning system must also have
much more steam power applied, in consequence of
the flax fiber not being sufliciently purified and
freed from all heterogeneous substances, which, of
course, present an obstacle to the sliding or draw-
ing, the base of all spinning operations. On the
present occasion we shall endeavor to give some
explanation on the subject of steeping fiax, this
being the principal process b} which more or less
softness or purification of the fiber may be obtained.
"The great fault of the flax flber is the excessive
quantity of gum, which is not extracted by the
present steeping [water retting] process ; when a
new process shall have been discovered to remove
completely this objection, there is no reason why
flax flber should not be spun as easily and as fine
as cotton. It is to be hoped, also, that by such
improvement we may eventuallj" obtain a class of
yarns more elastic, and that the cloth made from
them may weave more readily, and in the end give
greater satisfaction and durability. If we pass from
the flax fiber to that of hemp and other similar
WHY THE INDUSTRY LANGUISHED IN AMERICA 51
substances, we find the hemp inferior to flax in
softness and minuteness of subdivision, making it
more difficult to spin; we find also that China-grass
has the same defect in a much higher degree, while
it is also much more costly. If jute manufactures
have made such rapid i)rogress it can be easily
accounted for by the low cost of material, combined
with a considerable amount of spinning (piality.
"We may remark, before cojicluding these reflec-
tions, that great attention is now being given to
the flax -steeping process, and in consequence the
real cause of the difficulty of the fiber for spinning,
as explained above, has thus become every day more
generally known. We may hope, therefore, that at
no late date the process of steeping will be im-
proved to an extent equal to the great progress
which the other manufactures, dependent on the
aid of chemistry, have lately made.”
Since the more complete development of the
German textile industries, later in their establish-
ment, and based upon older methods, but with very
much of improvement, the spinning of hemp and
flax has made rapid strides, and the demands for
hemp of a character to take the place of flax, be-
cause a fine hemp fiber can be more cheaply and
economically prepared than flax, is rapidly increas-
ing. At no time has it been forgotten that the
linen fabrics of hemp and flax are the more de-
sirable, and the public mind is becoming more and
more awakened to the necessities of some deter-
mined efforts to develop this new industry — new,
especially, to the American people.
The nature of the fibrous material of tlie hemp
plant is such that a cooperation of the chemist, the
II E M P
farmer and the textile iiiaiiiifaeturer, or the inventor
of improved textile appliances and methods, is
necessary for the quickest results. It is found to
be practicable to spin hemp upon "spun -silk” or
mohair machinery by the combing process, when
once the hemp -gum or resin is completely removed.
The products from the Iminp plant are the most
desirable for all puriioses of garments and house-
hold use, and if its manufacture can be brought to
the necessary point of economy, the hemp industry
will lead in the world’s textile affairs. We have
seen that hemp is the most widely diversified and
most important plant in cultivation in the Old
World; while sufficient experience has been had
with the ])lant in America to show that the char-
acter of the fiber is such as to warrant a systematic
effort to establish its cultivation and to build up
another grand industry for the American people.
No plant is more simple of cultivation and
manipulation, none more susceptible to the care of
the husbandman, none more capable of a widely
diversified product, and none is more universally
adapted to American soils and climatic conditions,
or to supplying raw material of the nature and
character required by manufacturers of cordage and
fine linen fabrics.
The hemp industiy is the last of the great
sources of the employment of capital and labor to
feel the revivifying influences of more modern
inventions ; but the writer is confident in the belief
that the same labor which has been given to other
agricultural products and textile manufactures will
place hemp at the head.
CHAPTER VI
HEMP rEIiSUS FLAX
Why hemp? Wliy not flax? Wliy not ramie or
China-grass? Why not sisal, or Manila, or jnte ?
With the exception of hemp and flax, in the fibers
of which there is no essential difference in char-
acter and none in the machinery of mannfactnre or
in the products, when systematically conducted, the
spheres of the other plants are entirely different.
Ramie or China-grass can be made to produce an
exceedingly fine fiber, wdien its nature is perfectly
understood, and the right variety, adapted to chem-
ical and mechanical processes, is discovered; but its
cnltnre is confined to tropical or semi-tropical cli-
mates, while its yield is not more than one -fourth
as nmch per acre as that of hemp. As yet no one
has made such an exact study of the plant and its
fiber, its adaj)tability to mechanical manipnlation
and to the production of desirable fabrics, as to be
able to furnish definite directions for its cnltnre
and manipnlation, and until snch time as this is
done the attention of the agricnltnrist were better
not especially directed to it. Sisal hemp and
INIanila hemp arc not true spinning fibers, and
are not susceptible of a fine subdivision, nor can
they be spun in fine numbers for the manufacture
of fine fabrics. In the sphere of their uses as
cordage they are valuable, and a great acquisition
to the cordage industry. Attempts to grow sisal
( 53 )
54
HEMP
hemp in Florida have not been i)erfectly successful,
nor have attempts to grow Manila hemp outside the
Philippines.
For various reasons flax is less adapted to culti-
vation in the United States than hemp. Flax only
succeeds in a rather low mean temperature and
upon a rather cold soil, with a very regular mois-
ture supply. These conditions are not generally
assured in the United States. Flax requires special
fertilization and a rotation of crops which shall
leave the soil specially conditioned, while it can be
grown but once in six to eight years upon the
same field. For hemp the ordinary coarse farm
manures are all that is necessary, and it may be
grown each year in succession for half a century
upon the same land.
While hemp does best in a warm, moist soil, it
is so hardy that it may be sown early, and as it
soon shades the ground, it does not suffer from the
short drouthy spells as does flax. Flax requires
two and a-half bushels of seed per acre, hemp but
one bushel. Hemp grows rapidly and matures for
fiber in eighty to ninety days, while flax is tender,
must be sown later, and grows slowly, requiring
the whole season to mature. Hemp never suffers
from weeds, — in fact, is a weed -destroyer, — while in
the general condition of American soils, flax is
smothered by the more rapidly -growing weeds, not-
withstanding considerable labor expended in weed-
ing. Hemp is never blown down, while flax very
often is ; hemp costs but twenty- five to fifty cents
per acre to harvest, flax costs five dollars per acre.
Because of its greater length, it is as easy to
handle three to five pounds of hemp as one pound
HEMP VERSUS FLAX
5o
of flax, and it costs only about one -half as mncli
to break and clean the flber. Flax 3 ields bnt 300
to 400 .pounds of fiber per acre, while hemp gives
1,500 to 2,000 pounds.
There is no essential difference in the two fibers
when ])repared for spinning ; both are CHpialh' well
adapted to the production of the finest threads,
linens, lawns and tissues. The report of Dr. W. K.
McNab, Professor of Botany in the Royal Agricnl-
tural College, states in a description of flax that
"fibers api)ear as a grcatl^^ elongated cylinder, with
a cavity sometimes well marked, sometimes scarcely
visil)le, at other times wanting. Adhei-ing to the
fibers, and often more or less discoloring them,
were fragments of tissue, sometimes the epidermis
with stomata, from the stem ; at other times the
cells of the soft bass- or wood -cells from the cen-
tral portion of the stem. The diameter of the fiber
varies from about .0004 to .0006.” In describing
hemp, he says: "The fibers are more or less sepa-
rate, some entirely" free, others in small bundles.
The fibers vary very much in diameter, some being
very broad, others narrow, and they appear like lon-
gitudinally-striated cylinders. Sometimes a cavity'
exists, at other times none can be traced. The
fibers are, on an average, from .0005 to .0007 in
diameter, and in one fiber in which the diameter
was .0007 the diameter of the cavity was .0001.
Some cellular tissue was observed adhering to the
fibers, but they were cleaner than the fibers of Irish
flax. Like Irish flax, the hemp consists of bast-
fillers, and is, anatomicalh' and pln'siologicalh', as
well as chemicall\', different from the fibers both of
Manila hemp and Phormium^' (New Zealand flax).
56
HEMP
While hemp and flax are mixed in spinning, or
one is substituted for the other, it is the chemical
l)reparation of the fiber which determines its fine-
ness. The cost of the culture of an acre of flax is
greater than that of an acre of hemp. While the
value of the product of an acre of flax is $40 to
$50, that of hemp is $75 to $125, from its greater
yield under similar conditions ; while south of a
latitude of 40°, in a mean temperature of 50°, two
crops of hemp may be grown each season, or a
crop of hemp and a crop of peas, to keep up the
fertility of the soil. The hemp-lmrds furnish
all the fuel required to make steam to run the
machinery employed, while from the long tap-root
of hemp it is less exhausting to the soil, and if the
refuse is returned, the expense of manures will be
very much less in proportion.
Neither crop can be advantageously grown for
both seed and fiber, although in the above compari-
son we have given flax the benefit of both seed
and fiber, and only fiber for the hemp. The
product, when growm for seed, is about the same
with both ; but for seed alone flax is much more
easily handled, as it is sown at the rate of one to
two pecks of seed per acre broadcast, harvested by
a reaping machine or "header,” and threshed by an
ordinary thresher. Hemp will grow fifteen feet
upon good soil, and six feet upon the dry uplands,
as surely as flax will two to three feet, and yield
three times the profit in fiber.
The methods of handling the hemp aud flax
straw to obtain the fiber do not essentially differ in
the retting and ])rcaking, while the expense of
handling the flax after breaking is much the
HEMP VERSUS PLAX
57
greater. Hemp is much better adapted to the em-
ployment of labor-saving appliances than flax, as
its length enables the handling of three or four
pounds as readily as one pound of flax, and there
is less liability to "tossing” or tangling.
For these and many lesser reasons, after twenty-
five years of close, careful study and practical ex-
perience ill the cultivation and mani])ulation of both
plants from the field to the loom, the writer
believes hemp to be the coming fiber-bearing plant
of the world, and that it is destined at an early
day to make its way to the head in importance
commercially and industriall}', as well as upon tlie
farm.
CHAPTER VII
SOIL AND CLIMATE ADAPTED TO THE CULTUBE
OF JIEMP
There is no fact in agriculture more conclusively
established than that with a deep, mellow soil and
an abundance of the special plant -food required
therein, an abundance of moisture regularly sup-
plied, and a high mean temperature, plants will
grow to perfection Hemp is no exception. These
favorable conditions are more readily realized in
some sections, some localities and in some climates,
than in others. A farmer possessing land, and
desiring to successfully grow hemp, or anj' other
special crop, will select the soil, lay of the land
and conditions best adapted to it, and apportion
his land to the crops to whose peculiarities of growth
it is best suited.
Flat lands, or bottoms, or alluvial, adapted to
hold moisture, but which maj' be readily drained,
are best for hemp, especially when lying along
streams, and not much elevated above the surface
of the water. A regular supply of moisture, too
much rather than too little, and a soil well filled
with the humus of decaying animal and vegetable
matters, are most favorable. But all soils can be
made suitable for hemp, provided expense is not
considered. If uplands are used, the plowing should
be very deep, the earth made mellow and friable,
( 58 )
SOIL AND CLIMATE ADAPTED TO CULTUKE 59
and an abundance of Imnms incorporated to liold
moisture in case of periods of drouth where irri-
gation cannot be provided. Irrigated plateau lands,
containing proper proportions of sand, mold and
humus are good. In fact, bottom-lands are better
adapted to hemp than to most other crops, because
hemp requires a larger amount of moisture, and in
case of periods of drouth, it can then send its long
and strong tap-root far down for it. With the
addition of an abundance of moisture, any soil well
adapted to a perfect growth of any crop can be
made serviceable for hemp. With an abundance of
moisture and special plant -food, hemp grows much
more rapidly in climates of a high mean tempera-
ture. A crop of hemp planted in Mississippi, April
18, 1894, grew fifteen feet, and was ready to
harvest for fiber in eighty days. Another crop
planted upon the Sacramento river bottoms in Cali-
fornia, upon similar and nearly equally favorable
soils, was fourteen and a -half feet high and ready
to harvest for fiber in 115 days, the only apparent
difference in conditions being the mean temperature
of INIay, June and Jul}', which was nearly ten
degrees higher in INIississippi than in California.
Contrary to cotton and corn, hemp is sown
liroadcast, and no cultivation can be given the crop
after it is planted. Again, in the culture of cotton,
which is a short plant with much fruit, shallow
plowing is best, so that its tap-root may early
strike hardpan and the plant be forced to fruiting.
The effect of nitrogenous manures and soils rich in
humus is to force the plants to a tall growth, hence
the special fertilizers for cotton should have propor-
tionately less nitrogen. With hemp, however, the
GO
H E M P
object is to produce the tallest plant possible, hence
the soil should be deep and the special manures used
should contain a large amount of nitrogen, and the
soil an abundance of humus to hold and supply
the plants with soluble plant -foods and a regular
supi)ly of moisture.
Few plants grow so rapidly as hemp, or take up
so much moisture for their best development. Hemp
has often been observed to grow from live to six
inches per day, and if the hemp plant is 90 per cent
moisture, and the crop upon an acre weighs G tons
(while that of a crop of barley weighs but 1 ton),
it can be readily seen that an acre of hemp would
require six times as much water. It is estimated
that an acre of barley requires or takes up and
evaporates 1,000,000 pounds of water, or 150,000
gallons, during its growdh. Hemp should take up
at least three times as much, or 450,000 gallons,
which represents a rainfall of twenty to twenty-
five inches during the three mouths of its growth,
while it is rare that one -half this amount is made
available through rainfall. An irrigation of one
inch of water per week in addition to the rain whicli
fell during the season of 1899 gave a growth of henqi
of seventeen feet in one hundred days in latitude
40°, while the ordinary hight without irrigation
was eight to nine feet.
A hemp crop is less exacting upon whatever
soil it is grown upon, from its long tap-roots, but
it, wdll be of much less hight, and as the yield of
fiber is 150 pounds per acre for each one foot of
growth, excluding about one foot of tops, it follows
that the planter will be amply rewarded for his labor
in securing a tall -growing crop. In proportion to
SOIL AND CLIMATE ADAPTED TO CULTURE G1
depth of cultivation and fertility of the soil, and
the warmth and moisture, will be the yield.
Upon dry soils it is better to plant crops which
can be often cultivated to conserve the natural snj)-
I)ly of moisture and g’ive free access to atmosphei-ic
inflnences. It is not enough, however, to dam np a
snjiply of water ; the moisture must be in cirenla-
tion, and not so great as to exelnde the air, nor
must the soil be sour, nor the water allowed to
stand for anj^ length of time ; although a rainfall
of six inches in twenty-four hours upon a crop in
Mississippi in 1895 had no ill effects, although the
surface of the field was uneven and the water re-
mained in places for four or five days.
Thanks to the fact that hemp requires but a
short season to mature, a crop of cow- peas may
precede or follow a crop of hemp, and thus keej)
the soil in fertile condition. A crop of peas fol-
lowed by rye or vetch, to be turned under in March,
will keep a soil in good condition for hemp, after
the ground is once properly prepared, especiall}' if
the refuse of the hemp is returned to it. No crop
better rcAvai’ds the outlay to obtain a tall growth
than hemp. Upon an old CHitton field of twenty-
five acres, in which the cotton rows ran from one
side to the other, experiments made in 1895 by
skipping twelve rows and then applying 1,000
])ounds of cotton seed upon the next twelve, then
skipping twelve rows and applying ten loads of
manure from a mule shed, and then skipping and
applying 500 pounds of cotton seed and five loads
of manure, and following the field across the rows
with a four mule ])low nine inches deep and sowing
the hemp in March, gave seventeen to nineteen feet
62
HEMP
of hemp where fertilized, the lowest part of the
field g-iving the tallest hemp, while where no ma-
nure was applied the growth was but five to seven
feet. Upon similar soil adjoining, upon which there
has been cow -peas broadcast and pulled off the
year before, the hemp was eleven to twelve feet,
while upon a field in corn the year before, with
cow- peas in the rows between the corn, the hemp
was seven to ten feet, the ten feet in rows, as the
cow-])eas had been.
At Augusta, Georgia, in 1898, hemp grew fifteen
feet in ninety days with an unusually dry season
and no fertilizers. The land was old Savannah
river bottom. Upon good uplands, not fertilized,
hemp was seven to nine feet.
With perfect preparation of the level uplands in
South Carolina, and without irrigation, several plots
of hemp grew twelve to thirteen feet in ninety days,
yielding at the rate of 1,500 pounds of fiber per
acre, worth six and one -half to eight cents per
pound. With an abundance of moisture the growth
was sixteen to eighteen feet and the yield at the
rate of 2,000 pounds per acre — a difference of $35
to $40 per acre.
Good crops of hemp are now grown upon the
bottom lands of the Platte river, in Nebraska,
although the rainfall is light and irregular. Better
croi)s are grown upon the bottom lands of the
Sacramento river, in California, with little or no
rainfall, but the mean temperature is more favor-
able. Better crops still are grown in the valley of
the Kern river, southern California, by irrigation, but
u 1)011 less fertile soil, the moisture and higher mean
temperature causing the difference. Hemp sown in
SOIL AND CLIMATE ADAPTED TO CULTURE G8
the Avarniei- nioiiths ^rows proportionately more
rapidly. The rainfall upon the Atlantie coast is
more rej^nlarly and more evenly distributed ; the
mean temperature is hig-her, and natural conditions
the most favorable of any section of the country.
A perfect condition can be made by sui)plementin^
the rainfall by divertinj^ water from the many
streams, or by artesian wells and windmills.
The bottom lands along' the many considerable
streams upon the east coast offer especially favor-
able conditions for growing hemp. These lands are
deep, and consist of deposits of vegetable matter
washed down and composted in the soil, and are
exceedingly fertile and well adapted to the growth
of a plant with a long tap-root, like hemp. These
soils have a tendency to supply moisture to plants
by sub- irrigation, which brings a continuous supply
to the surface. Upon lands so low as likely to be
overflowed, dykes or low levees might be necessary,
with openings, to be closed until danger of an over-
flow is passed, and then opened for drainage in case
of heavy rainfall. Clay soils, or those likely to
"pack” or "run together” after heavy rains, are
objectionable. Hemp planted upon "buckshot”
(clay) lauds in Mississippi grew a foot high, and
stood still for a period of forty days of dry Aveather,
and grew to ten feet high after the rainy season
opened. Five hundred acres of hemp planted upon
clay soil in Mississippi in 1896 came up finely, but
Avas met by a drouth Avhen three feet high on the
first of May, Avhieh continued until September, Avhen
the ground baked like adobe lirick, and the hemp
burned up, while a feAV acres ui)on the alluvial
banks of a bayou grew to fourteen feet in hight.
C4
HEMP
Hemp planted upon Staten Island, New York,
March 24, 1899, was cut for fiber June 24, eleven
feet tall ; the same ground was replanted July 1
and cut for fiber October 4, eight to nine feet tall.
The soil was a warm, sandy loam, and irrigated by
api)lying an inch of water once a week. The rain-
fall was very light. Hemp planted August 1 grew
to a hight of seven feet by November 1, and a
])art planted September 1 was three feet tall and
in blossom upon the 10th of December, and killed
by 20° of temperature. China hemp, grown for
fiber on Staten Island, New York, is seen in Fig. 8.
Many years of practical experience with ferti-
lizers shows that wilh the exception of acid phos-
phate and sulphate of ammonia, to be composted
with cotton seed and farm refuse, and manures, the
commercial fertilizers are not economical for grow-
ing hemp for fiber. Hemp is a plant requiring a
large amount of humus, supplied by coarse animal
and vegetable matters held in the soil in decay, to
furnish the soluble nitrogen and moisture. Nor
is cotton -seed meal of benefit in proportion to its
additional cost. As a plant food and as a holder
of moisture, and a mechanical preparer of soil,
cotton seed is of itself a perfect fertilizer. Applied
when plowing in autumn, at the rate of 500 to
1,000 pounds per acre, according to condition of the
soil, nothing else is required. If there has been a
crop of cow -peas or soy beans, 500 pounds is
sufficient. The rotation kept up by rye or vetch,
hemp, peas, and again rye, gives as perfect a con-
dition of soil as can be desired. The roots of the
hemp decay early, the peas penetrate deepl}^ and
leave the soil porous and supplied with nitrogen and
Fig. 8. Section of a China Hemp Plot Grown for Fiber.
E
66
HEMP
liuiiiiis; while rye and vetch keep the soil employed,
and the three furnish feeding material more than
paying their cost, while the rotation prevents any
cloying of the soil appetite. An application of 200
pounds of bone-meal in November has the effect to
warm the soil and hasten germination where hemp
is sown early, and to stimulate the hemp to a quick,
early growth, before it comes to assimilate the
coarser foods, and to give an increase of a foot to
a foot and-a-half in the growth.
The hemp plant produces four to six tons of
dry matter per acre, of which three to five tons is
refuse, and if the machinery is run by water-power
all of this refuse may be returned to the soil. If
so done, it is spread as evenly as possible by a
manure spreader, some two inches deep, before
plowing. The result is to add to the humus in the
soil, to improve its mechanical condition, and to hold
moisture. Of itself this refuse, largely of woody
matter, does not contain the fertilizing elements of
the fibrous material in the bark; these come out in
the steeping, and should be run upon the land. If
steam is used to run the machinery, then this four
to five tons of hemp shives or hurds is the cheapest
fuel, and will be more than enough to run the
machinery
CIIAPTI'IH V1I[
<: no in Ml iiemi’ for seed
The only assurance that the i)roi)cr, perfect seed
will be at hand for seediii”’ for fiber is to select
the strain desired, and to raise it. At present the
hemp industry in all its l)ranches presents a tine
op[)ortiinity for a carefid study of all its require- ,
nieiits, not oidy upon the part of the farmer but
that of the botanist, chemist, and inventor of im-
proved appliances as well. There are henq) ranches
in various parts of the United States, and man}' of
these are of an extent to warrant the expense of an
exact investigation of all particulars of seed, of
varieties desirable, and of improved methods of pre-
paring the fiber, as well as of spinning it ; but
every one of these particulars now awaits the
authoritative determination of science and exact
practice.
As there is no careful selection and propagation
of seed today, there is no means at present of de-
termining the advantages of different varieties in
cultivation. The seed found in market may have
been imported fi'om Bombay, or from Italy, or from
London, or it may have come from Arkansas, or
Missouri, or Kentucky. The result will be an
uncertainty. Seed loses its germinating power in
two to three years, from the drying up, souring or
fermenting of its high, oily nature, and becomes
( 67 )
68
HEMP
rancid and dead. As at present obtained, the seed
largely comes from allowing the hemp grown for ,
liber to stand nutil the seed begins to ripen. It is
then saved, although the fiber is coarse and hard,
and is called "lint seed,” or "linseed.” Added to
this, there are numbers of "volunteer ” plants scat-
tered about the highways and byways of the locali-
ties where hemp is grown, springing up from seed
scattered in autumn in fence -corners and upon the
edges of fields, and often places in hemp fields
where seed failed to germinate well and the stalks
grow too large for use as fiber, being left to stand
• for their seed to ripen. Small amounts of Indo-
China seed have been imported at times, but grown
near to the European varieties, which are earlier
and more prolific of seed, the new importations are
either crowded out or the plants cross with the
other varieties. Many hemp growers claim that in
this manner hemp degenerates to a less valuable
plant. If so, the more care must be exercised to
preserve the strain found most desirable.
Three varieties are at present found in the hemp
fields of the United States, mostl}^ mixed and pre-
senting the same characteristics of growth — tall
and graceful, or short and "scrubby,” and their
intermediates. The same field may present a growth
of from seven to nine feet in hight, or four to six
feet, although the general character of the growth
is of a hight some two to three feet taller than
the various European hemps.
Selecting the shorter stalks and propagating by
continued selection, the apparently perfect Smyrna
variety is obtained. This is an early, rather short-
growing variety, inclined to branch, to flower early.
GROWING HEMP FOR SEED
69
and to produce a large amount of seed. If the
quantity of seed is the object, this is the variety to
be cultivated ; but its fiber product is coarser, less
in amount, and harder to manipulate. Two crops
of this variety may be grown for fiber each season
in the latitude of 40°.
Another variety, supposed to have originated in
the East Indies — a tall, slender, gracefully growing
plant, later in maturing — is also obtained by careful
selection. It is equally hardy, but bears less seed,
and is crowded out by the earlier, more prolific
varieties, unless great care is given to selection and
preservation of the strain.
Still another sort, of sufficiently distinct charac-
teristics to be called a variety, is supposed to be a
cross between the other varieties. It presents many
features common to the slender, graceful stalk of
the China, but is earlier, bears more seed, and is
inclined to a stouter, less graceful habit, with more
tendency to branching. This is the variety in
general cultivation where any attem])t at selection
is made; and when grown for fiber is sufficiently
early to allow of being followed ly a crop of peas
to advantage, Avhile in the latitude of 35° two
crops a season may be grown. When selected for
propagation for a imre strain, it develops occasional
plants of both the other varieties which shows the
importance of care in selection.
With the Smyrna variety no care is needed to
preserve the i)urity of the strain. It is the lowest
in the scale, and ripening earlier, and bearing more
seed, it crowds out the other varieties. The only
care to be taken is to see that all seed is better,
and the plants from it are more vigorous and robust;
70
HEMP
tliat they have ample room to branch, and that the
male stalk is near by. The seed should also be
allowed to ripen, or very nearly so, before it is
harvested, and {^iveii ample, time to dry and ripen
before it is beaten out. Nor should the piles of
seed and chaff 1)C so deep as to heat or excite
fermentation, and all unripe or light-weight seeds
should be blown off in the cleaning.
In the American variety the tendency will be to
a crowding out by the Smyrna influence, and a
degeneration result, unless great care is given to a
weeding out of the earlier male and shorter and less
vigorous female plants. The plants of the distinc-
tive American variety will grow the most vigorously'
and tallest. The Indo- China variety must be care-
fully guarded to preserve its ])urity, and in that
grown for seed a careful selection must continually
be exercised; the tallest, most graceful stalks
steadily chosen from which to sow the seed for
future seed -growing.
In cultivating hemp for seed the conditions are
the reverse of those for cultivating hemp for fiber.
For fiber the object is a tall, rapidly -growing stalk,
without branches and with little or no seed, while
the stalks are grown slender and so shaded as to
give a fine character to the bark in which the fiber
is contained. In growing for seed it is a short,
stout, slow-growing, coarse, branching stalk, with
every part exposed to the full influences and effects
of the sunshine and the wind, the heat and cold
of atmospheric changes. The ground is less deeply
tilled, as with cotton, less fertilized, withholding
nitrogenous manures entirely, as an early, abundant
fruiting is the purpose.
GROWING HEMP FOR SEED
71
The system of cultivation as practiced for cotton
or corn is best suited for seed liemi). The ground
may be bedded up, or planted level, or in furrows,
if -there is great liabilit}' to drouth. Not so much
moisture is required, although the cultivation keeps
the roots muhdied.
The seed is sown two quarts to the acre, in
rows or drills, or planted in hills, as is done with
cotton and corn, and cultivated in the same manner.
No thinning out is done until the male stalks begin
to show a tendency to blossom, when all male
stalks, but- one robust one to each three or four
feet of row, are cut out with a reap-hook, and also
the less vigorous female stalks, so as to give abun-
dant room to the i-emaining ones lo branch. The
hemp thus removed is dried and put under cover
for fiber. Should the wild morning-gloiy or tie-
vine make its appearance, it must be removed by
hand. When the male has shed its ])ollen and be-
gins to turn yellow, it should all be cut out, and
that without branches be saved for fiber. The
brauehiug stalks are thrown into the compost heap.
With the Smyrna variety, planted upon rather
dry and not very fertile soil, the seed will begin to
ripen in 100 to 110 days from the time of sowing,
and when the first seeds begin to s<*atter out, the
stalks are cut by hand with a reap-hook or scythe,
and carefully stood up together to become partly
dried, and then put under cover. In housing the
stalks, they should be placed in a barn with a tight
floor, or under a shed where the earth is hard and
has been carefully swept.
The American varietv is ten to tweutv davs
later in maturing, grows taller and with a more
II E M 1’
vigorous, more branching stalk. On Staten Island,
in 1899, a stalk of this variety standing alone grew
fourteen feet tall and six inches in diameter at the
ground, and gave two quarts of seed.
The Indo- China variety will not always fully
ripen its seed north of latitude 40°, unless planted
upon a rather dry, infertile soil, and as early as
the first of April. This variety bears much less
seed than the other varieties, hence the danger of
its being crowded out.
Some judgment must be used as to the time of
j harvesting the henq) grown for seed. At times
•pigeons, blackbirds and sparrows arc numerous,
and feed upon the ripening seed. At times the
season may be very dry, and the seed will begin to
shell out and fall, when it is well to cut earlv.
With an abundance of moisture the seed will not
be as likely to shell out.
For seed the hemp is cut by hand with a reap-
hook or scythe, as seen in Fig. 9. The stalks are
then stood up to dry. When dry thej’ are threshed
upon a hard, dry place on the ground, or uiion the
barn floor, by liand with flails, or the seed is beaten
out with a cudgel an inch in diameter and four or
five feet long, while the hemp stalks are held
across a beam or log ; or the hemi> stalks may be
run through the hemp-breaking machine and the
seed winnowed in a fanning mill. C\are must be
taken that the seed does not heat or ferment, and
that it be thoroughly dried before sacking. It is not
desirable to ])lace it in liins for storage, on account
'of its tendency to ferment and grow rancid. When
sacked it should be iu two-lmshel bags (88 pounds),
and piled two sacks near together and then two
GROWING HEMP FOR SEED
73
across them, in the manner cord -wood is piled to
dry, carefully secured from vermin and dampness.
The product per acre varies from twenty to thirty
bushels for the Smyrna, to fifteen or twenty bushels
for the China variety, depending somewhat upon
soil and cultivation.
Hemp seed is valuable as bird- and poultry-
food, to make oil for paints, and for soap -making.
seed cake being valuable for feeding to stock and
as a fertilizer. Ground and mixed with other feed
in small proportion it is fed to animals, although
an authoritative determination of its value and
effect is wanting There is no better fertilizing
element, but the seed must be scalded or heated by
composting or crushed, before applying it to the
land. The price of prime seed varies from $1 to
$4, according to the ability of dealers to "corner”
the market.
CHAPTER IX
THE CTJLTl VA TIOy OF HEME FOR FIBER
There is no more interesting task than that of
carefully prei)aring a piece of land by deep tillage
and the application of manures in a manner to
produce a tall, perfectly growing fiber-bearing plant,
like hemp, perfectly adapted to the production of a
fine, soft, silk}" fiber, and possessing high spinning
qualities adapted to the manufacture of fine fabrics.
There i^ a charm in seeing a plant respond to in-
telligent preparation of the soil in the steady growth
and development of a character exactly corre-
sponding to what modern agricultural science has
shown to be practicable. In the growth of no
plant is theory more surely borne out by ])ractical
results than with hemp. A long, careful study of
the nature of the plant has shown that its character
and growth may be as absolutely controlled and
directed as the breeding and development of a fine
animal, or any vegetable or fruit. The products
of the soil are what vou make them, and none is
more susceptible of the shaping of agricultural
fine-art methods than hemp. According to exact
methods and care in cultivation, the fiber of the
hemp plant is made to become of the fine nature
and high spinning qualities rendering it of great
value. Nor is it the variety of hemp alone which
insures its high character, but the high cultivation,
( 74 )
THE CULTIVATION OF HEMP FOR FIBER
the application of manures of a character to develop
a tall, slender and rapidly -growing plant, and a
thick seeding, which insures an even growth and a
perfect shading of the soil and the stalks of the
hemp, and protects them from the injurious effects
of sharp changes in temperature, and, above all,
the periods of droutli, in which the plant is de-
prived of a proper supply of moisture, and the
growth and exact plant -formation checked and in-
terrui)tcd for such periods as cause it to take on a
different character of fiber and growth for self-jir^s-
ervation.
No plant will more completely adapt itself to
soil and climatic conditions, producing therefrom as
high a charaeter of growth as possible ; and none
will more exactly respond to high cultivation, or lie
more siiseeptible or sensitive to its conditions and
surroundings. Irregularities in character of soil,
the depth and manner of plowing and pulverizing
it, and the amount and composition of maiiiires all
produce their effects upon the character of the
hemp plant, as does an even or uneven, thick or
thin seeding, and an irregular or a deep or shallow
covering. Exact attention to all of these is neces-
sary for the most perfect result, but none are more
important than the provision of a deep, mellow soil
with all abundance of humus and moisture -holding
manures, high in nitrogen, to insure a ciuick germi-
nation and a rapid growth.
This fact is very plainly illustrated in all animal
and vegetal)le life, where cold, poorly fed and upon
innutritions foods, such animal or plant exhibits a
weak, scrubby, half-starved apiiearance, while the
irregularities of care and condition give large and
76
H E M P
small, and coarse and fine products, as generally
found among plants in a wild state. Such plants
are poorly adai>ted to the production of fine fruit,
fine seed, or fine fibers, while years of careful cul-
ture and breeding are required to bring wild plants
or wild animals up to the most perfect nature.
Upon whatever soil the hemp is to be grown, a
mnch taller, finer plant, much better adapted to the
production of a fine fil)cr, and j'ielding a much
larger product, will result from the following eon-
ditions :
1. A deep, thorough stirring and i)ulverizing of
the soil. With the long tap-root of the hemp plant,
this thorough tilling is of itself a large increase of
the plant-food supph', and secures the i)laiit against
drouth by enabling it to obtain moisture from
below, and also ])uts the soil in condition to take
and hold a mnch larger amount of moisture from
whatever rain falls, and in condition to be taken
up by the plant as required. All foods of animals
and plants are more readiU' assimilated when fur-
nished in soluble form, which is not possible without
the presence of moisture.
2. The application of a sufficient supply of
coarse animal and vegetable matters, to give a light
mechanical condition to the soil, and to assist in
holding moisture as well as to add to the humus,
nitrogen and available plant-foods if the condi-
tions are favorable. Nitrogen is the most imi)or-
tant element in the production of a tall, rapid
growth of hemp, while it is a tall, rapid growth of
l)lant which is desirable for fiber, rather than a
good 3'ield of seed. Hemp yields 150 pounds of
fiber per acre for each foot in hight, hence the
THE CULTIVATION OF HEMP FOR FIBER
77
advaiitaj^e of the tall jilaiit. Grovai rapidly, the
liber is softer, liner and of a more silky nature, and
of a mnch higher spinnino: quality. I’erfeet pro-
ductions of hif^li character are what pay the best
in agriculture. The world is full of "cheap and
nasty" goods of very little value, and alfordiug no
prolit to the producers. A crop of peas before or
after a crop of hemp, and in preparation for the
next crop, is highly desirable, because of furnishing
the coarse plant -food to the soil in decay, and
mechanically deeply preparing it, and because cow-
peas give to the soil food and put it in condition
for hemp. The best manure is cotton seed, put
into the ground in autumn, at the rate of 1,000
pounds per acre. The next is a compost of cotton
seed and farm manures of equal proportions, with
an addition of 10 per cent of acid phosphate,
applied according to the condition of the soil. The
only other addition to the compost of 1,000 pounds
cotton seed, 1,000 pounds barn manure and 200
pounds of acid phosphate, would be 250 pounds of
sulphate of ammonia. The cost of this compost
would be $5 for cotton seed, $6.50 for sulphate of
ammonia and $2.50 for acid phosphate, a total of
$14, or $7 per acre. This would only be required
upon old, exhausted cotton lands, while this amount
would be sufficient for four or five acres, according
to fertility, and for ten acres, provided a crop of
cowpeas broadcast had preceded. Cotton seed and
barn manures have always given the best results.
Mineral or commercial fertilizers are not generally
desirable for the proper growth of hemp for fiber.
An application of bone meal in the autumn, that it
have time to become soluble, is a valuable stiniu-
78
H E M V
laiit to the early y;ermiiiatioii of the plant, while
the rootlets are small ami tender, and a i)rinie intro-
dnetion to the coarser manures.
3. The character of the seed, and an even dis-
tribution, and even coverin*^, and of a i)roper
amount per acre. One bushel of clean, bright,
plump,, glossy seed one year old, per acre, is best,
while if two years old, or uncertain in character, it
should be tested before sowing. A certain number
of seeds should be }>laced between two moist
woolen cloths in a vessel to keep them wet, and
placed in a warm location, to see what per cent
will germinate. At least twenty out of every
twenty-five seeds should grow, or else there should
be thirty -six or more (piarts of seed per acre,
instead of thirty -two, or fifty to fifty -five pounds
instead of forty -four, which is the weight of hemp
seed per bushel.
It is not easy to change the climate of any
locality, but water -furrows at frequent intervals
will allow the surplus winter moisture to run off,
and the soil will be warmer; while it will be better
still if deeply plowed in autumn and an abundance
of decaying animal and vegetable matter turned
under. A light soil, as a rule, is sweeter, warmer,
and more congenial to plant growth than a hard
soil. This also applies to the means of retaining
a proper supply of moisture. A light soil with
an abundance of humus will hold a much greater
amount of moisture than if "packed” and hard.
If not covered by vetch or rye to be turned
under in early spring, the ground should be plowed
eight to ten inches deep, and if it has not been
recently more deeply stirred the furrow should be
THE CULTIVATION OF HEMP FOR FIBER
79
followed with ;i lifting subsoiler, the deeper the
better. If, previous to plowing, the snrfaee to the
depth of four or five inehes has been thoroughly
l)ulverized with a disc harrow and then turned
under, the subsoil will be in perfeet eondition for
the deep searehing of the roots of the plant. When
so i>lowed and prepared in autunin, the only stirring
neeessary in the si)ring will be a thorough pulveri-
zation four to five inehes deei> by the disc, renieni-
bering that the thorough niechanieal working of the
soil adds as inueli as an ordinary application of
manure. Of eourse the hemp plant will grow to
some hight without these ideal conditions, but no
plant Jjetter rewards all the extra labor and time
in a perfeet preparation of the soil. An acre of
hemp twelve feet high will give a yield of 1,500
pounds of fiber, worth six to seven cents a pound,
but if the same acre is made to grow a crop fifteen
feet tall in a perfect manner the yield will be over
2,000 pounds of fiber, worth seven to eight cents a
pound, a difference in favor of a perfect prepara-
tion of -the soil of $25 to $35 j)er acre.
The preparation of the soil is the one particu-
larly important thing. The seed is sown, one
bushel of prime seed per acre broadcast, and prefer-
ably with a press drill, in which the shoes are not
over five inches apart, and the springs and pressure
so set that the seed will all be placed at an even
depth of one to one and one -half inches. This
insures an even germination, so that all plants
start at the same time and continue an even hight
until maturity. The drill is drawn by four light
mules — the driver riding — and should cover twenty
acres per day. This gives as good a stand as is at
80
HEMP
present practicable, unless there be but half a bushel
per acre sown at a time and the field be cross-
sown with another half bushel. This insures each
seed a definite amount of space in which to grow,
not to be too thinly seeded nor overcrowded. After
seeding a light fine-tooth harrow, drawn by two
mules and covering twenty to twenty -five acres
per day, may be run over the ground to create a
mulch and prevent packing. If the surface soil
is exceedingly light and dry a roller may take the
place of the harrow. For a perfect result a light
mulch of cotton hulls or fine hemp hurds, thrown
by a rapidly revolving manure spreader, will be a
great advantage.
South of latitude 35° hemp may be planted
any mouth in the year. The growth will be slow
in December and January above ground, but the
tap-root will be taking a firmer hold in the warmer
earth below, and the crop will be a decided improve-
ment over one sown in March and April. The only
thing to be considered in sowing seed in the warmer
months is the probability of a want of sufficient
moisture to germinate the seed before it is killed
by the hot sun, and to guard against this the seed
should be covered at least two inches deep and the
light harrow run over the ground afterwards.
As hemp sown in the winter and early spring
will be ready to harvest for fiber in June, prepara-
tion should be made to plant a succeeding crop of
hemp if land is rich or manures are to be had, or
a crop of cow-peas or other rapidly growiug plant
to furnish feed for stock and to improve the soil
condition .
If planted early hemp is likely to get such a
THE CULTIVATION OF HEMP FOR FIBER
SI
start as to completely shade the ground and be less
affected by any short periods of drouth. Where
there is likelihood of heavy rains the ground
should be bedded up by "back furrowing” in plow-
ing, so that a water furrow can be left each thirty
or forty feet, and these leading into ditches, so that
suri)lus water may readily run off.
North of a mean temperature of G0° hemp is
sown at the same time as spring grains, or earlier
if the ground is in proper condition. In the lati-
tude of New York city, Indianapolis and Omaha,
hemp is sown April 1 to 15, according to the earli-
ness of the season. Upon Staten Island, N. Y.,
hemp was sown for fiber March 24 and harvested
June 24, 1899. A second crop was sown ui)on the
same land July 1 and harvested October 10. The
first crop was eleven feet tall, the second nine feet.
Smyrna hemp, planted August I , was seven to eight
feet tall by November 1 and the seed ripening.
The tendency of late-sown hemp is to a shorter growth
and an earlier seeding. All these plantings were
irrigated. One crop of American hemp is all that
it is practicable to grow north of latitude 40°.
The surface of the field should be left as even
and free from lumps or obstructions, weeds, roots,
or anything which will interfere with the steady
running of the cutting machine within an inch or
two of the surface. Nothing can be done to the
crop or the soil after the seed is sown. No weeding
is ever recpiired. Hemp is as sure a destroj'er of
weeds as a heavy broadcast seeding of cow -peas.
F
CHAPTER X
IRRIGATING THE HEMP FIELD
It is highly probable that three -fourths of the
farm lands of the United States could successfully
grow hemp to a hight of ten to fifteen feet,
according to latitude and variety of hemp sown,
giving a yield of 1,200 to 2,000 ])ounds, and a
profit of $75 to $150 per acre, if there were a reg-
ular supply of moisture during the growing season.
With the uncertainty attending the rainfall, how-
ever, it is only safe to plant hemp upon soils
adapted to liolding moisture, or of such a character
and so located as to receive moisture from below by
what is termed sub -irrigation. Even upon these
lands the yield would generally be enough greater
by irrigation to meet the entire expense of con-
structing an irrigation system, especially where the
location is near a considerable stream of water.
In the hemp industry every idea of economy
points to the employment of a considerable acreage,
that all labor-saving appliances may be employed
and machinery perfectly adapted to the performance
of the work in an economical manner. If this be
the case there will be machinery of a character to
be directed to all dei)artments of the work, and as
the hemp hurds are of no other particular value
than to furnish mulch, or to improve the char-
acter of the soil mechanically, they may be burned
( 82 )
IRRIGATING THE HEMP FIELD
83
as fuel to run the iiiaeliiiiery. The hurds, or woody
matter of the hemp, eoiitaiiis but a tritiiiig amount
of plant-food, the greater part of which may be
returned to the soil in the ashes. These hemp
hurds will supply all the fuel for running the
machinery to handle 100 or 500 acres of hemi), and
to allow of the diverting of steam to run steam
pumps to supply all the water recpiired in irrigation
at a merely trilling expense.
The cost of an irrigation system for running the
Avater ni)on the land in water furrows will be, a
steam pump of sufficient capacity to raise 25,000
gallons of Avater an hour for ten hours a day, —
Avitliout reservoirs — during periods of drouth, and
for pii>e four inches in diameter as may be re(iuired
to convey the Avater to the higher parts of the
hemp field. The manner of applying Avater Avhere
the siijiply is abundant Avill be seen by reference
to Fig. 10, ill Avhich a a represents the main Avater
furrow along the highest parts of the field and
h h the lateral furrows running over the ground.
All these AV'ater furrows should be jiarallel and the
system always laid out at right angles to admit of
the running of the drill in seeding and the moAving
machine in cutting. The furroAA’^s should be about
thirty to forty feet apart. The main furrow con-
ducting the Avater to the other furroAA’s Avill require
to be deeper than the lateral furroAA's, Avhich need
not be deeper than the furroAA's left betAveen lands
at ploAving. The amount of 25,000 gallons an
hour is suflicient to Avater ten acres each ten hours.
To do this the AA’ater furroAvs covering one or more
acres are opened at the junction Avith the main
fiirroAV enough to let in the Avater in proper amount.
I
a
Pig. 10. IKKIGATINO Hemp by Water Fpuuows.
IRRIGATING THE IIEIMP FIELD
85
while the others are closed by a shovelful of earth
at the entrance. Where the soil is sufficiently
saturated these furrows are closed and the water
run to the next lot. In this manner one man can at-
tend to the irrigation of ten acres each ten hours, and
one hundred acres each ten days. The soil should
not be left flooded nor over -saturated for more
than a day or two, as would be the case were there
a rainfall amounting to one inch per day. These
water furrows should have openings and connections
to a lower ditch, to facilitate drainage at times
of excessive rainfall, while any basins or low places
where water would collect should have openings.
Another and most satisfactory method of watering
a field, large or small, level or hilly and uneven,
and where the water supply is not as cheai)ly
obtained, nor so abundant as to allow of its being
thus wasted, has been perfected b}' the writer.
This is to answer the objections of expense and the
difficulties attending the irrigating of fields of
uneven surface, and also the objection that a
thorough saturation of the soil has the effect to
dilute the soluble plant-food, wash a considerable
part of it away, and also to smother for a time or
drown the plants and retard their rapid growth while
the water supply is too large, and to allow of the
soil becoming run together, and afterwards the period
of drying out of the soil giving an irregular supply
of plant-foods. The objection is also made that
water should be ai)plied to the foliage as well as to
the roots, and that it should be done at night
instead of during the sunshine, especially at seasons
of high temperature.
This new system which the writer has had in
86
HEMP
experimental practice foi’ several seasons, consists
in erecting tanks, or constructing reservoirs to give
a considerable pressure, and then la 3 'ing pipes
upon or under the ground below depths of plow-
ing, which cany the water to the fields as desired.
Openings are provided at points about one hundred
feet apart each waj^ and standing pipes with spra}^-
nozzles applied, and the water turned into the pipes.
The effect of the i)ressure is to force the water
out upon the atmosphere and allow it to drift or
be carried b>’ the wind to a veiy considerable
distance, thus moistening the foliage of the plants.
As the work is done at night, and maj^ be
regulated in flow at will, there are none of the
objections to the sj'stem brought against the satu-
ration of the soil. In this sj^stem small pipes nuw
be laid to aiy* part of a field, without reference to
the unevenness of the surface.
These standing spraj's can be made to cany a
large or small supply' as desired. An inch pipe
under pressure will cany 50,000 gallons a day
from the reservoir and supi)!^^ ten spray pipes
upon ten acres with 2,500 gallons each for each
twelve hours, six P. m. to six a. m.
In the artificial raining which is produced ly
this method the atmosphere is rendered humid
during the night, the moisture is given in a form
to be al)Sorbed and held, none running off and
none percolating below the reach of the plant-roofs.
The expense and the amount of water supply are
readily witliin reach of every farmer, and the mois-
ture may be given to the higher lands, Avhere the
soil conditions are of the character most needing
the moisture in controllable quantities.
CIIAPTEH XI
nAitvEsnycr hemp for fiber
The young hemp plant slionld begin to come np
in four to six days after planting, according to
temperature and moisture. The growtli above
ground will be slow for five to ten days, more
especially in cool weather, bnt the roots of the
plant will be making progress downwards, its tap-
root searching deeply for a foundation and food
and moisture supply for a tall, vigorous plant. A
growth of thirt}^ to thirty -six inches, even under
favorable conditions, is all that may be expected
for the first thirty days. At that time the plant
will have become firmly rooted, a great number of
feeders will have become established in all direc-
tions, and, if the soil be fertile and mechanically
favorable, the plant will make a growth of two to
four inches per day, according to warmth, for the
next thirty da}'S for the Smyrna and American
varieties, np to a growth of thirteen to fifteen
feet in eighty to ninety da}s, when the plants will
then begin to blossom, and the Smyrna variety be
ready to harvest, the American variety, some two
feet taller, following in about ten days. The China
variet}' is sufficiently distinct and susceptible to the
influences of fertilizing elements that, with an
abundance of moisture and fertility in the soil, it
will be found growing about an inch a day faster
than the other kinds, and to have attained a hight
(87)
88
H E M P
of eighteen to twenty feet. The inconvenience of
handling the taller -growing crops often suggests
that the American variet 3 % not growing quite as
tall and maturing ten days earlier, may be prefer-
able where the conditions favor the growth of two
crops each season.
When in fall blossom the hemp is in best con-
dition for fiber. The oil is still in the bark, while
it has become sufficient!}" mature to stand the action
of the chemical changes by the putrefactive fermen-
tation in warm, soft water, and the harsh methods of
crushing and breaking the hemp stalks to separate
the wood from the fibrous material. If a soft fiber
is desired, such as is highl}' susceptible of a subdi-
vision into fine fihrillw for laces and lawn tissues,
the hemp may be harvested some ten daj's earlier,
or at the first general appearance of the indications
of bloom upon the male stalks. When dela^'cd
until the male stalk dies and seed begins to ripen,
the fiber becomes drier, grows harder, the stalks
begin to lose their natural form, and the fiber be-
comes "dead.”
The hemp is cut close to the ground b}* a self-
raking combined reaper and mowing machine, pref-
erably the old style heavy, substantially made
Champion, cutting four to four and one-half feet wide,
rear cut No. 4, and using but two of the four rakes
used in cutting grain. This machine does not bind
the hemp, but lays it off at the side in convenient
armful size. This work is rather severe, and the
more substantialh* made kinds of old-style machines
are best. With three heavy, quick-stepping mules
or farm horses, and a driver who understands his
work, an average of ten acres per da}’ may be cut.
HARVESTING HEMP FOR FIBER
89
A helper, or man ■with a hook four to six inches
long in the end of a fork stale, attends in the
field, and if several machines are at work several
helpers will be required, to pull out any particularly
large or "volunteer” stalks, which are too coarse to
be easily cut, and to assist the machines in eases
of accident* or difficulty from the tangling of the
cut stalks by high winds.*.
While at work each machine will require four
sharp sickles per day: one at commencing work
in the morning, another by ten o’clock, the next
at noon, and another change by three o’clock, which
will keep one man employed at the grindstone and
at replacing and repairing broken sections, etc.
After lying two to four days the armfuls of
hemp are turned bj^ thrusting a fork stale close
under them near the tops and throwing them endwise
over the butts, where they are spread if desired and
let to dry for two to four days longer, and then
tied with rope yarns from old sisal or Manila rope,
cut of the right length and ready looped at one
end, a supply of which the binder carries under
♦Volunteer hemp is th.at growing from seeds which have been scat-
tered in handling previous crops, and that has lain on the ground all
winter. From its lying on the ground it is ready and gerinin.ates quicker
upon the appearance of warm weather, its roots get more firmly fixed, and
it grows more rapidly, attaining a hight of two to four feet .above tbe
rest of the hemp, and may be double the diameter. From this suggestive
fact experiments have been made in planting hemp in December, but the
occurrence of warm spells sufficient to germin.ate the seed before severe
freezes are over renders it impr.actic.able north of a l.atitude of 35°. .Ml
wild hemp is volunteer hemp, and what genninates in cold latitudes before
winter is killed by freezing, but consider.able of the seed rem.ains upon tbe
stalks until freezing weather, while some falls in cool, protected, or dry
spots, or is saved by the natural mulch of st.alks, leaves and foliage, so
that the wild plant thrives to the extreme north. The experiments in fall
and winter planting of hemp have not been carried on to an extent to fully
determine its advantages or difficullies. In Florida hemp is best sown in
November or December, as .are winter grains.
90
HEMP
his suspender during the work. Others follow the
binders, bringing the sheaves together in shocks or
stacks, where they remain a few days longer to
sufficiently ”cure” not to mould in stacks or mow,
when the hemp is put under cover or stacked. If
stacked, it is in a circle around a pole and upon
poles or planks to keep the hemp from contact
with the ground, tops inwards and lapping a little
for elevation and convenience in thatching to shed
rain. A convenient shed is made b}’ setting posts,
fifteen to twenty feet long, firmly in the ground
and placing a roof upon them. This kind of shed
may have posts each ten feet in rows, and another
row twenty -five to thirty feet away, parallel and
continued to any length as the amount of stalk of
hemp require. When housed under these sheds it
is placed butts outwards. In this way or in stacks,
carefully covered, the hemp will remain uninjured
for a couple of years, if necessaiy.
After stacking or putting under cover, the hem])
should be let remain thus a few weeks at least, to
ripen, mellow and cure, the fibrous material to gather
” nature” and maturitj^ and above all ” quality,” be-
fore it is retted and handled to obtain the fiber.*
*This -word "quality,” and the other "nature,” are words coininon to
the industry, hut, like the word "skin” iii the Irish and Belgian Hax
manipulation, diffioult to describe or define. "Skin” is the glossy, lustrous
appeai’ance of a fiber containing great "nature” .and "quality,” and the
added characteristics of "life,” as opposed to a dead fiber of a hard,
"harsky,” woolly or towy ch.aracter. Silk has quality, life, skin, and
above all nature, it is .alive and highly susceptible to the spinner's art.
N.ature and qu.ality are to some extent synonymous : they are what give
ch.aracter to the material, as the difference between iron and steel, gold
and brass, the characteristics of fine qu.alities in fabrics, — in fact, in any-
thing, — but are best understood from a long experience in h.andling .and
manipuhating. In the fine art of an exact scientific culture of hem]) the
purpose is to develoj) this silky ch.aracter, and the work continues in all
stages of handling. It is not the plant so much as the skill in manipula-
tion which produces the high character.
CllAPTKR XII
RETTINCr AND DllKDARINCr THE JIEMR FIBER
Next in importance to a careful preparation of
the soil and the plantin'^ of the hemp seed, is the
work of reeovering the fiber and of preparing it in
a perfect condition to enter into the various products
of manufacture. The valuable part of the hemp
plant, grown for fiber, is in the bark or eovering of
the hemp stalk. This, in the fine art culture, has
become a tall, slender stalk, bearing no branches
until near the top, and covered with a ripe, mellow,
strong and flexible cortex of fibrous material, only
waiting the skilful cleansing from the gummy
matters surrounding and uniting them together to
present a quantity of soft, white silky fiber, almost
rivaling silk in luster and in fine spinning quality.
This cortex or bark of fibrous material is composed
of an outer covering of thin film, and then a fleshy
mass of chloropliyl and resinous gum holding a
great number of infinitesimal cellnlar tissues, the
surroundings of which are not soluble iii water,
even by hours of boiling, but soluble in the natural
destruction of a putrefactive fermentation in soft
water, by steeping from five to ten days, according
to the temperature, and also in alkaline and neutral
saponaceous solvents in from three to five days
when cold, and in twenty -four hours when hot,
and in two to three hours bv boiling.
m)
92
HEMP
Tlie effect of the fermentatiou is to generate an
acid which corrodes and burns the fineness of the
fibers to some extent, hence the great number of
efforts to furnish a solvent harmless in its effects
upon the fibers, and }'et of a character to dissolve
the gummy matters.
In the earlier part of this work the statement
has been made that the cost of spinning the hemp
fiber was much greater than that of spinning cot-
ton or wool, because of a want of suppleness or flexi-
bility resulting from the imperfect cleansing of the
fibers from the resinous gum with which they are
surrounded. When perfectly purified and prepared,
however, the fibers of the hemp plant are as soft,
fine and flexible as those of any other plant. This
imperfect cleansing of the fibers is the result of the
imperfect processes of retting and preparing them,
as chemistry has not, as yet, solved the problem of
furnishing a perfect dissolution of the gummy mat-
ters, which shall at the same time be rapid and
harmless to the fibers and economical in practice.
When this is accomplished there are many reasons
why the hemp industry will be the greatest one for
the production of fine serviceable fal)rics.
When the hemp stalks are crushed and broken
and the woody matters separated from the bark, the
bark holds some 20 to 25 per cent of foreign mat-
ters. Raw silk holds some 18 to 25 per cent, and
wool something more. The cleansing of all these
fibers have special processes which have been adapted
to them, but which are steadily being improved, but
all have many features in common. Wool is the
hardest to purify, requiring not only long boiling in
neutral soapy solutions, but a considerable amount
RETTING AND PREPARING THE HEMP FIBER 93
of scrubbing and "scouring” to perfectly cleanse
and prepare it for fine spinning.
The coating or crusting matters upon raw silk
resemble glue to such an extent that they are given
the name of "silk glue,” or sericin. To fnlly
remove this glue the skeins of silk are carefully
tied to prevent being tangled, placed in canvas
bags and tied to prevent the mingling of any
foreign matters, and })laced in wooden tanks of a
size to hold about 100 ])ounds of silk and still
allow of the free circulation of the liquors around
it. These tanks have false bottoms, perforated,
and under which are copper coils in which steam
is turned to boil the liquor. The boiling licpior
is composed of pure soft water, in which there
is no lime nor mineral matters in solution, and
in Avhich about 25 per cent of the weight of the
silk of fine neutral soap, free from resin or other
impurities, is dissolved. After the liquor is pre-
pared the hemp canvas bags of silk are placed in
them and made to remain under the solution, the
steam turned in and the silk boiled for two to
three hours, according to the character and variety
of the raw silk, and the purposes for which the
fiber is to be used, coarse or fine, hard or soft.
Often silk is made to take up an additional amount
of gummy sericiii to give weight to the product.
Another process is to first boil the silk for an
hour and then remove it to another tank of fresh
solution, to be perfectly cleansed. After boiling, the
silk is rinsed in warm, soft water to remove the
silk glue when completely softened. The first
boiling of silk in a fresh solution is not as good
as the second after a portion of the sericin be-
94
HEMP
comes saponified with the soap. If the boiling
off of silk and the scouring of wool has not been
sufficient to perfectly cleanse the fibers before
spinning, the yarns or fabrics are subjected to a
further purification by boiling previous to the final
” finishing” and "dressing.”
This indicates the line of practice for preparing
the fibers from hemp. Not the same glue or gum
exists in both animal and vegetable fibers, nor the
same acids, but the expert chemist wants no more
interesting task than to determine the exact rela-
tion and composition and the solvent required for
the peculiarly existing constituents of either, and
when he shall have given hemp the exact study
wdiich all the other fiber and textile industries have
received, there is no question of the final results.
Hemp is the best adapted by nature to res])ond to
the work of the chemist and textile inventor, and
the most susceptible of fine manipulation, and from
its simplicity in cultivation and wide adaptation to
soil and climate offers the most interesting base
upon which to build.
The processes of retting hemp have thus far
largely been the same primitive practices which
have come down from the middle or dark ages.
Not even the lost arts of hemp and linen ]u*acticed
by the ancient Egyptians have been recovered.
They produced a canvas and a linen of a character
not yet equaled by modem methods. The methods
of retting were naturally such as must be practiced
in all industrial matters wdiere confined to hand
labor, and the small acreage of an unintelligent
people without the knowledge or the means to
undertake experiments or the research for improved
RETTING AND PREPARING THE HEMP FIBER 95
processes, or for labor saving appliances and exact
chemical methods. These are, however, slowly giv-
ing way to better practices, a better intelligence, and
a more exact knowledge of the nature and recpiire-
ments of this king of liber -bearing plants.
As the process of cleansing wool is called scour-
ing, and that of silk boiling off, so that of hemp
is called retting, macerating, steei)ing, or watering.
The origin of ''retting,” or "rotting,” now most
commonly used, can only be referred to the old
l)i*actice of spreading the hemp ui)on the ground
to become rotten from the action of the dews and
rains and heat of the atmosphere, and to become
decayed and the gummy matters sufficiently destroyed
to admit the bark to be pulled off* from the stalk.
The term retting seems to have been applied origi-
nally to the dew retting practice, which has been
generally superseded by macerating or stee})ing in
stagnant or running water. The Italian term is
macerare or macerato, from macerate, to steep, while
the French is roiii and roitissage, from arrosage
and roscidiis, bedewed. Added to the word rouissage
in French, we have routoir and rutoir, a steeping
pool or retting tank. German stippen, to steej) or
macerate.
The general practice is to place the hemp stalks
in sheaves in a wooden crate of such size as can be
handled with means at command, and slide them
down tramways into the river, and then anchor the
crates and pile stone upon them to sink them to a
level with the surface of the water. Another prac-
tice is to pile the hemp stalks upon the bottom
of artificially constructed retting pits (see Figs. 4
and 5), and either weighting with stones or by cross-
9G
HEMP
bars lield under firmly fixed uprights. When it is
found that the bark will readily slip from the woody
stalk, ill from eight to twelve days, the hemp is
taken out and dried by spreading upon the ground,
or separating the sheaves at the butts and standing
them up. Another practice is to place the hemp in
the water for four to six days, and then remove and
dry it, and again return it to the retting pit. This
gives a more even result, with less injury to the fiber.
In this manner the finest Italian hemps are pro-
duced. In France it is the practice to partly rot the
hemp in the water, and after drying the stalks and
breaking them to remove the hurds, boil olf
the fiber, as is done with silk. After retting in
water, as described above, and drying the henii)
stalks, they are run through a break consisting of
several sets of fluted rollers, and the fiber freed from
the hurds by shaking (see Fig. 11).
Added to these older methods are many modifi-
cations, both chemical and mechanical, and mixed,
while the encyclopedias are burdened with accounts
of patented processes for quickly doing the work,
and many of the manufacturers have their own
secret methods of improving or boiling off the
fiber before spinning. Although the work is by no
means complete, much light has been thrown upon
the subject of fibers, their nature, composition and
requirements of culture and preparation, as well
as the adaptation and improvement of manufacturing
machinery and appliances. It may also interest the
reader to learn that the U. S. Department of Agri-
culture has undertaken a com])lete investigation of
the subject of the hemp-fibers, from which we may
hope definite results may soon be derived.
Fig. 11. Hemp Breaking Machine. Showing style of gearing, a. Feed table.
Q
98
HEMP
There are three methods of retting hemp practi-
cable where hemp is grown upon a large scale in
the United States. If not grown upon a scale of
at least three to five hundred acres by one planter,
there should be arrangements for uniting several
smaller growers, or that the hemp grown upon a
smaller scale should be disposed of to the middle
man prepared to ret the hemp and prepare the fiber
and properly classify it. There is little economy
in the small acreage system, as with cotton raising
or beet sugar growing, where the working up is
done by others. If there is sufficient profit in rais-
ing hemp with a yield of three to five tons of hemp
straw or stalks per acre, and disposing of them to
the middle man or manufacturer of fibers at $5 to
$6 per ton, then it may be so done; but it is a
division of profits against the farmer, as he loses
all fertilizing matters where the hemp stalks are
carted from the farm.
The first method is the ordinary water retting.
For this method a system of square wooden tanks,
as shown in Fig. 12, is constructed of a size and of
a number to correspond to the scale upon which
the work is to be carried on. To ret the hemp in
the rivers is out of the question, from a point
of sanitary consideration and also from that of
economy. To handle 500 acres of hemp, growing
fifteen feet high, requires preparations to handle
2,500 tons of hemp stalks. If the work of retting
goes on continuous!}' from March to November out-
of-doors, it will require the handling of at least ten
tons of stalks per day. If the work is done by the
same gangs of laborers as the plowing and plant-
ing and harvesting, and there is an interruption
RETTING AND PREPARING THE HEMP FIBER 99
of a iiioiitli ill Marcli and another in July, the
capacity should be sufficient to handle fifteen or
twenty tons per day, — that is, of emptying tanks
holding twenty tons and putting the stalks out to
dry and refilling the tanks, and also taking in
twenty tons of dried retted stalks and putting them
under cover to be broken at a later day. The
breaking can be done from December to March.
Upon a hemp ranch of 1,000 to 5,000 acres, in a
latitude of 35°, the work of preparing the soil, sow-
ing and harvesting the hemp, retting and breaking
and shipping may go on continuously, several gangs
of laliorers being employed, each under its depart-
ment superintendent, for the purpose.
Fifi. 12. SiNOLE Tank for Retting Hemp.
100
HEMP
To handle twenty tons of hemp stalks per day
will require eight retting tanks 8 x 15 feet and five to
six feet deep. These should be situated upon the
more elevated portions of the ranch at one point,
or in two places some distance apart, or the tanks
may l)e so constructed upon timbers as to be moved
from place to i)lace once a year as the ground
around the tanks becomes fertilized by water and
refuse from handling the heini). The steep-water
and the foliage and waste from the hemp are high
in fertilizing elements.
To construct a system of four tanks that will
be firm and substantial and j'et adapted to removal
once a year as desired, four timbers 8x8 inches
and thirty -six feet long are placed level upon the
ground, five feet apart and parallel to each other.
Upon these timbers heavy planks one or two feet
wide, two and one -half inches thick, and fifteen
feet long are jointed, pressed closely together and
firmly spiked down. At the front edge planks are
set up edgewise and spiked to the first one, and
uprights six feet long of 2 x G pieces are spiked
to the sides of the timbers below and against which
the sides of the tanks are spiked. After a floor-
ing eight feet wide is laid, other planks are
set up and spiked to the last plank laid down.
The work, is thus continued until four tanks eight
feet wide are provided for. The divisions of the
tanks are held in place by other uprights and the
ends fitted in, or upon the outside, uprights being
set in the corners of the tanks to spike to. This
gives four substantial tanks holding three tons of
hemp stalks each, when closely packed, the first having
the larger butts all one way, and the next larger the
RETTING AND RREPARING THE HEMP FIBER 101
other. Wlieii so filled the stalks are held down
firmly liy cross-pieces and the tanks are filled with
water. Tanks of smaller size, and only one or
two in a system, can bo used if ])roferred, and
may be located in separate ])laees, as desired, to
receive and dispose of a Avater sni)ply, and for
convenience in standiiif^ out the hemp sheaves, or
spreadin<j them to dry. In six to ten da}^s, ac-
cording to temiieratnre, the l)ark of the hemp stalks
will be found to readily slip off when the stalks
are broken in the hamls, and the hemp should
then be taken from the tanks or vats and dried
and put under cover to be broken, shaken from
the Avoodv matter and baled. The onlv limit to
number of tanks and size is the supply of Avater.
The above method Avill iiroduee a prime cordage
hemp for use Avhere a strong, scrviceal)lc fiber is
desired. Another process is to take the hem]) stalks
from the retting vats in fi\"e days and dry them by
standing out or spreading, and again returning them
to the vats for fie^e to eight days longer. This
produces a fiber corres])onding to the best Italian
hemps noAV found in market, and is ada])ted for
fine cordage, coarse threads, carpet Avarps, canvas
and similar products.
Another method is to ])lace false end pieces
across the tanks some two inches from each end of
the retting tanks and reaching doAvn to Avithin tAVo
to four inches of the bottom. A half-inch stream
of Avater is let IIoav into the tank upon the toj).
This carries all impurities doAvnwards and out
under the ends of the false ends and up and out
OA'or the real end, made an inch the lowest,
and thus maintains a circulation of Avater Avhich
102
HEMP
produces a fiber of iniicli lij^liter color, especially if
the water used is slightly "hard” and impregnated
with lime.
After the hemp is retted in water in the tanks
for five days it may be taken out, dried and broken,
and will furnish an exceedingly strong fiber for
many uses. After watei' retting and drying the
stalks, they are iiiit under cover to further ripen
and mellow. In all the work there .should lie some
six Aveeks between the time of harvesting the hemp
before it is retted, and the same length of time
between the retting and the breaking, so that there
will of necessity have to be a storage room for at
least a supply for the work of six Aveeks.
In retting, the tanks are emptied one or more
each da}% the contents put out to dry and again
filled, so the Avork goes on steadily. Rain and
snoAV and frosts do not injure the hemp after it is
retted; in fact, the Avashing from a rain is an advan-
tage, Avhile a sharp frost serves to disintegrate the
fibers.
Another process is to first break the hemp stalks
by passing them through a breaking machine con-
sisting of ten to tAA'enty sets of lieaA'y fluted rollers
rim by bevel or miter gears and held together by
springs upon the top. (See Fig. 11.) When so
passed through these heavy crushing rollers the
"shives,” "boon,” "hnrds,” or Avoody matter, is
thoroughly broken nj) and shaken out. As it
requires fiA^e to six tons of hemp stalks to yield a.
ton of fiber, it can readily lie seen that first break-
ing the hemp and disposing of four-fifths of the
Aveight and bulk leaA'es a much less amount to be
handled and very much saves labor in the Avork;
RETTING AND PREPARING TIIE^HEMP FIBER 103
besides, a tank lioldin^ five tons of stalks would
hold all the fiber from tweuty-five tons of stalks.
If the hemp is first lu-oken the retting tanks may
be of much less size, while it is much easier to
handle the fiber alone than the stalks, and in ret-
ting the water attacks the liber eveidy on all sides
alike, whereas with the stalks the water only comes
in contact with the ontsidc; of the lil)ci’. In drying
the lil)er after it is so i-ctted twenty -five tons may
be hanged upon an acre of ground if placed’ upon
bars, upon horses, or other frames, for supi)ort.
After drying in some four daj'S, the fiber is jiut
under cover to be again run through the breaking
machine, and is in mnch finer condition for market.
In all this work, if the retting tanks are filled with
one pound of potash lye to (*ach one hnndi'ed ])ounds
of hemp stalks or fiber, the retting will be done in
four daj's instead of eight. When this is done
with the fiber alone, the filler is afterwards put
into a solution of muriatic acid, one iiound to one
hundred gallons of Avater, and again rinsed in Avater.
To facilitate the Avork of. handling the fiber, it
may be put into long AA’Ooden or galvanized iron
crates or baskets, holding two hundred pounds each,
and placed in the tanks, and Avhen retted hoisted
out l)y a traveling imlle}- overhead and immersed
in other tanks. In packing these baskets or crates
a cross-i)iece is placed at the bottom of eaidi, Avith
upright fingers two and a half to three inches apart,
betAveen Avhich the handfuls of filler are placed, and
cross-pieces laid on and again handfuls of fiber,
that they maj' be more readily sepai’ated in re-
moving them.
Instead of potash, some tAvo to four pounds of
104
HEMP
neutral soap, free from resin, may be used and
tlie hemp fiber retted without the use of the acid
bath, the fiber being rinsed in soft water. Also
the retting will be done in two to three days if the
weather is warm, and there will be but little of the
bad odor attending ordinary water retting. If this
solution of soap and water is made hot, the retting
will be done in twelve hours. If perforated steam
l)ipes are inserted at the bottom of the tanks or
vats and live steam turned in for boiling, the ret-
ting will be complete in one to three hours, accord-
ing to strength of solution used and the degree of
fineness desired. If the hemp which has previousl}"
been water retted and broken is boiled for half an
hour in such a saponaceous solution a uearlj* ])er-
fect fiber results. After boiling and rinsing and
drying, and the hemp has lain four to six weeks
to mellow, ripen and gain nature and quality,
it is run through the breaking machine, softened
and baled, as is done with cotton.
(’IIAI’TEK XllI
MACni^KRY FOR II AND LINO HEMP
Before the lieiiii) stalks are retted they may
be run through a liemp- breaking niacliine (see
Fig. 11), consisting of ten to twenty or more
sets of cast-iron rollers tinted lengthwise, soine
six inches in diameter, and having fifteen or seven-
teen flutes to eaeli roller for the first three sets,
twenty -one or twenty -three for the next five sets,
and twenty-seven to thirty-one for the rest. If
but ten sets of rollers are used, it will be neces-
sary to pass the hemp stalks in small handfuls
twice through the machine ; with twenty sets twice
the amount can be broken. This machine, which
can be built upon an oak frame of four- l)y eight-
inch stuff, and the rollers, cast by any iron founder,
can be set up by ordinary mechanics and run
by common laborers under the direction of a su-
perintendent. The expense is $175 to $d00, ac-
cording to how close the builder attends to the
Avork.
In a ranch of five hundred acres the use of
two of these breaking machines would be required,
and the capacity of uiindted straw five tons a
day each and of retted straw seven tons, recpiir-
ing ten horse ]iower and the service of foui' men to
each machine. The hurds fi’om the hetnp furnish
( 105 )
106
n E M p
all tlie fuel, and are moved bj^ endless carrier to
siKjli points as desired, and are fed under the
boiler with a large door by a large hand scoop
made of seven or eight tines two and one -half feet
long. The ashes from this fuel furnish some 10
to 12 per cent of potash and 3 to 5 per cent
of phosphoric acid, and will furnish all the pot-
ash for making soap and for softening the water
and retting the hemp, besides a large amount of
fertilizing element directly to the soil. Used to
soften water and to ret hemp, the fertilizers should
afterwards go to the soil. The cost of the engine
and boiler will depend largely upon ideas of the
purchaser. A second-hand forty horse -power engine
and boiler in first-class order was put up complete
for $375. But, as with a cotton ginning outfit, the
style and surroundings materially differ with dif-
ferent men.
Beyond this breaking machinery there is but
little rerpiired in the farmer’s manii)ulation of hemp.
After the hemp is retted in the special way to suit
special demands of x, xx and xxx hemp, it is
often found that if the ends of the hemp fiber
are combed or straightened out and smoothed
down, or partly dressed by the action of revolv-
ing teeth, the manufacturer is willing to pay one
to two and sometimes five cents a pound more for
it, according to the skill in ” handling” the fiber.
To meet this demand, a revolving cylinder, some
five feet in diameter and four feet wide, is made
l)y fastening bars of wood across two iron wheels
and passing a shaft through it, as seen in Fig. 13.
In the cross bars are spikes protruding some two
inches and preferably sloping backwards, that their
MACHINERY FOR HANDLING HEMP
107
action may be gentle ni)on the liamlfnls of fiber
held 111) to them or thrown upon them, as shown
in the illustration.
This combing- or scutching- machine docs all
the working which the hemp fil)er requires after
l)cing softened in the breaking maidiine. Nor
Pig. 13. Hemp Scutch ok Combing Machine.
a . Handful of Hemp.
should the work be made severe upon the heni]),
as a good deal of tangled fiber or tow would thus
be made, which is of less value than the straight
fibers or line.
As with other products and practices upon the
farm, there is an abundant reward for fine work,
while but a poor recompense attends the careless
lOS
H E M P
and uiipaiiistaking. In proportion as the farmer
studies the nature and wants of his soil, his crops
and his animals, and becomes skilful in the manipu-
lation, is there the permanent probability of profit,
which is the aim of all pursuits.
[/ENVOY
As tliis little work is leaving the i>ress we have
the deliuite aiinouiieenieiit from the Division of
Botany of the United States Department of Agricul-
ture, that it has "determined to import experimental
quantities of superior varieties of hemp seed from
China, Japan and the Mediterranean region for
experiments with their cultivation in the United
States. It is planned to carry on these exi)eri-
nients at various points from Washington south-
ward through the Atlantic states to Florida." We
thus have the assurance that the unsettled questions
pertaining to the best methods of cultivation and
the most jirofitable management of hemp will be
determined, and definite conclusions presented to
the American people, as the intelligent basis for the
employment of labor and capital in successfully
developing in America the last of the great leading
industries with which the old world has so long
been conversant, but which has not yet obtained
prosperous foothold in the United States. There is
no question that when the inventive genius, compre-
hension and energies of the American people become
interested, another grand source of ))rofitable emploj'-
ment and prosperity will be established.
( 1011 )
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INDEX
Amount of dry matter produced per
acre, 0(5.
Amount of hemp Brown in the United
States in 1800, 20.
Analysis of cotton, flax and hemp
seed, 17.
Analysis of steep water, 18
Atlantic coast adapted to hemp cul-
ture, 0.1.
IJoard of Trustees for hemp and linen
industries of Ireland, 15.
bounties for early hemp cultm-e in
VirBinia, 35.
Bounties paid by Great Britain for
exports of linen to America, 10, 17.
BoiliiiB off of fibers, 33, 91.
Botany of hemp plant, 10.
California, hemp srown in, 02.
Chemical comparison of plant con-
stituents, 10.
Chemistry of hemp plant, 10.
Chinese hemp. (See frontispiece.)
CombiiiB or scutchiiiB hemp, 100, 107.
Commercial fertilizers not economi-
cal, 01.
Commercial hemps, 1.
Comparison of hemp and cotton man-
ufactures, 11-18.
Construction of rettins tanks, 100.
Cooperation of chemists and manu-
facturers necessary, 51.
Cost of chemical fertilizers, 17.
Cultivation of hemp for fiber, 71.
Cow peas a desirable fertilizer, 04.
Cultivating for seed and fiber not the
same, 70.
Culture of hemp in Europe, 21.
Culture of cotton and hemp differ, 59.
Decorticating machinery for hemn
and ramie, 13.
I lifferont fertilizers reyuired for seed
and for fiber, 19.
Early culture of hemp in .\merica, 35.
Early culture by the Dutch, 30.
Early culture in France, 22.
Edict of Nantes, 22.
Edmund Quincy on early hemp cul-
ture, .30.
Effects of temperature, 59.
Experiments in culture of hemp, 12.
Fertilizing elements retiuired, 10.
Flax and hemp fibers not essentially
different in character, 55.
French methods of rotting hemp, 30.
French rules for hemp culture, 22.
First use of modern appliances in
hemp culture, 11.
Georgia, hemp grown in, 02.
Groat Britain opposing new indus-
tries in America, 11-17.
Great Britain paid bounties for ex-
ports of hemp from America, 10.
Great Britain prohibited hempmanu-
fa(!turo in American colonics, 38.
Growing hemp for seed, 07.
Growing for fiber, 05.
Harvesting hemi> for seed, 72.
Harvesting for fiber, 87.
Harvesting hemp in France, 28.
Hashish, 1.
Hemp and flax fibers more "reliel-
lious” than cotton, 48-50.
Hempen cloth found in moxrnds of
cave dwellers, 2.
(Ill)
112
INDEX
Hemp stalks grown £orfiber(ilhistra-
tratioii), C.
liemi) the last of the great industries
awaiting recognition, 52.
Hemp versus flax, 52.
History of the hemp plant, 1.
Hungarian varieties, C.
Improved pi’ocesses of retting desir-
able, 25.
Insects which attack hemp, 28.
Invention of machine spinning, 22.
Irrigating by water furrows, 84.
Intoxicating effects of hemp, 4.
Italian small hemi>, 5.
Kentucky, hemp grown in, 29.
Largo acreage needed; cultivation
best, 82.
Manila hemp, 4.
JIachiucry for handling hemp, 105.
Manures best adapted to hemp cul-
ture, 77.
Mississippi, hemp grown in, 40, 02.
Missouri, hemp grown in, 40.
Aloisture needed, 00.
Nebraska, hemp grown in, 02.
Necessity for a careful selection of
seed, 07.
Neither flax nor hemp practically
grown for both hemp and fiber, 50.
New Orleans Experiment Station
grows hemp, 42.
New system of irrigation, 85.
New York, hemp growing in, 40.
New Zealand flax, 4.
( )ld-time hemp break, 41.
Origin of the woi'd hemp, 2.
Origin of the hemp plant, 1.
Orobanche, or broom rape, 28.
Processes for retting, 91-104.
I’roduct of hemp and flax in Great
Britain, 45.
I’reparation of the soil for hemp,
25, 79.
Production of hemp in France, 22.
Ramie, 5.
Reap hooks, 73.
Relics of colonial hemp culture, 30.
Rotting hemp, 30-28, 91.
Retting poles, 21-22.
Selection of seed in France, 26.
Short season to grow, 01.
Sisal, 4.
Small area of French farms, 21.
Soil and climate adapted to hemp, 58.
South Carolina, hemp grown in, 02.
Stacking hemp, 90.
Staten Island, hemp grown upon, 63,
Steep-water as a fertilizer, 18.
Tanks for retting hemp, 99.
Time of planting, 20, 80.
Value of seed as a fertilizer, 17.
Varieties in cultivation, 43, 68.
Varieties of hemp, 1.
Want of definite knowledge of hemp
manure, 19.
Want of support for new industries
in America, 47.
Weeding hemp not necessary, 27.
When hemp land becomes exhausted,
28.
When to harvest hemp, 72, 88.
Why the hemp industry lanquished
in America, 44.
Yield of hemp fiber, 37, 79.
Yield of hemp seed, 73.
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