43 S On the Culture and Preparation ofHemp 



rotten dung has been spread, say about a ton to the load : 

 this is well ploughtd in, and the ground well ploughed two 

 or three times, and well dragged and harrowed, to get the 

 soil as fine as possible, and about two or two and a half 

 bushels of seed sown to the acre ; what produces no seed, 

 called by some male or summer iiemp, and by others cinner 

 hemp, is drawn about five or six weeks after the plant comes 

 up, it is at that time in blossnm ; when drawn, it is tied up 

 in bundles, and carried to some meadow land, and there 

 spread to ripen : when ripe and dry, it is bimdled and 

 stacked. What stands for seed has no flower that can be 

 discovered ; it is the female hemp, and is generally ripe 

 early in September, when it is drawn, bundled up, and 

 stowed up in the field for the seed to dry and harden, when 

 it is thrashed out in the fields. Most commonly in Dorset 

 the seed is sold on the spot, at from 25. 6J. to 7j. per 

 bushel J an acre of hemp produces eighteen or twenty bu- 

 shels. In Somerset they have sometimes thirty bushels of 

 seed to the acre. In the sowing season I have known 21s. 

 per bushel paid for seed ; when thrashed the hemp is carried 

 to the meadows, and spread to ripen as the other, and 

 stacked in the same way, to prepare it for sale; it is sent to 

 the houses of the poor in the parishes round which it is 

 jraised, to be what is called scaled, that is, each separate 

 stalk of hemp is broken in the hand, and the hemp, which is 

 the outside rind or baik, is stripped off, in which state it is 

 sent to market. The scaling is the employment of old men, 

 women and children, and of the whole of the labouring 

 family in the evening, as in winter they make but poor 

 wages of it, and one principal inducement for them to do 

 it is, that the woody parts of the hemp make them a fire, 

 but it soon burns out. Complaints are made of a great deal 

 of the hemp being often wasted from improper management, 

 and want of care in the scaling of it ; at the Comptons and 

 Bradford, a good deal more hemp would be raised if they 

 could gel it scaled, which they find much difficulty in do- 

 ing ; and if it were possible to construct a mill that would 

 swingle it at a moderate expense, on some such plan as the 

 flax swingling mills, and to afford some encouragement to 

 the erecting them, as well as flax swingling mills, it would 

 encourage the growth of both articles niaterially ; an acre 

 of hemp in a good season will produce 14, 16 or is weights, 

 of32lbs. to the weight in Dorsetshire; in Somersetshire 

 they reckon their weight two pounds less, and they some- 

 times get as much as 35 weights to the acre; the price of 



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