22 PIOECIA. 



greeks took their name from the eastern Kanop, or 

 Cannab, and that the plant originally came into Eu- 

 rope from those countries. It grows in England, in 

 general, to about a man's height, though it has been 

 sometimes known to grow as high as fourteen feet. b 

 It is fit for pulling towards the latter end of July, thir- 

 teen or fourteen weeks after the seed has been sown. 

 When pulled it is immersed in water and broken, 

 combed, and dressed, nearly in the same manner as flax. 

 It is of the greatest importance in the Navy for sails, 

 and all kinds of cordage are made of it, and some kinds 

 of coarse cloth for domestic purposes. Bombasin is 



b By a paper read in the Royal Society, 178 2, it appears, 

 that in China, Hemp grows more luxuriantly than with us, or 

 (hit the kind cultivated there is different from ours. A few 

 i of Chinese Hemp seed were sown in England on the 4th 

 of April 1762, which produced luxuriant plants several of them 

 growing to more than fourteen feet in height and nearly seven 

 inches in circumference by the middle of October following, 

 at which time they came into bloom. There were from 30 to 

 '10 lateral branches on each plant, which were set off in pairs, 

 one on each side of the stem pointing horizontally ; the others 

 •at about five or six inches distance from them, pointing in dif- 

 ferent directions, and so on to the top ; the bottom branches 

 of some measuring more than five fett, the others gradually 

 diminishing in length towards the top, so as to form a beautiful 

 cone when in flower, but which was unfortunately nipped by 

 a few nights frc.=t towards the end of the month ; and the plants 

 began to droop at the beginning Of November, when they were 

 pulled up by the roots. 



These plants grew nearly eleven inches per week.— Philoso- 

 phic::! Transactions, vol.lxxii. p. 16. 



