564 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE 
harvested two on three times, later four or five times, or as often as the 
plants are 1 or 2 feet high and remain tender. 
‘The nettle may be mixed with the cattle fodder or infused and served 
warm the next day, in which shape cattle are generally fond of it. This 
infusion has a brown color, and, for animals, a pleasant odor. Cows 
and goats yield more milk, the ‘milk more and better colored butter 
even in winter; ; Swine fatten quicker and better when fed with this 
fodder. A handful of nettle seeds mixed daily with their oats makes 
horses plump and gives them glossy coats. The harvested nettle should 
be treated like flax. Kriirichz says: 
When nettles are gathered they should be spread out on the meadows a couple of 
days to dry, that the leaves may be easily stripped from their stems, then bound in 
bunches; like hemp, they should, according to the weather, be left from six to seven 
days in a clear pond or rain water to rust. After this so- -called rusting they must be 
well dried and stored in a dry place for hackling. Being liable to heat after twenty- 
four hours, the nettle must be very carefully dried. The future treatment is the same 
as for hemp. ” 
Frau von Roeszler Ladé has pursued a little different course, and left 
the nettle stem about fourteen days to dry, then rusted and hackled like 
hemp, and has found this treatment satisfactory. It may, however, be 
better to let the nettle stems lie in flowing water some days, since the 
straw-like parts are then more easily separated from the fiber. 
In hackling the utmost care must be taken, for the nettle fibers are 
exceedingly tender, and must not be beaten too much. 
The treatment is generally like that of hemp, and it is singular that 
in rusting both the nettle and the flax have the same appearance and 
odor. 
While hemp is first boiled as yarn, I have boileg the nettle before 
hackling, and found that the fibers were cleaner and more tender, and 
consequently more easy to spin. 
According to Gothe, nettle fibers are prepared as follows in England: 
The fibers are first laid in a lye of hot water, with soap and some oil, 
when, after they are passed through a wringing-machine, they are boiled 
seven or eight hours in clean water. The washing process may be fre- 
quently repeated, the result being a complete cleansing of the fiber, a 
delicate separation of the same, the removal of all knots and vegetable 
gums, and consequently an increased softness of the fiber. 
The hackling was done with a common hand-hackle, and on the 
invention of a hackling-machine suitable for nettles the results are cer- 
tain to be more satisfactory. Whether it is better to raise nettles than 
hemp is a question at present difficult to answer. Hemp requires more 
care both in planting and harvesting than the nettle: Hemp needs a 
very good soil; while nettles flourish where no other plants will grow. 
Heavy storms are very injurious to a hemp field, while nettles have 
nothing to fear from hail, storm, or rain. 
Nettles thrive in the poorest soil and under all circumstances, while. 
the hemp crop is by no means a good one every year. 
Once planted nettles stand from ten to fifteen years, and, beyond har- 
vesting, require little or no care, while hemp must be resown each year, 
The yarn of the nettle is at least just as good as that of hemp, and I 
think now capable of improvement. Nettle yarn which I have spun is 
stronger, softer, and more glossy than that of hemp, although prepared 
with a common hackle, and I am convinced that after some generations 
of culture, and with proper mechanical treatment, the nettle will yield 
a much finer and more beautiful fiber than hemp. 
As far as the yield is concerned, I have gained 3 pounds of yarn from 
one rod planted in nettles, and from the 3 pounds of yarn 4 ells of cloth; 
